I shuddered, imagining her lost in the storm, panicking as she tried to retrace her steps.
All of a sudden, my rib cage locked in on itself, my bones digging into my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Hyperventilating, I took off my seatbelt, rolled down the window.
“Woah, what are you doing?” Daisy said.
I’m going to be sick.Pushing myself up, I leaned out the window, gasping at the cold air.This is my fault. It’s my fault she’s dead.The thoughts pulsed again and again through my mind as my airway constricted.Drugging someone is a felony. I could be charged with manslaughter, maybe even murder.
The car was too hot. I couldn’t draw in enough air.
“Sit back down, Maya,” Cecily said from the front seat.
“Can someone get her back inside?” Kai yelled. The car jerked back and forth as she looked in the rearview mirror.
Her erratic driving was too much. I vomited out the window.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Cecily turned around.
Wiping my mouth, I slouched back into the seat. Daisy handed me her bottle of water, which I gulped down eagerly. The cool liquid settled my stomach, but the bile still lingered on my tongue.
“Shit,” Kai said, out of nowhere. “Did one of you pack the video camera?”
A long silence. Everyone shook their head.
Kai’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror and the fear in them sent a chill straight to my bones.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Naomi
March 2023, two months before her death
“We have no idea whathappened to her,” Daisy says, tears rimming her eyes.
“So let me get this straight, you guys had planned on drugging DuPont, but Lila got it instead?”
Daisy sighs. “I really don’t know why she went out alone.”
“Do you think it was less accidental than it seemed? Do you think it was DuPont?”
She shrugs. “All I know is he wanted to silence her, and this would be a way to do it.” She hesitates, looking off to the side again. “None of us saw anything solid to pin on him, though. Maya thinks it was her fault, since she’d dispensed the drugs. There was some sort of mix-up with who was supposed to serve the drinks. But…I never blamed her.”
The waiter comes to our table with the check, and Daisy stops talking abruptly.
I reach for the bill. “I’ll get it.”
But she waves me off. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
—
After having lunchwith Daisy, I’m left unsettled. While she was talking, I had this incomplete feeling, like I was missing some crucial part of the story.
Daisy cares about my sister, I know she does, but I have a feeling she wasn’t telling me everything. Maybe she was trying to protect me, or protect my sister.
But Kai, who could be brutally honest, would tell me the truth.
It’s now late afternoon, and the sun cuts skillfully between the sleek gray lines of the city. I’m watching the front doors of the high-rise where Kai’s firm is located: Stern, Cooper, & Sterling (yes, that Sterling). As the sun disappears, the temperature drops and it starts to drizzle, I wonder if Kai’s firm represents the Greystone members who are under investigation. I blow on my hands and rub them together to stay warm.
I’m not sure how much longer I can take the cold. I thought about going inside and waiting in the lobby, but I don’t want anyone to ask me why I’m here. I want to catch her off guard.
