Page 16

I am running faster than I ever have in a workout class. But even maintaining a ten-mile-per-hour clip on a treadmill, I can’t outrun the unanswered questions that haunt me.

Kyle J is proud. He rewards me with a high five and stands next to my treadmill, yelling about how I’m a “bad bitch” as I pump my arms and knees as fast as they will go. My body aches and my lungs burn.

Este is walking next to me on her treadmill. She looks over and scowls. “What the fuck is your deal?”

“You said we had to move,” I huff. “I’m moving.”

When Kyle J winds the class down by telling us to “shake off the negativity” and thank our bodies for “the gift of movement,” I can’t tell if I feel better or even more unhinged.

My entire body buzzes with adrenaline. Este hands me a gym towel from the back of the room and I attempt to mop the sweat off the floor around me.

Tippy Schaeffer heads toward us, a mawkish look of concern on her face.

“Nora, we’re all so worried about Will,” she says, dabbing her forehead with a towel.

I hadn’t realized she was in the class until now.

I must have been too hyperfocused on trying to burn off every ounce of frantic energy.

Since the night I saw her and Ardell—secretly getting hot and heavy at the Christmas party—Ialways feel a pinch of secondhand embarrassment for her.

As a high-ranking member of Gianna’s tennis clique, she’d surely be exiled if they knew about her extracurricular activities.

She cocks her head at me now and adds, “How are you holding up?”

I open my mouth to respond, but my mind is blank.

There’s something about the tone of her voice—niceties masking skepticism—that makes Will’s disappearance feel more real.

Too real. It lands like a punch to the gut, and I struggle to take steady breaths.

I look between Tippy and Este. I hadn’t counted on having to manage other people’s reactions to Will’s unknown whereabouts.

How stupid of me. Of course everyone’s talking about Will.

“Sorry, Tippy.” Este makes quick work of grabbing both of our towels and guides us toward the door. “We’re late for an appointment.”

As we move toward the exit, I can hear Tippy stage-whisper, “I can’t believe she’s here given the circumstances.” In a low voice, someone responds, “I’d be sitting by the phone at home. Especially considering the fact that he’s her meal ticket.”

The words sap the adrenaline right out of my body.

Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

I keep my gaze fixed on the door, but once we’re out of the studio and headed for Este’s car, I say, “I’m not sure I’m up for Botox.”

She just looks at me and points at my forehead. “That’s the frown I’m talking about. Keep it up and you’ll age like a raisin.”

“Este,” I protest.

“Nora. Tippy is a moron. She just wants everyone to hate themselves so her own shitty life choices don’t seem so bad. Don’t let her keep you from looking after yourself.”

Este climbs into her car, and I consider storming off in the opposite direction, but the thought of being alone overwhelms me. I decide that needles and botulism are preferable, no matter what people may think.

—

I was wrong. The medspa visit is brutal. Tippy’s judgment plays on a loop in my head as they ask me to frown and pucker my lips. The sting of every injection feels personally wounding, like a punishment for leaving the house. Cosmetic self-flagellation.

I shouldn’t be here. I need to find Dean Morrison. I have to find Will.

While excruciating, the visit is mercifully brief, and within twenty minutes, I’m holding an ice pack to my forehead as they send us on our way.

“Was that so bad?” Este’s chipper as we make our way to the lobby. She gets a special rush from turning back the clock one injection at a time.

“It was torture.” I try to frown, but my face is still a little numb. “Can I go home now?”

“Fuck.” She looks down at her purse. “I left my phone.”

“Este,” I snap. “Goddamnit. Take me home.”

But she’s off without another word, winding back through the halls of the building toward the treatment rooms where we just were. I watch her go and then pull out my phone to dial Dean Morrison’s mystery number again.

“I heard you were out today, but I honestly didn’t believe it,” an unwelcome but familiar voice tsks.

I spin around and find myself face-to-face with—

“Constance.” I drop the baby ice pack I’ve been holding to my forehead, mortification creeping up my neck.

“Tippy said she saw you at the gym, and now Botox?” There was an air of superiority to her posture as she folded her arms across her chest. “Fritz had said you didn’t seem too concerned with Will’s disappearance, but this is beyond the pale. Even for you.”

For me. Who had the audacity to marry her ex-husband while also being nearly twenty years his junior. For me. Who probably eats people like some mythical monster.

Constance and I had gotten off to a rocky start, and suffice it to say, things did not improve from there.

I consider asking how she heard from Tippy so quickly, but that line of questioning feels like a dead end.

There must be some Winter Park Wives group text chain I am too plebeian to be invited to join—reserved for Hill House’s Nap Dress drop alerts, Herend china cleaning tips, and now, Nora sightings.

“Of course I’m worried about Will—”

“Are you? Because it really doesn’t seem that way.” Constance takes a step closer so that I can hear the vitriol hidden just beneath the surface. “This is my daughter’s father we are talking about, and you’re out exercising and maintaining your beauty regimen.”

A tense silence settles between us, and I can almost see the battle lines being drawn at our feet.

She continues after a beat. “This side of two years ago, Will and I were figuring things out. We were co-parenting quite well and finding our new normal after the divorce.”

It takes effort not to roll my eyes at the phrase “new normal.”

“And then you came along and now he’s…” She makes a gesture with one hand as if to say “poof.”

Like some kind of fucked-up magic trick. Now you see him. Now you don’t.

The insinuation is bullshit. There is so much more to the story. For starters, Constance divorced Will. Not the other way around.

“Who knows how long you would have kept his disappearance a secret from the rest of us,” she continues. “Fritz said you fed him some preposterous story about Will working hours so long he disappears for days at a time—”

“Some story?” I finally clap back, fed up with her tirade. “Will disappears for work all the time. You know that better than anyone else. Isn’t that why you left him?”

Her eyes narrow at me. This is the first time I’ve ever come close to standing up to her, but if she’s surprised, she masks it with rage.

“As hard as Will ever worked, he never disappeared for days,” she snaps.

“And now you’ve wasted days when the police could have been helping us…

” She stops herself as if too overwhelmed to continue.

Someone bring in the fainting couch.

“It’s almost as if you waited on purpose. To give yourself time to clean up whatever evidence—”

“Mrs. Somerset,” a voice calls from down the hallway, and we both turn to look.

“Yes,” we both say at the same time.

Of course she kept his name.

A young nurse comes around the corner and looks at the two of us.

“Hi, Dylan. I’m here,” Constance says. She looks back at me, taking a parting shot. “I’ve barely been able to get out of bed since Fritz called me with the news. The Botox is for migraines. I suffer from terrible headaches in times of stress.”

And there you have it. The picture of what a good wife would be doing under the circumstances. She would be bedridden. She’d be swearing to avenge her daughter’s father. She gives me a flaying glare, and then she’s gone in a huff.

This is hell. I’m in hell. Fritz has Ardell in his pocket. Constance has Tippy, her self-righteousness, and the weight of Winter Park social capital. And I can’t even get Austin at the Verizon store to be on my side.

Este finds me a few minutes later still standing where Constance left me. Stunned.

“Sorry,” she sighs. “It must have gotten balled up in the paper they use for the exam tables. We had to go through the trash, but they found it.” She holds up her phone as proof of the victory. Then she looks me over. “You’re pale. Let’s get you something to eat.”

By the time we’re about five minutes from home, I still haven’t spoken more than three words. All I managed in the parking lot was “I saw Constance.”

But with a little distance and some ice on my forehead, I see it so much more clearly. Constance doesn’t think I’m some mythical monster. She thinks I’m the kind of monster who disappeared Will. And she’s positioning herself to be the hero who does everything right until Will comes home.

Will needs to come home. Now.

As we pull into Este’s driveway and I get out of the car, I think I see that gray sedan rolling by.

“Hey, I’ve seen that car before.” I’m trying to sound calm and collected, but it’s freaking me out.

Este is slow to turn, and by the time she does, the car is gone. “What car?”

I don’t want to come off as paranoid, so I just try to brush it off. “Never mind.”

“Let’s go order sushi.”

Este walks in her house, but I’m slower to catch up as I try to squash the anxiety rising inside of me.