Kennedy called out again. Gabby was torn, fascinated by the nonsense this guy was spewing but desperate to be there for Liam and Kennedy.

She should walk away. Rip up the card and go . . . but she knew Baines didn’t kill himself. Something else happened in that room. That was her only excuse for prodding for more information. “What exactly are you saying?”

He nodded at the card in her hand. “Call me when you’re ready to hear the truth about how Baines really died.”

Chapter Thirteen
The Foundation

The Foundation didn’t hold many emergency meetings. This week they did.

They couldn’t exactly use phones or email to communicate. The Foundation chat group, to anyone outside looking in, read as nothing more than a scheduling tool. But they had a secret code. When someone asked about trying to arrange a book club, they all knew to access their burner phones and prepare to meet.

Little more than a week had passed since their usual session.

After a bit of shuffling, everyone took a seat. Quiet fell over the room as they all looked up, bright-eyed and ready to take on a new challenge. Metaphorically ready for battle while sitting in business suits and sipping coffee.

“I apologize for the emergency session.”

The mumbling and shifting didn’t break informal protocol or any stated rule, but a pulsing feeling of dread descended on the room, and that wasn’t normal.

“We have a problem.”

Chapter Fourteen
Jessa

With the funeral over and behind her, Jessa wanted to concentrate on an impromptu ladies’ night of pizza and wine at home, but Gabby’s outrage still rang in her head. Jessa had attended as part of an obligation. To be nice.

That would teach her.

Jessa didn’t want to admit it, but seeing Gabby had been unsettling. That haughty tone of hers, the voice reeking of disappointment. The biting verbal strikes. Jessa didn’t need any of it. She worked for condescending assholes and had enough crap unloaded on her every day, thanks.

Gabby’s and Jessa’s lives had diverged so dramatically after law school. Gabby, already engaged during second year, chose marriage over a legal career. A man instead of using that great big brain of hers. Those choices, shortsighted and lame to Jessa—a waste of ability and promise—filled her with a silent sense of superiority. Those feelings only grew when she found out Gabby’s marriage was over. Now what? Would Gabby run back to a career track she’d abandoned or relax into the role of rich, pissed-off former wife?

Something about Gabby brought out the worst in Jessa. Neither of them had been graced with an easy upbringing. Both raised without much money or family support. They’d discussed that when they met. Gabby never knew her dad, and her mom died of breast cancer during junior high, leaving her to be raised by a concerned aunt and uncle.