know where I am. You don’t know what it’s like to be hated so much that if the idiot who hates you had a gun he’d shoot you dead.”
No. I didn’t. Other than the accident, I hadn’t known violence. I had never feared for my life.
Her eyes went wide, then she squeezed them tight. “Forget I said that. I’m just hyper-emotional.”
But emotion alone couldn’t explain away real fear. “Is the idiot your ex-husband?”
“Please, Maggie,” she begged, eyes open now, “I shouldn’t have said anything. You know how it is with relationships that go bad, he said she said, two sides to every story, yadda yadda. I shouldn’t have mentioned him at all.”
But she had. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would hate her that much. “Would he come after you?”
She scrabbled the air with frantic hands. “It’s over, finished, just stirred up by this shit with Chris, but please forget what I said. You don’t want to know. Trust me. You’re better off if you don’t.”
She was right about that. Hadn’t Michael Shanahan already asked me about her? The less I knew, the more innocent I remained.
Of course, I knew now that she’d had relationships with the four men whose accounts were hacked, that they all looked like her ex-husband. I knew now that she had an ex-husband. And here I was, basically helping her hide behind a new head of hair.
That said, violence was something else. I couldn’t shake the idea. Edward had never been violent—had never come close to being violent—not once, in all the dark days that had followed Lily’s death.
Considering that, I felt more kindly toward him.
So when he wrote, Can Andrew Russ handle major renovations? I waited only until I finished cutting Grace’s hair to write, Yes. He’s new, smart, state-of-the-art.
I was midway through my eleven o’clock when he wrote, Landscaping? Trees? Moldy basement? Bats in the attic?
Why did you buy that house? I returned when my client asked for a minute to answer a text of her own. The woman in question had just turned sixty-five, hence the lunch in her honor, and she looked so like my mother that I spent extra time with her makeup.
Actually, she didn’t look anything like my mother. The only thing the same was their age.
But I spared nothing—used only my newest products, layered luminous foundation over tinted moisturizer over multiple concealers. I did her eyes in the softest navies and grays, and her cheeks with a dash of peach. Mascara? Only enough to delineate the lashes.
She called me a genius.
I didn’t feel it—should have known better than to encourage conversation with Edward—when I went out to get my next client and he waylaid me in the corridor. He had clearly been to that moldy house, since he had showered and put on clean jeans. He answered my question in a Spa whisper. “I needed a place to stay, and it was for sale.”
Continuing toward the lounge, I whispered back, “You could have stayed at the Inn. It has a Presidential Suite—Bridal Suite—Honeymoon Suite—whatever you call it this week.”
Edward kept pace. “I don’t want the owner’s suite at the Inn. I want a house. This one’s a winner. It just needs a little work.”
“A little? Is that what your text was about?”
“Okay, a lot, but I got the place dirt cheap, so the ROI will be good.”
I stopped walking before we were visible to others. Edward would attract notice. He was that striking.
Quietly, I said, “Andrew Russ can coordinate everything. He’s a great guy.”
“You know him well?”
“He did my kitchen and bathroom. I’ve done his wife’s makeup.” I moved past him. “Sorry, but I have a client.”
I spotted her the instant I was out in the open, and broke into a heartfelt smile. I knew this client. She was my absolute favorite. The appointment had been booked in her mother’s all-too-common surname, Smith, rather than her family name, Kalmbach, so I hadn’t made the connection. Seeing her in the lounge gave me an immediate lift. It helped that Edward disappeared, but I would have given her a huge hug regardless.
A referral from Joe Hellinger, fourteen-year-old Madelyn Kalmbach had been born with a port wine stain covering half of her face. She’d had laser treatments since toddlerhood, and the stain was greatly faded from what I had seen in early photos. What remained of it were stubborn areas that had either resisted treatment or that were too close to sensitive areas, like her eye, to allow it. Makeup made sense.