“So instead you decided to kill him too?”
Mallory recoils. “You think I killed Grayson? You actually think that?”
(Because Mallory does too. A little.)
“Why shouldn’t I?” Ilena shoves a long strand of hair behind her ear. “The rest of it happened, didn’t it?”
Mallory grips the chocolate and blinks through an uncharacteristic stinging in her eyes.
Ilena stares at her, the two of them suspended in a silence that holds their history of more than twenty years, filled with broken hearts and broken toes, Tequila Tuesdays and Hangover Wednesdays, wedding vows and watering each other’s plants (Mallory forgetting to), and absent fathers and birthday after birthday, so many things, big and small, but nothing like this.
Ilena’s tone still carries an edge as she says, “You push boundaries, Mallory, you always have. But this? Can I believe you killed Grayson on purpose?” A sigh inflates her chest, which is now approaching Mallory’s cup size thanks to the fetus inside of her. “Of course not. And yet none of us meant to do the things we’ve done here. But they’ve happened all the same.” Ilena’s eyes settle on Mallory’s arm and the red fingerprints now covered by a long-sleeved orange blouse that completely washes her out but was the least offensive thing she could find. “We need to figure out how to deal with it. And I say that as someone who’s spent the morning peeing herself every time she breathes too deeply.” Ilena reaches for the chocolate in Mallory’s hand. “Chocolate’s toxic to dogs. Onions too. If you’re going to watch him, you should probably do some due diligence.”
Mallory swallows hard. “Right, thanks.”
“Yes, well, at least we’re here together.”
“Wasn’t sure you’d think that was a good thing.”
“Twenty-one years, Mallory. We don’t abandon one another, no matter what.”
Except Ilena had threatened to do just that.
Ilena had presented her ultimatum as a choice, but it wasn’t a choice at all. The direct listing or her. Mallory could call her on it, but then they’d start fighting and the only fight left in Mallory is for getting the fuck out of here. And back to their world, where Grayson isn’t dead. But where she has reason to want him to be.
Mallory juts her chin at Ilena. “You’ve always been a self-righteous snob.”
“Same as you’ve always been a self-centered egomaniac.”
They stare at each other until Mallory gives her signature grin, and Ilena rolls her eyes. She lowers herself into one of the coral brushed-velvet chairs across from the sofa with her usual grace. Ilena’s rich dark hair is the longest it’s been in years. Seeing Ilena’s skin smooth and dewy, her eyes weighed down with worry but still with a brightness that’s long been missing, Mallory thinks the cliché of glowing when pregnant maybe isn’t a cliché after all.
Mallory softens. “Ilena... a baby. After everything.”
Ilena’s hand reflexively cradles her stomach, and she gives a half smile before her face returns to its neutral state. “It’s not right, Felix and all this. I’m not sure, but I think I—or she... this Ilena... well, something’s off. There was a note on my desk, and James clearly despises me. I understand why you think we shouldn’t call the police, but pretending to be people we aren’t isn’t going to work. Do you honestly think Aubrey can do it?”
Mallory wraps her arms around her torso. She thinks of those goddamn impossible nut crackers, and she isn’t sureshecan do it, let alone Aubrey. “We have to at least try. Besides, it’s only temporary.”
Ilena’s eyebrow arches. “Grayson’stemporary?”
“Temporarily what?” a chipper voice says. “Oh, sorry. I shouldhave knocked.” A sturdy-looking woman in her late fifties with poofy white hair and rosy cheeks ambles through the office door she opened without asking.
Mallory curbs the flaring of her nostrils and offers a generous smile to this woman who belongs in a yarn store, not at AIM. “Good morning.”
“More like afternoon!” The Mrs. Claus lookalike taps an analog watch on her wrist. “Mr. Fields may not always be on time, but he’s never a no-show. He lets me know if he’s going to be late. Did you say he’s temporarily delayed, Ms. Latham?”
This woman knows her, which means Mallory must know her too. “You haven’t heard from him?”
“Not since last night. He let me in on your little secret.” Mallory’s face momentarily falters, and the woman hurries to add, “Oh, I swore not to tell a soul until the news was out this morning. But my gosh, how I wanted to call my sister. I dare her to go on about how I can do better than being the secretary to the man about to become the most well-known VC in the country now!”
So Mrs. Claus is Grayson’s secretary, the complete opposite of Patrick, the crisply dressed and expertly groomed twenty-five-year-old Stanford graduate he poached from Snapchat’s CIO in their world.
“I never doubted you for a moment,” Mallory says.
“Thank you, Ms. Latham. Heidi Hoffman doesn’t let you down.” When neither Mallory nor Ilena responds, she continues, “And there I go talking about myself in the third person again.” The woman—Heidi Hoffman, it seems—places a hand to her heart. “Mea culpa. Mr. Fields hates that.”
“Well,” Mallory says, “fortunately he’s not here. At the moment, I mean.”
The woman’s brow furrows. “I have to admit, I’m starting to worry. He said a prep session had to begin first thing.”
