She’d met Spencer at her worst. She got so drunk on their first date that she still couldn’t understand why he’d ever asked for a second. It took a year to wean herself off the painkillers she’d kept taking long after her ankle had healed and the booze that wrapped her double-edged depression in a cloud of cotton wool. When the cravings were too bad to bear, she’d head for the gym. She’d been clean for six months when they married.
The anxiety was harder to shake. She found it difficult to socialize, but Spencer didn’t seem to mind. He was always jetting off to meet a client in one exotic locale or another. There were a handful of events he needed her to attend every year. The rest of the time, Rosamund stayed at home with all the other beautiful things he’d collected.
She felt guilty that she wasn’t yet well enough to be by his side.
“Rosamund, don’t torture yourself,” he told her. “I love you just as you are.”
She adored Spencer. She honestly believed that he’d saved her. She tried so hard to be better for him.
She’d spotted the flyer on the bulletin board at Furious Fitness when they were in town to see what their decorator had done at the new house Spencer had bought on the Pointe. “PERSONAL ASSISTANT, CARETAKER, NANNY,” read the headline. At the bottom of the page was a photo of a teenage girl who looked like Anne of Green Gables. Rosamund laughed. The girl was just what she needed. Someone to answer the fan mail that still came. Someone to make her the smoothies that would help her get into shape. Someone to hold her back from the edge. At the bottom of the page, the same telephone number had been typed a dozen times, and the paper was cut into a tear-away fringe. Rosamund ripped a number off and dialed it when she got to the car.
The girl’s name was Mandy, and Rosamund’s call took her by surprise. No one else had answered the ad. After she heard that, Rosamund offered her twice as much as she’d planned. She could sense how desperately the girl needed money, and it made her feel good to be able to give it. When she got off the phone, Rosamund felt more hopeful than she had in ages. Mandy was coming to see her that afternoon.
As evening approached, Rosamund waited and waited, but the girl never showed. She kept calling Mandy’s number, and once she could have sworn she heard a phone ringing.
She told Spencer about it when he brought her a cup of tea. “Go to bed, darling,” he advised. “You’re upset and your mind’s playing tricks on you. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
She didn’t feel better, though. She felt groggy and sick.
After that night, she began seeing things—like the long, black hair on his robe. She heard strange sounds in the dark. Visitors seemed to arrive at strange hours of the night. Rosamund was acting crazy, her husband said. And Spencer was getting very worried.
Then she discovered the photos. There were three inside a portfolio case. At the bottom of one, someone had written FAITH. Rosamund stole an unlabeled photo and stuck it in a locker at the gym. Even then, she wasn’t convinced that it was what it looked like. It had to be some kind of weird art instead. Then Chertov showed up at the gym, and she knew she’d found something real.
That was Rosamund’s last truly lucid memory.
“Depressive psychosis,” the doctor called it. He prescribed pills that arrived in an unlabeled bottle. He trained Spencer to administer a sedative in emergency situations.
She stopped taking her pills after the woman from the gym showed up at the beach. When her head had cleared, she couldn’t take her mind off the photo. The more she thought about it, the more terrified of her husband she grew. If the gym lady didn’t come back soon, she’d ask Claude to help her escape from the Pointe.
Invasive Species
Every few minutes or so, a client arrived at Furious Fitness in workout gear, gym bag slung over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Heather would say, handing each of them a gift certificate for the smoothie place down the street. “We’re having plumbing problems, so we’ll be closed for the next hour. Have a treat on us while you wait.”
From her position right outside the changing room, Jo kept one eye on the entrance and the other on the crime scene. She watched anxiously as another client was sent away with a coupon. Thirty-two had already claimed one. “Any idea how much longer this will take?” she asked Franklin. “I’m not sure how many smoothies I can afford.”
“Looks like they should be finishing up soon,” Franklin said as the crime scene technician began packing his equipment. The combination lock had been bagged as evidence, as had the photo. The technician had dusted the inside and outside of the locker in question, but only two partial prints had been found. Jo, Nessa, and Harriett had all supplied fingerprints for comparison.
Jo heard the front door open once again. This time, Chief Rocca charged into the gym without so much as a glance at the young woman who’d held the door for him. He marched back toward the changing room, acknowledging Jo with a perfunctory nod as he passed.
She followed Rocca and watched him do a double take when he spotted Nessa and Harriett sitting on a changing room bench a few feet from the locker in which the photo had been found.
“All three of them were here?” the chief of police addressed Franklin brusquely.
“Yes,” Franklin responded.
“I’m sure you’ve made it clear to the ladies that everything they’ve seen and heard today must remain confidential for the sake of the case.”
“That’s going to be hard,” Harriett said. “Everyone knows ladies can’t resist the urge to gossip.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Osborne,” the chief acknowledged her coldly. “Taking some time off from your gardening?”
“I prefer Ms. Osborne,” Harriett corrected him.
He replied with a lazy, lizardlike blink and returned his attention to Franklin. “This the locker where the photo was found?”
“Yes,” Franklin confirmed, as Rocca squatted down in front of the locker. “Ms. Levison is the owner of the gym. She believes that the locker was being used by Rosamund Harding.”
Rocca’s head spun around to face Jo. “Do you have a record of Mrs. Harding renting the locker?”
“No,” Jo said. “It was being used without a rental agreement.”
“Were any of Mrs. Harding’s belongings discovered inside the locker?”
“No,” Franklin answered this time.
Rocca stood up. “Then how do we know that Rosamund Harding ever laid a finger on this locker?”
“The lock’s combination was F-A-I-T-H,” Jo said. “The only reason I was able to crack it was because Rosamund tossed an apple to Harriett and me with that word carved into it.”
Chief Rocca responded with a snort. “I’m sorry, she what?”
“She—”
“No, no.” Rocca cut her off, as though he had no time to spare and no interest in anything else she might say. “I heard you the first time—and once was more than enough. Let’s just hope someone left some prints on that photo.”
“But—”