The thing about my daughter was that, while so much of what she said was overdramatic, even when I pretended to brush her off, what she said stuck. Did Alice really have three dead husbands? Was that how she had gotten this house? And, even if that was true, could she actually have killed them? The minute Iris said that it all came flooding back to me. That was what I had heard about Alice. That was what Juniper Shores Socialite had meant by “the Black Widow’s fourth victim.” She meant it literally. I couldn’t shake my very, very unsettled feeling.

But for the moment, we were here. Worst-case scenario, we could pack our bags tomorrow. Since we had next to no stuff, it wouldn’t take long. Or maybe we could at least wait until I found a job?

I had sent out a dozen or so résumés to investment firms in New York and North Carolina while I was in Chapel Hill, and, as I expected, crickets. No one was really thrilled about hiring a woman whose husband was in jail for suspected wire fraud, one who, sure, had been a rising star at one point, but who hadn’t worked in fourteen years. Tomorrow I would start making phone calls. It was harder to turn someone down voice to voice when you were old friends.

Alice was looking out the window, onto the pool deck. Three little girls were splashing around with an older one watching them.

I turned back toward the kitchen. A woman who looked vaguely familiar walked down the steps barefoot, in a pair of fitted pants that just skimmed her ankles and a sleeveless gauze top half-tucked in the way chic Instagrammers did but I could never quite—“Oh my gosh!” I said, recognizing her. “You’re Growing with Grace! That’s why you can do the cool Instagram Mom half-tuck!”

I put my hand to my mouth, immediately embarrassed. Iris was glaring at me, as well she should. That was not my finest moment. But Grace just laughed. “I think you’ll find I’m decidedly less cool than I appear on Instagram.”

I scrunched my nose. “But certainly cooler than I am. Forgive me. I lived in New York for years and never once accosted a celebrity.”

“Grace,” Alice said, saving me from myself, “this is Charlotte Sitterly and her daughter, Iris. They are going to be staying with us for a while.”

Grace shook our hands. “I can’t wait to get to know you both.”

She walked over to the kitchen island and pulled a pan out of the drawer.

Trying to add some levity to the situation, I said, “And I will pretend that I don’t already know everything about you.”

She laughed. “Oh, you’ll have plenty to learn. I’ve mastered the art of showing people what they want online while very skillfully avoiding anything real.”