The discussion lasts fifteen, twenty minutes, and I refill my glass a second time. I never ate dinner and a buzz creeps over me. It’s not quite a pleasant buzz, but numbing enough to loosen me up. Maybe Cora’s friends are nice people, I consider. Maybe they’re not haughty Bury rich bitches who demand the world revolve around them. Maybe I’ll even see some of them again. Perhaps even make a friend.

A friend would be nice.

“Your husband died of an overdose, right?”

The words strike through the numbness, jolting me. The woman who said them sits across from me, her dyed-blond hair worn in a long, straight bob, her fleshy cheeks flush from alcohol. She’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, her body language more aggressive than the others.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” I ask.

“Sylvia.”

“Yes, Sylvia, he did.”

“I Googled you,” she says.

“Okay.”

“There was an article in a Milwaukee newspaper. That’s where you’re from, right?”

“I’m from here,” I say. “But we were living in Milwaukee. I’m not sure how that’s—”

“Sorry, you must think I’m incredibly nosy,” she says, half laughing and not looking the least bit sorry. “But Cora told me a bit about you, and I couldn’t resist Googling you after we agreed to read your book for the club. I saw the article about your husband, and then I read the book. I was just wondering… Is it weird?”

I can only offer the blankest of stares. “Is what weird? Being a widow at the age of thirty-seven?”

She shakes her head. “No. The scene in the book with Connor. The fact that he also dies from an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. And that he was about the same age as your husband.”

She sits up and purses her lips in satisfaction, as if she’s just accidentally solved a Rubik’s Cube.

Someone lets out the smallest of gasps. I’m not sure who.

“Jesus, Sylvia,” a woman named Claire says. “What a thing to ask.”

“I’m just saying. I’m curious. Life imitating art.” She leans back against her chair, and it looks like she’s fighting an impulse to smile. “I mean, come on. Doesn’t anyone else find that strange?”

I bore a hole through her with my gaze, and my temperament and the booze work in tandem to make a decision on how to respond.

Fuck this person.

“First,” I say, “yes, you’re right. You are incredibly nosy. Not to mention highly insensitive. Second, the character in the book was murdered. So what the hell are you suggesting?”

She blanches and her smug expression evaporates.

“Look, I’m sorry, I just—”

“Just what?” I say. “You decide it’s okay to bring up my recently deceased husband because you found it strange? And you think I killed him just because I know how to write a mystery novel?”

Her lips curl inward, and she squeezes onto the arms of the chair. “I said no such thing. And I don’t appreciate your tone.”