Dana was sitting at the front desk, reading another book. An N. K. Jemisin fantasy this time. They looked up when they heard the bell above the door chime, and jumped off their stool. “You’re soaking wet!” they cried, grabbing a towel from underneath the desk, and coming around the side to hand it to me.
“Thank you so much.” I took the towel from them, and dried my hair before it dripped all across the hardwood floor. Then I wrapped it around myself and gave a shiver. “Damn weather tonight.”
“You’re telling me,” they replied, returning to their post. “The weather apps didn’t even give us a warning—”
“Oh, look, there’s ourfamousauthor,” came a voice from the living area. A chill curled down my spine. And there, sitting so properly in one of the IKEA chairs in the living area, was Heather Griffin.
Everyone had thatone personwho made their high school career unbearable, and Heather was mine. We had been friends for a brief moment, until she came to the conclusion that I was crazy after the murder case. She never believed that I talked with ghosts—she thought I was looking for attention. She was also one of the main reasons why the rest of Mairmont thought so, too.
“Who were you talking to outside, Florence?” Heather went on with an innocent look. She was accompanied by a group of women who looked like a book club, laughing behind their copies of Ann Nichols’sMidnight Matinee.
“I was just—you know—talking. To myself,” I mumbled. Idiot. I was an idiot to get so comfortable in Mairmont. I should’ve known better.
Out of the corner of my eye, Ben moved slowly into the lobby, his hands no longer in his pockets but on his hips. He stared in at the book club with pursed lips.
Dana, bless them, leaned forward on their stool and said loudly, “How’s your stay, Florence? Do you need anything? Towels, shampoo? Peace and quiet?” they added pointedly, darting their eyes at Heather.
She smoothed on a smile and poured herself a glass of lemon-infused water from the dispenser on the far side of the desk. “Well, I know when I’ve overstayed my welcome. It was nice to see you, Florence. Maybe we should catch up sometime,” she added, scrunching her nose with a grin, and clipped her way back into the living area, where book club resumed.
I sighed and leaned against the desk. “Damn. For two seconds I’d forgotten about her.”
“Lucky.” Dana laughed. “I could send you up with a bottle of wine? We’ve got a new red in from the Biltmore that isgloriouslybitter.”
“Don’t tempt me! I still have Dad’s obituary to write. And I somehow have to findwildflowers.”
“There’s some growing in the back garden if you need them.”
“A thousand of them?”
They winced. “Yikes, sadly not.”
“See, that’s my problem. And wildflowers are sovague—never mind I don’t have a thousand dollars to spend on a florist to find me some.”
In the lounge, the book club tittered some more. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to hear what they were saying aboutMidnight Matinee. Ben was leaning against the doorway, hands crossed over his chest, listening in on them. His face didn’t tell me anything, except that he was either bored with their analysis of my writing or he wasn’t paying attention to them atall.
“Hmm.” Dana drummed their fingers on the oak desk, thinking. “You could try the Ridge, maybe? It’s become part of the state park now. You might find some there, if the season’s not too early.”
I winced. “Yeah, I’ve thought about the Ridge.” Hadn’t been back there since that day. Of course wildflowers would be there, the one place I didn’t want to look. But it turned out, I might not have had the choice. “Thanks. I’ll hike up there tomorrow and see it.”
“Great, and lemme know how it goes?”
“Sure thing. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Shucks!”
I grabbed one of the mints from the bowl and began to head up the stairs when my name caught my ears—a bare whisper, but there. From the living room. The women in the book club weretalking about me now, and if who they had been in high school was any indication, it wasn’t anything good. My shoulders tensed.
Dana mouthed that I didn’t have to go, but I did. I’d spent ten years running from these assholes, and I was sick and damn tired of it.
Ben warned as I passed, “Don’t pick a fight.”
Oh, I wasn’t.
Heather quickly righted herself in the chair with an air of innocence. She’d been bent in toward some of the other women, whispering over their bookmarked novels. I wondered if they’d even read it, or if buying romance novels to never read and gossip over them was the newest trend. Heather looked like I remembered her, pretty brown hair and pretty brown eyes and a pretty smile over soft pink lips. She wore a sleek black skirt and a paisley-printed blouse. I remembered Dad once telling me that Karen had hired her as a clerk at her legal firm in town.
She smiled with strikingly white teeth. “Would you care to join us? We’re big fans of Ann Nichols.”
I bet she was.