Nora’s different on the other side of grief—more decisive, more private. I’m usually the one person she spills her secrets to.
But not this one. Interesting.
“Okay. But if Autumn knows before I do, I’ll never forgive you.”
She fakes horror. “Never.”
My phone rings before I can press her further.
Mouthing to Nora that it’s Beau, I answer with a smirk, “What’s going on, Beau? Did your algorithm also unlock the fifteen-minute golf game?”
I don’t feel the floor shift beneath me until after Beau speaks.
“Gemma’s dead.”
Chapter 5
“What?” I press the phone closer to my ear like maybe I’ve misunderstood. Memories of Gemma spin through my mind’s eye. The smile on her face when I met her years ago. The friendship we rekindled when she picked up and moved to Florida. All the job hunt talks. The dress. The shoes. The hug she gave me yesterday.
Now she’s dead? She can’t be.
I can tell Nora knows something is wrong. She opens her mouth to ask a question, and I reach across the table to stop her, holding her hand as I choke out, “Gemma—” My mouth goes dry, and I can already feel the tears in my eyes. “Gemma died.”
It doesn’t register at first. Nora blinks. “Sorry, it’s loud in here. I thought you said—”
“She’s dead,” I choke out.
The words land this time, like a slap across her face. Nora gasps; her free hand flies to her mouth, knocking her water glass off the table in the process. There’s a sudden splash to accompany the sound of glass shattering. Our server looks up from another table and starts walking our way with a towel in hand.
“What happened?” I say to Beau. “We saw her last night.”
“They’re not saying yet.”
I watch as Nora’s expression slips from initial shock to a kind of daze.
Beau’s still talking, and I pick up fragments—Chief Kennedy, statement, parking lot. And then what he’s saying clicks intofocus. “Chief Kennedy asked me to come down to the station,” he says.
“What? Why?” I demand.
Over the last year, we had blissfully drifted away from Detective Travis Ardell and Chief Kennedy, head of the Winter Park Police Department. We went back to our lives, and they went back to the sleepy crime rate of this safe community. Aside from the occasional social sighting, like last night at Marcus’s party, I hadn’t had many interactions with them.
Now, their faces come roaring back into my mind.
“I have to give a statement about last night,” Beau says. “They’re calling in those of us who stayed late. Gemma was one of the closing servers. They’re trying to figure out what happened, time of death…” The line is eerily quiet for a second. “Autumn, Shep, Tippy, Ford, and I were all there. They probably need witness statements from all of us. The closers from the kitchen, too. I’m going to head there now.”
The next thing I hear is my chair scraping the floor as I stand. “Okay. Then wait for me.”
“Este—”
“No.” I’m grabbing my bag. “I want to be there. I want to do something to help.”
He must hear grief tightening my voice, because there’s a pause on his side of the line.
“I’ll meet you there,” I insist.
Nora stands, grabbing her bag. “I’m coming, too.”
“You don’t have to,” I say. “You spent enough time in that station after Will—”
