He tilts my chin up again, and this time I’m not afraid of what I’ll see in his eyes. There’s no need anymore to force myself to look away, to keep my emotions hidden behind the ramparts. A hint of a smile lifts the corners of his mouth as he leans in and again presses his lips to mine.
The constant pressure in my chest is suddenly gone, and in its place is a lightness, a vulnerability. For the first time in my adult life, I am known. Accepted. And it’s a freedom unlike anything I’ve felt before.
Part VI:Landfall
Stella
I lay sobbing on an espresso leather couch in the deserted lobby, my wails all but drowned out by the growing squall outside. I’d searched high and low for Mary Elizabeth, but she was nowhere to be found, and this storm was going to get a lot worse before it got better. My last hope was that Jackson or Felicity had located her, but the fact they hadn’t shown up yet didn’t bode well.
Through my tears I could make out thunderheads seething beyond the skylights in the vaulted-beam ceiling overhead. All the other windows were boarded up, making it nearly pitch black when the lights flickered, which they did with increasing frequency. I needed to get back to the bungalow and gather my things before sheltering in the wine cellar to ride out the storm. My pills, namely. I needed my pills. I’d only had one little A-pill this morning and hadn’t touched a drop of liquor all day, not to mention thrown out my smokes. I was going crazy with worry; I needed something to steady my nerves.
Heavy footsteps on the tiles echoed in the cavernous room. I sat up and wiped my face on my shirt, hoping Jackson had returned with good news. But when I turned, I saw it was Cole who stalked across the lobby toward me, his face dark.
“You haven’t seen Mary Elizabeth, have you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you.”
He tossed a lumpy envelope emblazoned with the name of the resort into my lap. “What’s this?” I asked.
“Open it.”
The flap wasn’t sealed. I extracted a dime bag of bluish pills. “What are these?”
“Fentanyl.”
I stared at him. Even in my darkest days, I’d never tried that one. “Why do you have fentanyl?”
“There’s something else in there.”
I scraped my nails along the inside of the envelope, extracting a photo, cut to wallet-size. I turned it faceup. My heart stopped. It was a picture of Iris. She was smiling before a birthday cake with lit candles, a chubby little blond girl I recognized as her daughter in her lap.
“What is this?” I managed.
“It’s Felicity’s.”
I squinted at him, confused. “What?”
“She’s—” He sat heavily on the couch next to me. “I had nothing to do with this. She didn’t tell me until after she did it—”
I was beginning to panic. “Nothing to do with what? What are we talking about?”
He ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Last night when we were all at the bar, Madison swam over to your bungalow and entered through the deck. She’s the one who sent the text from my phone, so you’d leave your room and she could break in.”
A tremendous clap of thunder crashed overhead. “Madison broke into our bungalow? Why?”
“She’d overheard both you and Taylor trying to get me to replace her with Felicity, and she had this idea Felicity wasn’t who she said she was. Something about being in acting class with a girl that looked exactly like her—anyway, she went over there and rooted around in Felicity’s things, trying to prove it. Found the picture and the drugs zippered in her wallet.”
My brain strained to run in a million different directions. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eye sockets until I saw stars, listening to the wind whistling around the boarded-up windows. The only reason Felicity would have a picture of Iris in her wallet…It couldn’t be. It would mean she’d been lying to me from day one. I opened my eyes and scrutinized the picture. The little girl was seven or eight, and if you imagined what her round cheeks might look like slimmed down, it was true she bore a resemblance to Felicity, aside from the nose and the fact that she had blond hair and blue eyes. But eye color and hair color could be changed, as could a nose. And the fentanyl…“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Felicity is Iris’s daughter.”
The words I didn’t want to hear.
“But why is she here?” I asked, bewildered.
“She targeted you, and you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Who do you think has been leaking those photos to the press?”
“Madison,” I responded, for the first time doubting my logic.
“Guess again.” He crossed his arms. “Who’s controlling your pills, huh? Who do you really think slipped something in your drink at Coco’s? You know it wasn’t me. Why would I do that? I’m producing the movie. I need you insured and ready to shoot. And now Mary Elizabeth—who you hired Felicity to care for—has disappeared, causing you to miss the ferry? Why do you think that is?”
I bit my lip, turning it over in my mind. I didn’t want to believe it, but the math added up. God, I needed a drink. “Maybe she knew we were important to her mother and wanted to get to know us?”
He snorted. “Sure. The same girl who accused me of killing her mother years ago just wants to get to know us.”
My head snapped up. “What the hell? You never told me that.” His jaw tensed as he studied my face, clearly weighing whether to elaborate. I crossed my arms to match his as another crack of thunder exploded
