with my father’s business associates’ kids and a ton of presents. I made quite a haul every Christmas, too. It’s still that way. Anything I want, I just ask for, and I usually get it. My dad sort of dotes on me now. I think it’s to make up for all the time he wasn’t around when I was a kid. He’s really overprotective. That’s why I’m going to school here. It’s only forty-five minutes away.” She made a face. “My mom and I don’t exactly get along. She’s the Botox queen of the Gold Coast. It’s gotten so her expression never changes. I honestly can’t tell anymore if she’s mad at me or happy. I’m terrified I’ll grow up to be just like her, because she was an only child, too. And I’m an heiress, like her. She went to school here, too.”
“Was she here when those murders happened?” Hannah asked.
“No, that was like fifty years ago. She came here years after that. She’s fifty-seven.” Rachel glanced at her wristwatch. “God, it’s twenty to ten. I didn’t realize it was so late. The Jewel’s closing soon. We better get going. I’m buying you guys a fan for your bedroom. It was like a sauna when I was smudging in there this afternoon.” She waved at the waiter. “Dante! Check, please—and could you box this up?” She pointed to what was left of their pizza.
Hannah reached into her purse, but Rachel insisted on paying for dinner, since she’d invited her. Hannah thought it was a pretty sweet deal having a rich roommate.
Minutes later, they stepped out of Bellini’s—right into the beginnings of a thunderstorm. The rain was just starting to come down—sporadic, heavy drops.
The two of them hurried across the street to take cover under some shop awnings. Hannah spotted the sign for the Jewel-Osco supermarket down at the end of the next block. Delmar’s main drag was only three blocks long and didn’t even have a stop light. She figured it was about a mile back to St. Agnes Village—and they were going in the opposite direction.
“Maybe we should head back now before it really starts to pour,” Hannah suggested, glancing over her shoulder. “I don’t really need to go to the store. I can survive without a fan for one night.”
“Nonsense, I’ll just call Perry,” Rachel said, talking loudly to compete with the patter of rain on the awning overhead. She fished her cell phone out of her purse. “He can drive us. No sense getting caught in a monsoon.”
“Who’s Perry?” Hannah asked. There was a crack of thunder, and she flinched.
“He’s our ride.” Rachel kept walking, but slowed down as she worked her thumbs over her phone screen. “Did you see Alden and me when we took off earlier? Perry was driving the Town Car. My father hired him. Like I told you, my dad’s overprotective. When I first started school here, he actually had three guys working in shifts on bodyguard duty. I think my parents were worried I’d get kidnapped or something. Twenty-four-seven, one of them was always in a car parked by the entrance to Saint Agnes Village—like it was a stakeout or something. Totally ridiculous. After a couple of months, I persuaded my father to narrow the team down to one guy. Anyway, that’s Perry. He’s sort of like my bodyguard and babysitter. But mostly, he’s my chauffeur.”
“Like your own personal Uber,” Hannah said. “Is he still staked out by the front gate to the village?”
“No, thank God,” Rachel said, putting her phone away. “He lives here in town, and he’s on call. Talk about a cush-cush job. I don’t think he’s much of a bodyguard. If somebody actually wanted to kidnap me, I’d be in real trouble. Still, it’s nice to have him around in situations like this. He’ll meet us outside the Jewel.”
Rachel was right. After they picked up a few items— including the last box fan in stock—Rachel and Hannah stepped out of the supermarket to find the Lincoln Town Car waiting for them. A stocky, thirty-something man with a crew cut and a five o’clock shadow stood by the car. He had an umbrella ready, and opened the back door for them. Hannah barely got wet, even with all the rain.
“Perry, this is Hannah, my roommate and ‘little sister,’” Rachel said, once he pulled out of the parking lot. “You’re going to see a lot of her in the coming year.”
“Hi,” Hannah said.
The rain beat on the car roof, and the windshield wipers squeaked a bit. Hannah saw the driver glance at her in the rearview mirror. He nodded.
“Perry’s a man of few words, aren’t you, Perry?” Rachel said. “What were you in the middle of when I texted? Don’t tell me you had a hot date. I’ll hate myself for interrupting.”
“Nothing that important,” he answered seriously. “I’m here to serve.”
Hannah had a feeling he didn’t like being teased. She noticed him eyeing her in the rearview mirror again.
After he pulled over in front of the bungalow, he jumped out and opened their door. Then he held the umbrella over both of them—while he walked in the downpour—right up to the cottage’s front door.
It was completely dark inside, and Hannah realized Eden still hadn’t come back.
She noticed Perry unlocked the door with his own key. “I should do a house check,” he announced. He nodded at the front of the bungalow. Beside the big picture window was a smaller one they’d left open. “I don’t like that open window.”
“C’mon, give me a break,” Rachel said, stepping inside and switching on the light. “The window’s got a screen on it, and all the other windows have bars on them . . .”
“Just doing my job,” he said. Collapsing his umbrella, he started in after them and then slipped off his shoes. Hannah was startled to see him head right into Eden’s and her bedroom.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Tightly wound,” she whispered. “But he means well.” She set down the fan, plopped on the sofa, and switched on the end-table lamp. Then she glanced around. “Where’s Eden anyway?”
“Beats me,” Hannah sighed. She set her grocery bag beside the fan on the floor. “This is classic Eden behavior, disappearing for hours at a time and being incommunicado.”
Perry came through the living room again. He stopped by the window and got ready to close it.
“Oh please, spare us!” Rachel cried. “We’ll suffocate.”
“Some rain’s getting in,” he said.
“I don’t care. I can live with a wet floor. I promise, we’ll close and lock the stupid window before we go to bed.”
He gave a curt nod and then headed up the stairs.
“There better be nothing missing from my underwear drawer when I check later tonight!” she called.
“That’s inappropriate,” he replied from upstairs.
She grinned at Hannah. “God, I love teasing him. Anyway—that’s really weird about your sister. She’s been gone, like, five hours. You’re not worried?”
“A little bit, I guess,” Hannah admitted.
“Maybe you should call her.”
“She always turns off her phone. I think she does it just to be perverse.”
Still,
