Page 7

Jess promised to keep anything she knew about the Treadaway situation to herself for the time being, and she managed to make it from Poppy’s office to the treatment building without finding another dead guy. She considered that a promising sign.

She was greeted at the entrance by a scrubs-clad woman with close-cropped silver hair and flawless deep-umber skin. She was her own best advertisement for her position, which according to her name tag was “Lenore, Head Aesthetician.”

In tiny print under her name, the tag read “Jonquil’s Most Trusted Lieutenant,” which made Jess smile. Lenore led Jess into a dreamscape delicately scented with lavender and citrus. From the blue-tinged lighting to the chime-based music, the treatment areas were built to take guests out of space, time, and their everyday worries.

Jess slipped into the sinfully soft spa-issued robe and slippers, making her all the more comfortable as she perched on a heated stone lounger outside the treatment rooms. The blue-green stone floors looked like they’d been hewn from the sea floor somewhere near Atlantis. Jess splayed back on the heated stone, finally feeling a little bit of that promised relaxation. Was it wrong, indulging like this after finding Mr. Treadaway? This trip couldn’t be entirely composed of derailed work calls and meditation hollow deaths. Right?

Yeah, that probably wasn’t a very nice thought to have right now.

And then Aubrey popped into her line of vision like something out of a jump-scare prank video.

“Hi! Are you finished up with your work from this morning? Diana and Kiki are having their treatments,” Aubrey chirped from an adjacent stone area bench, sounding…oddly sincere. Her entire body language read differently. Her expression could even be interpreted as friendly and interested.

Weird.

“Uh, yeah…” Jess asked. “Did you fall and hit your head in yoga or anything?”

Aubrey didn’t look like she had a concussion. She looked stunning. Somehow, she made the spa robe look like it was tailored to fit her. Jess was starting to wonder if Aubrey had access to some sort of fairy godmother—one of the mean ones, who cursed household objects to force regular girls like Jess into centuries-long naps.

Jess’s Big Book of Life Plans: Stay away from spinning wheels, combs, and sharp objects in general.

“Well, I may have pulled a hamstring, overdoing a bird of paradise pose. It definitely added to today’s difficulty rating, but you know how it is,” Aubrey said. “Anything to get the job done.”

“Such as…coming up here on this very odd ‘work retreat’?” Jess asked. “It’s a little outside of a wedding planner’s usual scope, isn’t it? The wedding’s not even scheduled.”

“It’s a little outside of your scope,” Aubrey retorted.

“I’m self-employed. I make my own scope.”

“If I can spend a day helping a bride climb in and out of a bathroom stall because she decided to triple down on Spanx, I don’t think serving in the bridal party is all that weird by comparison, do you?” While Jess was considering that, Aubrey added, “I’m just saying, for all Diana’s pretensions—the ridiculous ‘branding language’ and the aspirational influencer stuff—this wedding is going to be huge . If I can give her half of what she wants, I will be a legend . Hell, I might be able to start my own firm. Build something of my own. I mean, you get it. You used to be something in this industry before—”

“Yeah, yeah, the Pepperfield-Cooper wedding,” Jess told her. “I swear if you repeat that bullshit story—”

“Oh, honey, I know you didn’t have anything to do with that,” Aubrey scoffed. “I helped plan Cooper’s wedding, when he married the usher the next year. The bride brought me photos of your work from his original wedding, and I was impressed. You showed real talent, before you left weddings for your unorthodox side hustle.”

OK, first the Treadaway thing, and now this? Had Jess fallen and bumped her head? This could be some awful, prolonged hallucination.

When Jess’s chin retreated in disbelief, Aubrey rolled her eyes. “What? It’s an interesting spin on your training. You found a whole new market. I admire the innovation of it, and that you were willing to take a risk.”

“Wha—Why are you being nice to me right now?” Jess asked. “You’ve been awful to me since we got here.”

“Oh, that?” Aubrey scoffed. “That’s just playing up to Diana. I’m playing it safe. I mean, yeah, you’re a proposal planner now. But Diana isn’t exactly a predictable personality. She might decide that you could do both jobs, to keep a consistent vision or keep control or whatever excuse she could come up with to fire me. So, I’m playing the advantages I’ve got. I mean, Diana really has a bone to pick with you, that’s clear enough when you’re not around. It’s probably some leftover high school thing. You know too much, about her and her family. It puts her on edge.”

Jess’s brain was having genuine difficulty switching gears from being questioned by law enforcement to this overtly restful space. Later, she would blame this inner turmoil for telling Aubrey, “I barely knew her in high school. Nobody knew anything real about her in high school. She was too good at spinning different versions of herself, her life at home. You never knew if she was wearing real designer shoes or knockoffs.”

Aubrey laughed and Jess added, “No, really. Diana knew things about etiquette and expectations that you only learned at the knees of people who’d lived through it. She always claimed to have spent holidays in Madrid or Paris. She knew all the names of the right restaurants and museums over there, and the Helston name had enough remaining weight to make it believable. We didn’t know what was going on.”

“Well, you know enough,” Aubrey told her. “And she resents the hell out of it. She really doesn’t like the fact that she needs you to make anything happen. So, if my pushing you around a little bit curries some favor with her? Prepare to be pushed. It’s not personal. It’s just gamesmanship.”

Jess sat there, blinking rapidly at Aubrey. “There is something wrong with you.”

“It’s called ‘being goal-oriented,’?” Aubrey told her as Kiki and Diana walked toward them, ensconced in their own fluffy robes. Kiki veered left toward the far window. Diana made a beeline for the lovely Lenore to discuss cellulite elimination treatments. Aubrey climbed up from the lounger to hover nearby Diana’s conversation. Jess swore if either Aubrey’s or Diana’s eyes landed on her or Kiki…

Nope, nope. Jess would not get kicked out of a classy joint like this for fighting. She would not repeat her brief but colorful Girl Scouting career.

Resolute, Jess got up and padded to where Kiki stretched across her own chaise. The extensive windows allowed an endless view of the surrounding trees.

“I am made of pudding,” Kiki purred.

“Oh, man, was there a ‘mud infused with weed’ option?” Jess teased, sliding onto her own lounger. “Nobody told me!”

Kiki’s grin was brilliant and fully sated. “No weed, just ylang-ylang massage oil administered by a technician with magic hands. Would it be weird to ask Olivia to marry me? I could give her hands an amazing life.”

“I think that’s going to come across as creepy no matter how nicely you phrase it,” Jess said, moving her head back and forth.

“Fair enough. Also, they’re going to make you drink a lot of that spring water,” Kiki said as a male technician, whose name tag read “Mark,” brought them tall glasses with apple slices floating in them.

“Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate,” he told them, smiling so sweetly, Jess didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hadn’t enjoyed a treatment yet. “We’re moving a bunch of nasty stuff through your lymphatic system and you need to chase it out. You ladies just sit back and think happy thoughts.”

“It feels wrong that I feel this relaxed,” Kiki suggested. “Like I should be working or something.”

“Oh, I have a feeling you hustle plenty.” Jess snorted into her glass, even if she did understand the sentiment on a professional and a “just found a dead guy” level. “What are you even working on right now? I probably should have asked sooner, but I’ve been distracted by, you know, everything. I can’t ask educated questions, but I’m guessing it’s related to ‘cancer stuff.’?”

“I am indeed working on ‘cancer stuff,’?” Kiki said with a chuckle. “In the lab, I’m trying to help my company find ways to synthesize rare organic compounds that we might be able to use in treatments, so we can produce them on a mass scale instead of tearing down an entire ecosystem to harvest them.”

“Wow, that is…weirdly philanthropic? For a scary Big-Pharma-type company?” Jess suggested.

“Well, not all corporations are evil incarnate for no purpose,” Kiki said, smiling wryly. “Just half of them.”

“How do you even go about making something ‘natural’ out of chemicals?” Jess asked.

“I’d rather not get into it, because I am not in a ‘work’ headspace right now.”

“Oh, right,” Jess said, feeling a flush of guilt. “Sorry, I didn’t think of that. Just because I think about work all the time doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“That’s OK,” Kiki said. “It’s nice that you asked. Nobody asks. I think they’re afraid I’m going to break out a dry erase board or something.”

“I’d still like to hear about it sometime, if you ever feel like it,” Jess said. “It sounds interesting. I know you said Diana is the family favorite, but I think you came out with the better end of the deal. Independent of the family politics, making your own path in the world.”

And suddenly Jess remembered that Kiki had visited the office the night before to call her aunt Birdie. Was it Birdie’s fussing that had Kiki staring out the window, all contemplative?

“We’re never away from the family politics,” Kiki told her. “I know it sounds ridiculous. Grown adults not being able to say no to their elders, but it’s practically bred into us. The family is like a hive mind. They just overwhelm you with their absolute certainty that they have every right to demand what they want and you’re a brat for even thinking of saying no. They just repeat themselves over and over, but they make it sound like they’re giving ground or asking for something different. And it makes you think you’re crazy. I mean, they basically ignored me for most of my childhood, but they think it’s reasonable to tell me to drop everything at work and fly up here with no notice. And here I am.”

“They’re never going to be able to take your education away from you, or who you are when you’re away from them,” Jess told her. “You’re Doctor Kiki. Not many Kikis can say that.”

Kiki waggled her eyebrows, making Jess giggle. Just then, Aubrey and Diana came shuffling over to them. Diana frowned at the pair of them laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“The fact that I’m ninety percent sure there were heavy amounts of THC in Kiki’s massage treatment,” Jess told Diana, making her giggle.

“Oh, no, Kiki doesn’t get high. She would never disrespect chemical compounds like that,” Diana informed her primly. “She had this whole ‘science will save us all’ speech she’d do when we were kids, made her sound like one of those guys from the nerd TV shows.”

“Aunt Birdie was not a fan of that speech,” Kiki said, shaking her head. “And I think you mean the Discovery Channel.”

“She said you were ruining yourself with books and no man would ever want to marry you,” Diana hooted.

Kiki hummed and gave a half smile. She didn’t seem to find the memory nearly as funny as Diana did. “For someone who’s single, Aunt Birdie spends a lot of time worrying about marrying us off.”

“Aunt Birdie is the spinster aunt?” Aubrey guessed. “There’s always a spinster auntie who makes the family gatherings awkward, under the protective umbrella of ‘that’s just the way she is.’?” Jess stifled a laugh. If Aubrey was going to plan Diana’s wedding, she was going to become very familiar with Birdie’s protective umbrella.

“Well, technically, she’s not a spinster,” Diana noted. “She was married once.”

Even Aubrey’s curiosity was piqued by that. “And then?”

“Um, he died on the honeymoon,” Kiki said, her lips contorting into a pained grimace. “My mom said she never understood why Thornton would go swimming in the ocean when he had so many health problems, especially when Birdie insisted on keeping his meds—allergy, asthma, heart murmur—in her purse. In their hotel room. Mom thought maybe he had an asthma attack or chest pains or something mid-swim and couldn’t get back to shore. Birdie only talked about it with the family once. All she said was that she looked up from her book and couldn’t see Thornton anymore. They didn’t find his body until after she flew home.”

Jess thought of Jeremy and was grateful that at least he hadn’t had room to disappear in the tiny meditation pool. Jess couldn’t imagine losing a husband so soon after marrying him. How had that affected how Birdie influenced Diana? Would Diana keep Trenton’s meds in her purse? Did Jess have an obligation to warn Trenton? Where did Helston LuxeGram stand on suspicious honeymoon deaths?

“No one talked about it, especially in front of Birdie. It was ‘family ugliness,’ and the Helstons can’t abide ugliness,” Kiki said, shaking her head as if she could clear it of the memory. “It’s next to godlessness and debauchery. And not the fun kind.”

“Birdie took to her bed anytime anybody brought it up,” Diana said, examining her manicure. “No one had the nerve to tell her to remarry. It created this power vacuum in the family after Grandma died. And she just sort of ran things after that.”

“How have I never heard about this?” Jess asked. “I would think that’s the kind of thing that would have gotten around a place like Wren Hill.”

Diana raised her brows before repeating, “Family. Ugliness.”

Before Jess could hear more Helston family legends, Lenore arrived to claim her for her appointment. It was finally time for her to enjoy these fancy-schmancy weed-mud treatments she’d heard so much about. She led Jess to a white subway-tiled room with a sort of morgue table in the middle, covered in a foil-lined blanket. Lenore instructed her on how to lie down comfortably and cover her private areas with the tiny towels provided.

(Jess knew it wasn’t technically a morgue table, but honestly.)

“Just undress to your comfort level and I’ll be right with you,” Lenore told her in what Jess was coming to think of as the “spa voice”—soft, gentle, and meant to prevent disturbing other guests.

***

A few minutes later, Jess’s ears perked up at the sound of soft footfalls. She turned her head back and saw a feminine shape silhouetted against the frosted-glass hallway door. A tiny brunette woman with a long ponytail poked her head through the door after a soft knock.

“Hi, I’m Jonquil,” she said, a mischievous quirk to her lips. Her milk-pale face was almost elfin in its upturned features.

“Did your family ever worry about running out of flower names?” Jess asked, pulling at the towels to give herself a tiny bit more coverage.

“The last one working here that you haven’t met,” she replied. “Congratulations. You have caught us all.”

“Is it normal for an owner of a spa to give body wraps?” Jess asked.

“Normally Lenore handles this sort of thing, but I took a special interest in your appointment,” Jonquil told her. “I understand you’ve already had a very eventful visit—”

“I’m so sorry,” Jess blurted out. “I know I shouldn’t have been wandering around unsupervised. Twice. I see now that finding a dead man was the consequence of my choices…Also, I really hope you knew about the dead man and I didn’t just tell you in the least sensitive way possible.”

Jonquil’s mouth dropped open. “Well, yes, I did. And yes, finding Mr. Treadaway has complicated things a little bit, but no one is upset with you. Sometimes people need to wander a little bit before they find what they need. And sometimes you find things you weren’t expecting. It happens.”

Jess was left wondering what Jeremy Treadaway had needed when he was wandering. But the final Osbourne was being so nice, Jess didn’t want to disrupt the conversation with more dead-guy talk. Jonquil had a quieter presence about her than Poppy or Sis—a serenity that Jess suspected came from doing exactly what you wanted in life and being married to someone like Beth, who went all soft-eyed when she spoke of her wife.

“What doesn’t happen is my stubborn-ass cousin interacting with guests.”

OK, clearly there were hidden pockets of Osbourne in Jonquil.

“I’m sorry?” Jess frowned at her. This was a rather awkward position to have a conversation from, staring up at her, upside down and horizontal. But even from this angle, Jonquil’s smile was amused as hell.

“Dean doesn’t like people.”

“He’s a chef. He feeds people for a living,” Jess countered.

“He likes food, not people,” Jonquil told her. “We’ve had fancy travel magazines come up here to shoot big photo spreads and he won’t let them take photos of anything but his hands. Really irked the guy from Luxury Travel . He’s contrary. It’s part of his charm.”

Jess wrinkled her nose. “Would we call it ‘charm’?”

“Dean stays in the kitchen. On the rare occasion he interacts with a guest, he keeps it as short as possible. He does not take walks in the woods with them while talking .”

“So, I basically had an encounter with Kitchen Bigfoot?” Jess guessed.

It was only slightly less ridiculous than Strawberry Chef Guy, in terms of nicknames. Still, Jonquil nodded. Enthusiastically.

“We weren’t so much talking as bickering,” Jess confessed.

“It’s still remarkable progress, considering,” Jonquil said. “My cousin’s a good man, one of the best, really. But he’s got trauma, the big ‘being processed but barely’ kind relating to women, and if he’s willing to utter more than a few words to you? While making eye contact? You have me intrigued, Jessamine Bricker.”

“There were definitely more than a few words uttered,” Jess conceded. “But the eye contact was more along the lines of glaring. Also, no using my old-lady full name just because you saw it on the intake forms. That’s not playing fair.”

“Accept my tacit approval and know that it comes with strings,” Jonquil told her. “And that string is labeled, ‘Don’t hurt my cousin or there will be consequences.’?”

“Well, you have me vulnerable in what feels like a murder room, so I don’t feel like I can disappoint you,” Jess replied.

“Right?” Jonquil chirped.

With this settled, Jonquil proceeded to scoop handfuls of a warmed paste that felt like sandy clay and smelled of cinnamon and oranges onto Jess’s skin. She rubbed it down Jess’s limbs with gloved hands, and Jess felt like she could sink through the table, she was so relaxed. She decided right then she was going to like Jonquil. Jess didn’t care if the woman was a little pushy, she was good at her job.

By the time Jonquil enclosed Jess in the foil blanket like a burrito, Jess’s skin felt like rose petals covered in morning dew and unicorn spit. “I’m going to let you marinate in this for a while and then I’ll come back and rinse you off,” she whispered softly, laying hands on Jess’s towel-wrapped shoulders. Jess murmured something in the vicinity of “OK” as she heard the door open and then shut.

She closed her eyes and tried to let the events of the day melt away. She tried to concentrate on the pleasant warmth seeping into her skin, and the lovely, sweet scent in the air.

And just when she felt her toes unflex, deep within the foil wrap, a thought popped into her head. What rock had Jeremy Treadaway hit his head on?

More thoughts popped into her head unbidden. Blister said Jeremy had tripped and hit his head on a rock, then drowned in the meditation pool. Jess hadn’t seen any drag marks surrounding the seating stones, just the ones near the water. And as far as she’d been able to see, there were no rocks in the meditation pool. It was a sort of rounded cup without any stalagmites he could have fallen against. Unless he’d hit his head before he’d entered the hollow…but wouldn’t there be a blood trail leading to the water if he’d hit his head that hard?

Jess wasn’t sure she was qualified to do gravel drag-mark analysis. But what about Zephyr and her late-night ointment delivery? Jess realized she had a little more consideration for staff than the average Golden Ash guest, but she couldn’t imagine calling Beth to her door for a delivery at that hour, no matter how singed her…places were. It could be some sort of cover. Zephyr could have wanted Beth to see her at her villa so she had an alibi. Zephyr was pretty short. Did she have the height or strength to whack Jeremy over the head hard enough to take him out? But why would she do that in the first place?

It had to be Susan. Remembering the way that woman screamed from inside her villa sent a shiver down Jess’s spine. The woman had deep wells of frustration and anger and hurt. She could see Susan tearing across the spa grounds, cracking Jeremy over the head, maybe even with his pasta plate, and dragging him to the pool.

No, Jess was a planner of other people’s special life events, not a cop. She needed to let this go, reset her brain, and get back to work at her actual job. She intentionally shoved all thoughts of the various people who might want Jeremy Treadaway dead out of her mind.

For a few unspoiled seconds, Jess floated on a bubble of nonconcern. She was warm and comfortable and safe and…just as her mind began to ebb away, Jess’s left thigh itched.

With her hands swaddled at stomach level, Jess was helpless against the agitation skittering over her skin. She tried to concentrate on something else, on floating on that beautiful cushion of nothingness without worry, without strain, without the ability to scratch her fucking thigh.

Jess tried to reposition her arms so she could reach down and scratch, but she couldn’t find footing with her legs wrapped so tight. And it was fine, really, because she also couldn’t move her hands to scratch in the first place. With the back of her head levered against the table, she arched her back and caught a glimpse of the frosted glass door behind her. The staff had lowered the hallway lights to maintain the mellow space, and yet Jess could still make out the silhouette of a person just on the other side of the glass.

Weird.

Jess assumed it was a staff member checking on her…but they were too curvy to be Mark and too tall to be Jonquil. She waited for them to speak, but they sort of hovered outside the door, their hand on the doorknob. Maybe it was a technician who was just headed to the wrong treatment room? Surely there had to be door mix-ups at a place like this.

“Lenore?” she called.

But there was no response from the shadow. Unease, cold and clammy, crept up Jess’s belly. Why wouldn’t they respond? They just stood there, as if they were thinking over their options.

And while these endless seconds ticked by, with no speech from this person, Jess realized how vulnerable she really was in this position, in an unlocked room, trapped in what was basically a straitjacket. There was no way she could run to safety if the person on the other side of the glass had bad intentions.

Why wasn’t this person talking?

“This room is occupied,” she said, louder.

Jess watched as the doorknob turned silently, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, it filled her with dread. She was going to die, wrapped up like a baked potato, naked and covered in mud.

That was going to be an interesting obituary.

Despite all the spring water Jess had recently consumed, her mouth went dry. She couldn’t seem to make another sound, just watched in mounting terror as the door pushed open a fraction. She wanted to scream. She wanted to growl. She wanted to tell this person to walk the fuck back down the hall and leave her alone. She managed to open her mouth to produce a pathetic, breathless “buh…” when the door stopped moving and gently closed. The shape moved away from the glass and disappeared.

Relief, warm and sweet, flooded Jess’s chest. Suddenly, breathing became a possibility.

She stared at the door, unwilling to look away. Why had she been so scared? Why had her brain leaped right from cinnamon-clay-restfulness to potentially-being-murdered-while-wrapped-in-foil?

Was the Golden Ash messing with her head?

“Fuck this,” Jess whispered, wriggling in her foil bonds, attempting to make some room. She wasn’t going to be stuck in this position if the shadow person came back.

A soft knock sounded at the door. Jess froze. A shorter shape—probably Jonquil—appeared on the other side of the glass. “Jess? You OK?”

Jess swallowed heavily before finally managing to produce a squeaky “Come in.”

Jonquil stuck her head in the door. “Are we feeling relaxed yet?”

Jess huffed out a shaky breath. As Jonquil released her from her foil cage, Jess tried not to let Jonquil see the relieved tears slide down her cheeks. Jonquil gently rinsed the mud from her skin, using a series of ceiling-mounted showerheads. As the warm water cascaded over her, Jess told herself the shadow person was probably just a confused technician heading into the wrong treatment room. They probably hadn’t spoken because they didn’t want to draw attention to their mistake. It probably had nothing to do with Jeremy Treadaway, but…

Susan Treadaway was around the right height to be the shadow person. Jess wondered if Susan was aware that Jess had been the one to find Jeremy’s body. Was Jess safe at the Golden Ash? Was anyone?

Jess’s Big Book of Life Plans: Stop asking yourself these questions while ninety percent naked and covered in dirt.