Page 5

CHAPTER 5

In the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of sobbing. I jolted to a sitting position and turned.

“Maddie? What’s wrong?”

Her back was facing me as she sat at the edge of the bed, and she held her phone in her hand, her body quivering. She took in a deep breath. “You know Iggy, the guy in the band that I met at my niece’s wedding? We’ve dated a few times since then, whenever he’s nearby. We call and text and stuff. I-I like him a lot. And now … ”

Her sobs resumed.

I pushed her hair over her shoulder and rubbed her back. “I remember him. What’s going on?”

“He was in a car accident last night. One of his bandmates just called, and … well, they don’t know if?—”

She swiped at her cheeks, turning to face me as she threw her phone onto the comforter.

I presumed he wasn’t doing well.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m so sorry,”

“Crazy, you know? I just talked to Iggy right before we took off on our vacation.”

I checked the clock on the nightstand. It was just before seven in the morning. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to realize Maddie had been on the phone in the first place—or that I hadn’t woken during her call. Seemed the massage had done me a solid, giving me a good night’s sleep.

I reached out, embracing her, and we fell back onto the pillows. She cried for a time and then succumbed to sleep. I folded her back under the covers and slid off the bed, slipping on a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt. Then I stepped into the hallway. I had some thinking to do.

I meandered through the halls until I got to the main lobby, where I sat on a rocker in front of one of the large fireplaces, embers burning hot. People were checking in and out all around me, the place abuzz, but my mind was focused on a harsh reality. Those in my inner circle always teased me about how murder had a way of finding me. Not just injury and death, but murder . It happened so often I found myself questioning Iggy’s circumstances—whether Iggy’s car wreck had been an accident or if it had been something more. The notion was far-fetched, even for me, and it wasn’t long before I talked myself out of it.

“You’re being ridiculous, Sloane,” I mumbled.

I rose to a standing position and made a beeline for the concierge desk, determined to shift the paradigm of our vacation. Neither Kim’s death nor Iggy’s accident had anything to do with me or Maddie. We were brushed by the unfortunate, but we were not the cause of it.

Right?

I waited in line for my turn, and when I stepped up to the shiny, smiley-faced young man behind the desk, I said, “I’d like to make a reservation for two for … I’m not even sure what. What are some good activities to do around here?”

He made a few suggestions, and I chose a tour of the Fox Hollow Vineyards.

As I turned to leave, I ran straight into Almond.

Ooph! I bounced backward, trying to regain my balance as I said, “I’m so sorry.”

“No, you’re fine.” Almond reached out for my arm to help steady me. “You okay?”

I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. “Yeah. I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She smiled, showing off her perfect teeth.

“What’s on your agenda for the day?” she asked.

“I just booked a trip to Fox Hollow Vineyards.” It was a family-owned, boutique winery, named after the foxes that darted through the vines at dusk, a tidbit that I knew Maddie would love.

“You’ll love it. I haven’t been in ages. In fact … I was just finishing up a class here. Maybe Harmony would want to go.” She pulled out her phone and then seemed to catch herself, adding, “Oh, that is unless you’d rather not have company, which is fine?—”

I cut her off with the wave of my hand. “It would be great if you two joined us. Let me just double check with Maddie, in case she has other things in mind. She may not even feel like doing anything today.”

And that was the truth.

Given the news she’d received about Iggy, she may not have been up for going anywhere.

I dialed her cell phone, then our room phone, but she didn’t pick up, and I wasn’t making plans without talking to her first.

“She’s not answering, but if you give me your number, I’ll see what she wants to do today, then call you back,” I said. “If not Fox Hollow, then maybe we can get together another time before we leave.”

“Perfect,” Almond said, handing me her business card. “And no pressure. Do what makes you guys happy. It’s your vacation, after all.”

When I returned to the room, I was surprised to find Maddie out of bed, showered, and ready for the day. She encouraged me to do the same, which I did. In my absence, I knew she’d been pontificating about life and death in general. I’d known her long enough to know it was one of the ways she dealt with bad news, getting it out, getting some fresh air, and talking about it.

Me?

Not so much.

I held things close to the vest until I was ready to snap, and then I booked little getaways such as these, to ease my mind.

Maddie was partway through a sentence where she muttered something about New Orleans, and I said, “What about New Orleans?”

“Oh, that’s where Iggy is, at the hospital there. The band was there working a gig.”

My stomach dropped, and my previous theory about his accident not being an accident came back to mind.

“Iggy’s still hanging on by a thread,” she continued. “I can’t stop thinking about … well, wishing I’d been there for him, which I could have been if I’d been visiting you at the condo.” She hiccupped back a sob. “Who knows? Maybe if I’d been there, we would have been together, and the car accident .... Oh, Sloane. I could have changed the entire trajectory of … of …”

She flopped back on the bed and covered her eyes.

New Orleans. My home away from … well, RV life. And now it was the source of two doses of bad news in just a few hours.

What were the odds?