with me even as her boyfriend slid a hand under her shirt. She wants me to see how desired she is, I realized. She wants to make me uncomfortable, make me jealous. I saw it then, the cruel darkness flashing across her eyes as she locked her gaze on mine, a sharp flicker of the real person hiding underneath that copacetic yogic poise.
Michael was cupping her breasts now, and she was still looking at me; I could barely breathe. Her lips moved, almost imperceptibly, into a tiny smirk: I see you. Now that I was looking for it, it was unmistakable. This woman was no stranger to Tahoe, haplessly landing at my front door. She was Nina Ross and she knew exactly who I was.
She knew exactly who I was, and she hated me—quite possibly as much as I hated her.
Why was she here?
Liquid anger lit me up. I thought of my mother’s diary entry: I want to kill them both, mother and daughter. The two of them are single-handedly RUINING US. The woman across the way from me was responsible for our family’s demise. I had to do something about that, for Maman’s sake, for Benny’s, for the sake of all the Lieblings they’d connived to destroy.
I found myself running through all the ways I might confront her, the righteousness with which I could expose her. Wasn’t she going to be shocked—Mortified! Frightened, even!—to realize that I knew who she really was? I took a breath, ready to call her by her real name: Nina Ross you BITCH!
But then she closed her eyes again, and the moment passed. On and on they kept kissing. She knew I was watching, it was so brazen. I moved closer, impatient. There was a stick on the ground; I put my boot on it, and snapped it, hard. Michael’s eyes flew open and met mine. He jumped back, pressing Ashley (Nina!) away with a palm.
She blinked. She gave her wet mouth a quick swipe with the back of her hand and then she smiled at me, that familiar mask settling back across her features. “Oh, there you are!” she chirped, all sweetness and light. Ashley had returned, but now I could detect the mockery in her voice. That smile, so wide I could see her crooked incisors—how could I ever have been convinced it was genuine?
She was babbling an apology now—her leg had cramped up! Different muscle groups than yoga! So sorry. And I thought to myself, You liar. You’re probably not even a yoga teacher at all. Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?
I couldn’t figure it out. Had she come back here looking for Benny? But then, why the disguise? Was there something here that she’d left behind? The more likely scenario, I thought, was that she’d come here to finish the job that her mother had started: She wanted money. Maybe she thought I could somehow be blackmailed, too?
I realized that I had an advantage now: I knew who she was, but she didn’t know that I knew. I had time to figure out what I was going to do about it.
Meanwhile, Michael was looking from her to me and back again, his brow furrowing with concern. Surely he could sense that something had just shifted between us all?
“Sorry to cut this short, but I’m knackered,” he said. “Let’s get off the mountain before we freeze.”
“Too late,” Ashley said, and pasted herself to Michael’s side. “Brrr.” She tucked herself underneath his arm, preening for my benefit. He looked over her head at me, and I could see in his eyes how uncomfortable he was with her little possessive display. Sorry, he mouthed at me. But I was the one who felt bad for him: He didn’t know.
I wondered, with a little flip of my stomach, what past she had manufactured for Michael’s sake. If she was lying to me, she was surely lying to him, too. And what was she trying to get from him? But then, it was obvious, wasn’t it? He was rich. She was after his money.
Like mother, like daughter. I might be her short con, but he was her