Chapter Three

Hazel's POV

By the time I got back to the apartment, the flight confirmation from Ms. Harrington's assistant was already in my inbox. Seven a.m., the day after tomorrow, to Zurich.

I packed my passport and a few of my go-to outfits, then walked over to the fridge.

The first post-mortem was still stuck to it. The corners had curled, and the highlighter had faded a long time ago. I pulled it down, then dug the other seventeen out of a drawer in the study. For seven years, I'd printed every single one, stapled it, and filled the margins with notes. Stacked together, they were about two inches thick. On the last page of every one, I'd written the same thing: I'll get it right next time.

I sat down on the floor and tore them up, page by page.

When I was done with the post-mortems, I grabbed the metronome I'd rehearsed to every night and the stopwatch on my nightstand, along with the dresses and pearl earrings on Graham's wardrobe list, and dumped all of it into a trash bag.

For years, I'd squeezed myself into the box he drew for me, cutting away whatever part of me didn't fit. Now that I was done with the box, I didn't have to cut away anything else.

When I tied the bag shut, I was surprised by how light I felt.

I picked up my phone to call Graham and break up with him, but before I could, the screen lit up with an unknown number.

"Hi, I've got your delivery. The hangover soup and electrolyte drinks for 17 Lakeside Road? I rang the bell forever and nobody answered. The order's under Graham Whitaker. I'm just gonna leave it on the porch, okay?"

I froze.

Graham and I shared a delivery account, and my number had always been the one on file. But 17 Lakeside Road was the lake house Graham and I had picked out together seven years ago.

His rule was that neither of us could move in until the wedding happened. So for seven years, we'd been crammed into this rented apartment. He said he'd hand me the key to that house himself on our wedding night.

I drove over. It was a forty-minute drive, and I made it in thirty.

Sure enough, the delivery bag was sitting on the porch, and the front door was cracked open.

Graham had taken the keys the day we signed the papers seven years ago. I'd stood by the lake and pictured opening this door a thousand times. Not once had I imagined what I'd find behind it.

The furniture was still under dust sheets, but the living room was already a disaster. Two wine glasses had tipped over on the coffee table, one with lipstick on the rim, and there was a huge wine stain on the beige rug. Sloane was sprawled on the white sofa I'd spent three months choosing, her heels kicked off to the side, slurring her words. "This is all your fault. You wrote Hazel this huge post-mortem and made her so mad she left. She didn't even stay to cut the cake!"

"Okay, okay. My fault." Graham sat on the arm of the sofa, slipped off her other shoe, and slowly rubbed the ankle she'd twisted. "I won't put the cake thing in there."

His head was bent, and his face had gone so soft I barely recognized him.

So he did know how to be sweet to someone.

At his company's holiday party last winter, I'd had too much to drink and leaned against his shoulder for a second in the elevator. He took my keys right then and made me sit on the steps outside our building until I sobered up. It was below zero that night. I sat there wrapped in my coat until three in the morning, and the next day I was running a fever of 102. He put it in my post-mortem: drunk and out of line. I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since.

And now he'd broken his own rule. He'd brought a drunk Sloane into our house and let her trash the place.

I pushed the door open, and Graham looked up.

Panic flickered across his face for a split second. Then he saw the delivery bag in my hand, and his brows snapped together.

"Rule number three. No snooping on each other's plans before the wedding. You went through my orders?"

"That's going in the post-mortem."

Not one word of explanation. Just blame.

All of a sudden, I was so tired I didn't even want to argue.

"Graham, let's break..."

Before I could finish, Sloane stumbled off the sofa and threw herself at me.

"You can't write her up!"

She shoved Graham out of the way and grabbed my hand, refusing to let go. "Hazel, you didn't even come cut the cake today. Are you still mad at me?"

"It's not like I stole your wedding on purpose. Here, take your ring back. Can we please make up?"

She tugged the wedding band off her finger and tried to shove it onto mine with shaky hands, but she kept missing.

The smell of alcohol on her was so strong I winced. I tried to pull my hand back, and a sharp pain shot through my fingertip. One of the prongs on the setting had sliced it open.

Before I knew it, Graham had shoved me aside and grabbed Sloane's hand. I stumbled back into a side table under a dust sheet, and my lower back throbbed.

He turned to look at me like I was some lunatic who'd hurt her on purpose.

"Hazel, are you out of your mind?"

It hurt so much I sucked in a breath, and the cry got stuck in my throat.

He flung the bloody ring onto the floor, helped Sloane back onto the sofa, and dug out a first aid kit to clean her up. As he wrapped the gauze, he murmured to her, "Does it hurt? Hang in there. Almost done."

The blood on her hand was mine. One swipe with a tissue and it would've been gone.

But he wrapped her finger up like a mummy.

Even that didn't put his mind at ease. He scooped Sloane up in his arms and grabbed my car keys off the entryway table on his way out.

"I'm taking her to urgent care for a tetanus shot. You go back to the apartment and think about what you did!"

"The wedding's back on when she stops being mad at you!"

The front door slammed shut behind him, and a freezing wind blew in off the lake.

I looked down at the blood dripping from my fingertip, and my voice came out so quiet only I could hear it.

"Graham, I'm the one who's bleeding."