Page 57

“You?” Sienna asks, disbelief written all over her face.

I nod.

“It was nothing. Really. The muse hit me last night, so I was writing up a storm, but apparently Jordan could hear me striking the keys on my laptop. That and I might have had some music playing in the background to keep my flow going.”

“That’s it? What did she say to you? Exactly?”

“I don’t know, Sienna. It was late. She told me to turn the music off, and I did.”

“That’s all that happened?”

“That, and I might have slammed the door in her face.” Sienna’s lips quirk up, but she catches herself in time before a full-fledged smile appears on her face. “She did look all ready for bed,” I add. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d taken an Ambien or something to help her sleep,” I say, remembering what Jordan had been wearing when she knocked on my door, pissed that she couldn’t fall asleep because of my racket.

“Hmm. That does sound like something she would do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was just her time,” Sienna says, though she doesn’t look a hundred percent convinced with that theory. “There’s just one thing that’s bugging me.”

“What’s that?”

“The iron fence.”

“What about it?”

“If Jordan slipped, the trajectory of her fall is all wrong.”

“Sienna, I’m not a cop or an FBI agent. You’re going to have to speak plainly if you want me to understand,” I blurt out, frustrated.

Before Sienna offers up an explanation, she helps herself to another mimosa and holds it out to me.

“I don’t drink.” I shake my head.

“Just checking,” she says before taking a pull. “Here’s my problem with the whole thing. If Jordan simply slipped over that balcony, the most likely scenario is that she would’ve fallen almost straight down. But she didn’t. She landed far enough out to hit the iron fence surrounding the rose garden. The physics of it all just doesn’t add up.”

Now I’m starting to understand why Sienna is so intrigued by Jordan’s untimely demise.

“That’s why you think she jumped,” I say, finally connecting the dots.

“Or was pushed,” she says matter-of-factly, surveying our former classmates mingling throughout the garden.

“No.” I let out an incredulous laugh. “That would mean—”

“That we might have a murderer in our midst? Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”

I swallow hard, then grab the flute of mimosa from her hand and take a long drink, desperate to quench my suddenly parched throat.

“This reunion just got a whole lot more interesting, hasn’t it?” Sienna says with the first genuine smile I’ve seen on her face in years.

I’m not sure what’s more unnerving—the fact that Jordan might have been murdered last night while I was sleeping in the room beside hers, or that my friend seems downright thrilled at the prospect of catching her killer. Either way, the stakes of this reunion just got a whole lot higher.

Chapter 10

Fairhope, January 9th, 2013

“How do you feel?” Milo asks as he slides into the seat beside me.

“About what?” I glance up from my desk, still distracted by the text I got last night.

“What do you mean, about what? The test, Max. I’m talking about the test.”

“Oh, that.” I shrug. “Yeah, I feel okay about it. Ask me again after we’ve actually taken it.”