There were marks between her toes, so tiny and hidden. While Taured spoke about her drug use, explaining how Lorraine had taken pains to hide it from everyone, Summer was thinking about how to kill him. How to make him lie dead on that table instead of her mama. The closest thing to her was a block of meat, so hard and frozen it was purple. While his head was still bent, her arm darted out to pluck it from the shelf. It was heavy but it felt good. Summer lifted it as Taured looked up. She threw it like Skye had thrown the baseball at her, a projectile of her anger. For a moment it sailed toward him, a strong line. Summer felt a pure pulse of adrenaline. And then the rock-hard meat hit the wall beside his head. He looked stunned, and then he smiled.

Marshall dragged her out as she screamed, “I’ll kill you!” over and over.

16

Now

The elevator doors were already open, so she stepped in, joining a middle-aged man in swim trunks who looked overly pleased with himself for some reason. He was dripping on the floor, his fleshy shoulders already showing a painful sunburn. He smiled at her, and Rainy felt nausea creeping in. She wished she’d thought to bring some aspirin. When the elevator doors opened, she rushed out, holding the back of her hand to her mouth. I will never drink again, she told herself.

She could barely hear her own thoughts over the humming of people and machines. Sweat was swimming across her skin despite the air-conditioning. She’d written a long text to Grant before she got out of bed, detailing their night, but leaving out the parts that were uncomfortable to remember. She trotted through the lobby and saw Braithe just through the doors, walking quickly, her phone pressed to her ear like she was trying to escape the noise. Maybe she was talking to Stephen. Rainy tried Grant again as she kept walking toward signs for the pool. She had no idea where she was going, but she didn’t want to be in the mess of noise and lights. When she stepped into the sunshine, she felt a thousand times better than she had ten minutes ago. Lying by the pool was exactly what she needed to decompress from last night. The concrete around the pool was still wet from the previous day’s rain; hotel workers were sweeping up the dirt from a potted palm that had fallen over.

“Wow, some storm, huh,” she said to Ursa as she tossed her bag on the lawn chair.

“Apparently, the wind blew some bottles over in their little bar, so they don’t have vodka for my screwdriver. How cruel is the wind.” One long leg was tented up and swaying from side to side as Ursa watched the bar over the top of her glasses. “They’ve gone to get more,” she told Rainy.