Prologue
The three women sat in the booth silently, two across from one, and although they would have appeared calm to a passing stranger, those few who knew them would have easily picked up on their anxiety, would have questioned the stuck-rabbit fear in their eyes.
The first bunched her fists at her side so that she could press her knuckles into the cracked vinyl of the plastic seat. The cheap fabric crinkled under the pressure, a mass of wrinkled crevices that exposed the aged, foam cushion underneath. But she didn’t notice the vinyl’s last give. Her green eyes, framed by a head of long, lustrous mahogany hair, stared across at the other two. They both knew that she wasn’t really looking at them, knew that she was keeping a prey-like watch on the front door of the diner.
Just in case.
They had, after all, planned it that way. The first’s jaw was clenched tightly, highlighting cheekbones that belied her middle-age and made her seem wolf-like in her angularity, if not in her behavior.
The second tapped a hushed, staccato rhythm on her thigh with her fingers, a faint tap, tap, tap against the soft fabric of her workout leggings. She had not anticipated working out.
Running…Maybe.
She glanced at a small mole on her shoulder—a small mole that was conveniently placed to give her cat-like eyes just enough peripheral vision to see the door behind her.
The third pressed herself back into the nook where the booth met the wall in a spear. The tight corner made it hard for her to completely disappear as she would have preferred. Like the first, she had green eyes. Unlike the first’s, her green eyes did not watch the door. Instead, they flickered nervously in the other direction, keeping a vigilant watch on the other patrons.
Nothing seemed out of place to any of them. The large interior of the diner was crammed, filled with people who—if the age demographic was any indicator—had been coming to the neighborhood spot for years. The loud jabber of everyone talking at once ran through the room, a constant stream of unintelligible words, pitches, and tones, punctuated by an occasional bark of laughter.
“She’s not coming.” Briefly looking away from the door, the first met the eyes of the two sitting across from her.
“Don’t say that,” the second whispered. “She wanted to.”
“Maybe…maybe something happened to her,” the third suggested hesitantly, her eyes nervously scanning the thick group of unfamiliar bodies.
“We have no way of knowing until the next meeting.” The first made brief eye-contact, then turned in her seat so that she could signal to the waitress for the check. “We can’t stay any longer. If she tried to come to us and it didn’t work…”
“You’re right.” Shaking her head rapidly in a back-and-forth motion that betrayed her anxiety, the third pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt down, gripping them between her fingers and palms before bringing the nails of her left hand to her teeth so that she could unconsciously chew on them.
“Please. Just two more minutes. She could be hurt.” Realizing that she had raised her voice, the second lowered her head and whispered, “She might need us.”
“No.”
When the waitress—her nametage identifying her as, ‘MARJORIE’—slipped the bill onto the table, all three of them flinched, taken off-guard by the scrape of the metal plate on wood. They froze, too on-edge now to keep pretending that they were friends meeting for a casual dinner.
Marjorie shook her head, her brow pinched with concern. She looked as if she wanted to say something. Her face, a round mask of wrinkles offset by sharp, blue eyes and bright pink lipstick, scrunched up. She took a big breath, opened her mouth. Sighed. Snapped her jaw shut. And when the girls sank further into their seats, relieved by her silence, she walked off.
Another woman glanced at their table on her way out of the diner. “Hey!” she said, moving forward, her fawn-colored eyes on the first.
“Hi!” the first replied, and, although her tone appeared pleasantly surprised, the second and the third knew that this was not part of the plan.
“How are you? How is everything going?”
“Good. I’m just about to leave. Let me walk out with you.” The first slipped cash over the receipt and stood. Leaning down to grab her handbag off the seat, she whispered, “If her plan didn’t work then it’s not safe for us to be together. You know this.” With one last glance at the crowded diner behind her, she moved towards the door with the stranger.
She didn’t say goodbye, didn’t even look back at them, just smiled a little too brightly at what the other woman was saying as they left the diner together.
Because the third was sidling up against her in an attempt to get out of the booth, the second scooted out. “I’ll see you soon.”
The third did not reply. Shrugging deeper into her oversized hoodie, she made for the door without a backward glance.
“You okay, hon?”
The waitress coming up to take the cash startled her, and the second jumped slightly. Raising a hand to her chest, she forced out a chuckle. “Sorry. You surprised me.”
Marjorie nodded kindly. “You okay?” she repeated, her eyes traveling the length of the second, taking in her casual but expensive attire.
Because the question, so kindly asked, made the second want to crumble, she forced out a smile. “Yes. Thank you.” She looked up and met the waitress’ eyes, too polite to ignore her completely but also embarrassed by the sheen of tears. “Have a good night,” she blurted, before hurrying for the front door of the diner.
The waitress watched the young woman leave. That niggling part of her brain that kept her up at night wondering about such random things as tax reform and the particular blue of Jude Law’s eyes flared, making her drop her arms to her side and turn to look back at the door. But the woman was gone, had followed her equally skittish friends out of the diner without a backward glance.
She didn’t know why, but for the smallest moment, she considered running after her. She just felt that…something wasn’t right. The way that the women had kept their eyes trained on the door, the way that their bodies had aligned, forming a closed circle, the way that, despite their joined circle, they had not left as a unit, choosing instead to filter off one at a time.
Something didn’t feel right.
But when Old Willie hollered at her from his usual booth, she shook her head, chuckled to herself, and moved on to see what he wanted. “Watching too much Poirot, Marj,” she whispered to herself. “Too much goddamn Poirot.”
Chapter 1
Fear gripped her chest and made it hard for her to level her breathing as she stared at the far wall of her studio apartment. Even in the inky night, with only the soft light of a half-crescent moon drifting in through her open window, she could see that nothing was particularly out of place.
Her easel was propped against the red brick wall on the far side of the room because she had lost a screw and the rear leg was no longer stable. Although that had been months ago, she hadn’t made the effort of driving to the hardware store yet because she had grown quite fond of painting against the red-brick backsplash. The wall itself was turning into a canvas, a wannabe Pollock of sorts.