Chapter 13: The Gym

Dylan texted at seven the next morning.

I'm at her studio. She teaches a class at eight. I'm going to ask her in front of everyone. You can come or not.

I read it standing at my grandmother's stove.

"Don't go," Marco said, pushing a plate of eggs at me.

"I'm going."

Sam had his keys in his hand before I finished the sentence.

The stairwell photograph was still on the table, with the sliver of gray silk sleeve in its corner.

I turned it face down before I picked up my keys.

"Is he going to ask her about the picture?" Marco asked.

"He hasn't said. He only wrote about the pharmacy."

"I'm driving," Sam said. "I'm staying in the back."

"I know."

"No rescuing," he said. "I remember."

His eyes dropped to my mouth and came back up.

My face went hot, and I took the eggs to the car.

Rhodes Wellness Studio took up the ground floor of a glass building on the Gold Coast.

Twenty women in soft clothes sat on mats in a circle, and Lydia sat at the center in cream linen, her palms turned up.

Dylan stood by the door in yesterday's suit with a folder under his arm.

He looked as if he hadn't slept at all.

"Dylan," Lydia said warmly. "You're early. Join us."

"Where is the pharmacy?" he said.

The women looked up.

"Sweetheart, we should talk privately."

"Your pharmacy. Rhodes Wellness Pharmacy Services. I paid it eleven hundred dollars a month for six months."

He pulled the pages from the folder and held them up.

"The address is your apartment. The canisters were saline. You told me her attacks were in her head while she was breathing salt water."

A woman near the front took out her phone.

Lydia didn't flinch.

She stood up slowly, one hand pressed to her chest, and her eyes filled.

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