Page 63
Iwas supposed to be moving from that spot by the door in the kitchen. I was supposed to be grabbing my purse from the floor. I was supposed to be on the phone to Damian already.
Those were the things I was telling myself to do, but that peony was staring back at me, screaming at me with its delicate little petals on its pretty severed head.
I know what you did, it said.
But the peony wasn’t the worst part. Worse was not knowing how it got there, and worst of all was not knowing how someone found out I’d ripped off the head of a peony in Vivienne’s kitchen.
I retraced every moment over the last twenty-four hours, still glued to the spot on the old kitchen linoleum: the drive to work yesterday, when I’d parked on the street and seen a man leaning against his car, looking busy on his phone. Simon, the delivery man giving me a sympathetic wave as he passed me in the kitchen. Sofia busy at the sink. Vivienne pottering around in silk. Dinner with Damian, where I’d told him all about it. The server. The bartender.
And then there was the question of who had come in through my window and how they’d got the window open. Had my landlord or his property manager given him a key? Had he arrived dressed as maintenance?
All at once, I knew exactly what Damian meant.
This is how a group of people control you over a lifetime. When you have no way of knowing where the next reminder will come from, or how bad it will be.
But the peony wasn’t going to bite me. It was just lying there limp, like a strangled beauty queen. I went to the living room and grabbed my phone.
Damian answered right away. “Marlowe, are you okay?”
“Nope. I am absolutely not okay.”
“Did something else happen?”
“Two more things happened. And I really need answers.”
“Tell me.”
“First, I get a text from Callie saying Kai told her that you and I went for a swim at Moonstone Beach last night. Then I come home to find the head of a peony on my kitchen table and my bathroom window wide open.”
He was quiet at first. “Marlowe—”
“How could they have possibly known?”
Another hesitation.
“Who was in the kitchen?”
“Just Sofia, the housekeeper.”
“No, it wasn’t her. Pull up Vivienne’s Instagram account.”
I put him on speakerphone and pulled up the account. “Oh god.”
“What?”
“She posted a picture of herself standing next to the vase of peonies. She tagged Aurora. It’s a public thank-you note for the flowers.”
“And you can see how many flowers are in the vase?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone figured it out from there.”
“But how did they put it all together?”
“Deduction. Intuition. They’re very, very good at this. Someone counted. Someone connected it to you.”
“Damian, I need to know who’s doing this. If you care about me the way you say you do, you need to tell me. This is…this is terrifying.”
