her free hand, she reaches slowly toward Aster’s elbow, ready to guide her friend away from the stable.
Aster flinches back. “That wasn’t me,” she says, voice pitched high. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“Careful there,” the older woman growls. “Don’t tell me what I saw.” The parasol’s pointy tip jabs the air.
This time, Martina flinches. Mrs. Talbot has likely endured a lifetime of people telling her what she saw or didn’t see, what’s reality and what’s an invention of her brain. Maybe Aster didn’t intend to make any hasty implications, but she needs to let this go.
The parasol jerks then, toward Martina. She lets out a small gasp, raising both hands in front of her.
“And you,” Mrs. Talbot says, eyes narrowing. “You’re the Jenkins girl.”
“Martina,” she manages to get out.
“I’m well aware.” Mrs. Talbot presses her lips together in disapproval. “You’ve done my son no favors with your podcast. Back to stir up more trouble?”
Martina swallows, but her throat stays dry. “We’re very sorry. Again. It’s just, after what Max Adler told police … and they don’t seem to be looking very hard, so we thought we’d try on our own—”
“And what did you find?” Mrs. Talbot shines the bright LED light of the hurricane lamp on Martina’s raised hands. Her fingers are still wrapped around her phone, and something else, a gleam of gold in the lamplight.
Martina tries to shove it back into her jacket pocket, but Mrs. Talbot’s words stop her short.
“I saw you back there, pulling it from the rubble. Is that Zoe’s?”
Martina’s eyes flicker to her friend. “No. It’s Aster’s.”
In the back of her mind, the implications have been spiraling since the second her fingers closed around the gold hoop earring with the helixed twist. The last time she saw Aster wearing them was the afternoon before Martina’s interview with Anna aired. Martina assumed her friend had taken the earrings off to spite her, but the flash in Aster’s eyes now tells Martina she was wrong. Dead wrong.
“You don’t know that,” Aster says, voice high and sharp. “They’re hardly one of a kind.”
But Martina does know. Fear dances across Aster’s face.
“Mrs. Talbot saw you,” she says, not quite gently. “On the grounds, more than once. What have you been doing at Windermere?”
Aster’s eyes dart between Martina and Mrs. Talbot. She takes a step back. For a moment, it looks like she’s going to run, and Martina reaches out toward her friend. Aster flinches away from Martina’s grasp.
“I didn’t—” she starts to say, then falters.
“I’m sure the authorities will sort this out,” Mrs. Talbot says. “If you weren’t doing anything wrong, Aster, there’s no need to worry.” Her voice is brittle.
Aster freezes. Two sets of eyes are trained on her, burning through her skin. To Martina, she looks like a rabbit snared in high beams. Pure panic blooms across her face.
For a second that seems to yawn out forever, no one speaks. No one moves.
Then, lightning quick, Aster’s hand shoots down into the rubble. When she straightens up, she’s clutching a charred metal beam, about the length and width of her forearm.
Martina stumbles back. “What are you doing?”
“Your fucking podcast,” Aster spits, taking a step forward.
Martina’s eyes flicker to Mrs. Talbot, silently willing the older woman to do something, but Mrs. Talbot is stepping back, back, back toward the house. Away from this turn of events.
“I’m sorry,” Martina mutters, although she’s not sorry, not at all, just confused. Her mind whirrs. Aster came here, to the ruins of the Windermere stable, the day the interview with Anna aired. She lost her earring. And that’s not the only time Mrs. Talbot has seen her on the grounds. Now Aster is threatening her. She’s missing dots, or lines to connect them, can’t think at all with Aster stepping toward her again, beam trembling in her hand.
“You ruined everything, Martina. Can’t you see that?”
Martina can’t see anything beyond the twisted piece of metal in Aster’s hand. She swallows. “I ruined everything,” she repeats. Her heart is pounding. She can’t outrun Aster, star athlete versus wannabe journalist. All she has are her words, and they’re failing her. “I should never have done the podcast. Gotten involved.”
“You were getting way too close,” Aster continues. “Back in July. Someone took the flash drive, and Caden’s stupid apology card. It was you.”
It was Anna, Martina thinks, but this is hardly the time for technicalities. “You set the fire,” she says numbly.
“You can’t prove that,” Aster snaps, panic rising in her voice. “You need to back off.