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I locked the doors and called Damian.

“Do you know a guy named Soren?” I said. I was somehow out of breath.

There was a pause.

“Yes. He’s been assigned to Jess.”

“I just saw him with her. She only met him yesterday and they’re already joined at the hip.”

“Be very careful what you say to her. They’re preparing him to become a Keeper. He’ll be watching her phone constantly. He wants to prove his worth.”

I drove back to Vivienne’s house with my fingers tight on the wheel. The pressure of the last five days was folding over me like fog smothering the bay.

The afternoon was one headache after another. I replaced the sauna bulb, called a dozen vendors to get quotes for the pool party catering, ordered gold-embossed invitations, and spent two hours searching for linen tablecloths in a shade Vivienne called “something halfway between aged alabaster and Tuscan milk.”

At a red light on my drive home, my phone buzzed. A notification from the group chat. One eye on the road, I opened the chat.

Callie: I had an amazing night with Kai last night

Callie: like really amazing

Callie: Kai says you did too Marlowe

Callie: he says you and Damian went for a swim at Moonstone Beach???

Priya: wtf

Priya: Marlowe

Jess: a swim

Jess: you must have frozen your asses off

Priya: Marlowe are you ok

A car horn blasted the phone right out of my hand. I’d missed the light change. The phone fell to the floorboard. I hit the accelerator too hard and almost rear-ended a beat-up white Tacoma.

I drove home too fast, as if I could outrun what I’d just read. Another car honked when I turned on red and nearly collided with a Subaru.

As soon as I was inside with the door locked, I reached for my phone, ready to call Damian again.

But something felt wrong, the way a coat smells when it carries the scent of a perfume that isn’t yours.

I dumped my purse on the floor and scanned the living room, but it was exactly how I’d left it.

I checked the bedroom. Everything there was how it should have been, too: the unmade bed, last night’s tea on the nightstand, the curtains still drawn.

Then it registered. The air was cooler than normal. A soft breeze was drifting in.

The bathroom window was wide open. I asked myself if I’d left it unlocked. It had been so long since I’d checked, I didn’t know. But I knew one thing for sure. I hadn’t left the house with it open.

My pulse pounding, I continued checking every room, until I reached the kitchen.

And that’s when I saw it.

On the kitchen table, next to the salt shaker, was the head of a single lilac peony.

Chapter Nineteen