Gabby stopped, all thoughts of finding a moment of peace gone. “Natalie? What about her?”

He folded his arms in front of him and faced her. No more looking around or seeming dejected. His expression was unreadable and not at all open. “Detective Schone suggested Natalie’s death may not have been an accident.”

Oh no . . . The anxiety simmering inside Gabby ratcheted up, bringing darkness and panic with it. “She’s reaching. It’s what the police do. They find pieces of your past and try to make nothing seem like something. It’s . . . I mean . . .”

“You’re babbling.”

His flat tone touched off a renewed round of alarm. She struggled to keep her voice even, not letting the outside mirror the terror inside. “I’m upset.”

“About what?”

Pivot, pivot, pivot. The word screamed in her head. “How can you ask that?”

“Detective Schone told me you knew more than you were saying about Natalie’s death. That you have information you were hiding from me.”

Not this. Not now. Gabby tried to hold on. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

He didn’t move. “Tell me the truth about the fire.”

Chapter Sixty-Two
Jessa

Jessa was in hour four of running through scenarios and case examples with Retta. So far, getting invited to full membership with this group was harder than getting through law school.

They’d been locked in the office Retta and Earl shared at their home for most of the afternoon. Not the most enjoyable way to spend a Saturday, but Jessa couldn’t exactly say no. Retta insisted this was part of the process for a potential new member of the foundation behind the Foundation, or whatever the group’s official title was. Jessa was too tired to ferret that out.

Retta left to take a call with her sons. Something about a family trip over the holidays. The break trapped Jessa in a room full of books when she really wanted to find the kitchen and get something to eat.

Talking with Retta burned through Jessa’s reserves. The granola from this morning was long gone. The anxiety and fear of being wrong stole her energy. So did the control needed to not ask about Gabby and Baines.

Gabby. Jessa wanted to put her old law-school chum and her problems in a box on the shelf and forget them. Gabby’s problems were not her problems . . . but they did overlap. Sort of.

If the group called for Baines’s death, a solution Jessa believed should only be used for the most extreme cases, she couldn’t make the choice make sense. Retta lying about it only made her want to dig for more details.

Damn it, Gabby.

Jessa glanced at the open door to the hallway then back to the desk. No. She couldn’t. She didn’t even know what she’d be looking for. But still . . .