And then she was gone. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the Friends theme song as the credits rolled on the TV. Finally Rowan exchanged a bewildered look with the others. “Is it me, or did Foley just act like a zombie?”
Corinne’s eyes were round. “It was like she fell asleep halfway through the conversation.”
“I guess she doesn’t believe us about Steven,” Aster muttered.
Rowan poked her finger through a small hole in her scrubs. “Then again, maybe we are jumping to conclusions a little quickly. This is Poppy we’re talking about.”
“So you think Elizabeth is making things up?” Aster bit a thumbnail. “I don’t know. What if Steven threatened Poppy, and she fought back?”
“But I don’t even remember seeing them together that night,” Corinne argued. “Except at the very start of the party, when Steven congratulated her.”
Rowan squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t sure she’d seen Steven that night, either—but she’d seen Poppy plenty. Though she’d hung out with her brothers and a bunch of other guys that night, playing lawn bocce and poker, she seemed to have a keen radar for whenever Poppy and James swam into her peripheral vision.
Then she looked at Aster. “You were . . . with Steven that night,” she said delicately. After Steven’s funeral, Aster had confessed that she’d hooked up with him. It was sort of in the manner of I hooked up with that guy, and then he turned up dead. How weird is that? “Was he acting strangely? Did he talk about Poppy?”
Aster’s cheeks bloomed red. “We didn’t exactly talk much.”
Rowan stared at a fluorescent bulb in the ceiling. “Okay. If Poppy did it, and if this has something to do with her murder, who was close to Steven? Who could have done this to her—and to us?”
Corinne gazed blankly ahead. “I don’t know. A girlfriend?”
“When I talked to Elizabeth, she said I was one of many. Maybe someone else he had been with really cared about him. Maybe she was at the party too,” Aster suggested.
“What about what Natasha wanted to tell us?” Rowan whispered, glancing at Natasha’s silent shape beneath the blankets. Mist formed on the inside of the breathing mask whenever she exhaled. “What do you think she knew?”
“And where do you think she was that morning Poppy died?” Aster whispered.
Corinne gulped. “Maybe we’ll never know.”
Rowan leaned her head against the wall. “Or maybe there’s a way to figure this out for ourselves.”
“Figure what out for ourselves?” Corinne asked.
“Well, at least whether Poppy killing Steven is even plausible. I mean, there could be people who saw her somewhere else when Steven died. And we could try to find out who else cared about Steven. But if she did it, maybe she told someone else. Like your dad. Or Evan.” Or James, Rowan thought to herself with a pang.
The others looked skeptical. “Dad might know,” Aster said aloud.
Rowan nodded. “And I’ll talk to James.”
Corinne stood and stretched. “I suppose I could ask Evan—I’ll be seeing her this week to go over final wedding details.” She turned to the door, her shoulders sagging. “I need coffee.”
“I’m going to check if Natasha’s parents are here yet.” Aster smoothed down her scrub shirt and checked her watch.
“I’ll stay here in case she wakes up,” Rowan said.
The door shut again. Rowan leaned back on the chair and listened to the wheezing sounds of the IV machines. Liquid slowly dripped from a bag into Natasha’s veins. Her eyes remained closed, her eyelashes not even fluttering. Somewhere behind those closed eyes, a secret was locked away. Something so awful, someone might have run them off a bridge because of it.
Then Rowan’s borrowed phone pinged, and she looked at the screen. She pulled up the e-mail through the Internet browser and a new missive came in. NEW POST ON THE BLESSED AND THE CURSED, read an e-mail. YOU’LL WANT TO SEE THIS! Rowan’s skin prickled. How strange. She had never signed up to receive alerts from the website. She clicked on the link, suddenly filled with fear. What if it was a post about the crash?
The page popped up on the screen. But the top story was about something else. “Hard(Core) at Work,” read the caption.
A QuickTime video loaded. With shaking fingers, Rowan pressed play, then yelped. There she was on her desk, arching her back and moaning “Yes” and gripping a man’s taut back. Her nameplate, “Rowan Saybrook, Esq.,” was clearly in view, along with the Saybrook’s logo. James collapsed against her as they finished together, the camera never catching his face.
She stopped the video immediately. Goose bumps broke out on her skin. She’d deleted that video. Even deleted it from her trash. Hadn’t she?
Something akin to a snicker sounded from across the room. Rowan did a double take at Natasha’s sleeping form. Her hands were still at her sides, hair fanned out, and her feet pointed up. But one thing had changed. Now there was just the teensiest hint of a smile on her face now. It seemed teasing. Taunting.
Oh, you naive fools, she seemed to be saying. As if she was duping them all.
16