“Holy shit.” Jo Levison cackled and let her Toyota Highlander slow to a stop. “What the fuck is going on over there?”
“Come on, Jo,” her husband groaned. “Language?”
“That’s nothing,” droned eleven-year-old Lucy from the back seat. “She says way worse when you’re not around.”
“Snitch!” Jo stuck out her tongue at the rearview mirror.
“She’s not the only one,” Art chided their daughter. “I’ve heard you two talking when you think you’re alone. It’s like listening to a couple of Hells Angels.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes fuck is the only word that will do,” Jo said. “You’d know just how appropriate it is in this case if you bothered to put down your fucking phone.”
Art finished what he was typing and peered over the rim of his reading glasses. When he cracked up, Jo had no choice but to join him. His booming laugh was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. He could be such a prig at times, it was a relief to know he still had a sense of humor.
“What the hell is he doing?”
Brendon Baker was out on his lawn, yanking at the stem of an enormous weed that had consumed an entire flower bed. Jo had driven past his house just the previous day and nothing had seemed amiss. She certainly hadn’t noticed a giant, wicked-looking plant with toothed leaves, long white flowers, and egg-shaped seedpods covered in spikes.
“It’s like something out of Jurassic Park,” Lucy marveled.
They watched as Brendon tried to uproot the plant from a different angle. He bent over to grasp the stem at its base, exposing pasty white flesh and a fur-lined ass crack. Lucy and Jo both made retching noises.
“How would you describe the theme of this scene?” Art asked their daughter.
“The epic struggle of man against nature?”
Art turned to Jo and raised a pompous eyebrow. He’d been helping Lucy with her homework lately.
“I was going to say karmic justice,” Art said, “but sure—‘the epic struggle’ works too.”
The previous summer, the Levison family had been forced to pay a two-hundred-dollar fine when Art hadn’t found the energy to mow the grass one week. At the time, Jo couldn’t figure out who infuriated her most: her husband, who literally had nothing else to do, or the sadist who’d been waiting for Art to neglect one of his few remaining duties.
“Well, I say the motherfucker’s getting what he deserves.”
“Jo.” Art gestured toward the child sitting behind them. “You really want her speaking that way?”
“I wasn’t aware we were raising her to marry into the royal family,” Jo said. “Lucy, darling, which of the princes do you prefer? Gorgeous George or Luscious Louie? Though if you like Cuddly Charlotte, that’s lovely, too.”
“Which one of them is going to be king?” Lucy asked with characteristic bluntness.
“George,” Jo informed her.
“Then I’d choose George, throw him in jail on our wedding night, and take over the United Kingdom.”
Jo swiveled around to give her daughter a high-five.
“You’re setting a bad example.” Art was serious. He never knew when to let it go.
“How exactly am I setting a bad example?” Jo felt her palms grow damp against the steering wheel. The bubbling pocket of heat beneath her sternum began to spread through her body. “I’m raising my daughter to be strong and speak her mind.”
“You’re raising our daughter to get kicked out of sixth grade.”
Jo wheeled around toward him, ready to retaliate.
“Fuck the sixth grade,” said Lucy. “Didn’t we just decide that I’m gonna be queen?”
The car went silent. Then all three howled with laughter. Thirty feet away, Brendon Baker paused his labors and glanced over his shoulder. Lucy ducked below the window and the Levison family laughed even louder as Jo hit the gas and sped away.
Later that evening, Jo thought through the exchange as she stood in the kitchen with her second glass of red wine, waiting for a pot of water to boil. She and Art had narrowly avoided a confrontation, but others were sure to follow. Even when Jo knew one was coming, it still blindsided her. She always walked away feeling like she’d been T-boned at an intersection, and it wasn’t always clear who’d run the red light. Since she’d become the family’s sole breadwinner, the arguments had become an everyday occurrence. Art felt powerless, so he criticized Jo to drag her down to his level. It was all so pathetically transparent, and the unfairness made Jo want to rip him to shreds. She’d taken on the burden of supporting the family only to find herself tending to his fragile ego as well. She loved Art too much to point that out. She just wished he’d get a fucking job.
Jo heard Lucy whoop and glanced over at her husband and daughter. Lucy was on her feet, pumping her fists triumphantly over the Scrabble board while Art bowed down before her. He was an excellent father—warm, attentive, and eager to teach—just as her own father had been. Jo wanted that for her daughter, even if it meant carrying more of the family load. When her business had taken off, Art had resigned from his editing job to pursue his dream of being a playwright. She’d gone along with the plan, assuming he would be taking on more of the housework and childcare duties. Instead, she came home to a filthy house, a hungry child, and a husband who sometimes forgot to shower for days.
When the fights first began, Art swore he’d try harder. Homemaking just didn’t come naturally to him, he said. Dinners were burned. Bills went unpaid. Lucy was often forgotten at school. And slowly, chore by chore, Jo resumed doing it all. In the meantime, Art’s plays weren’t being produced. His agent dropped him. And thanks to a crippling case of writer’s block, he hadn’t typed a single word in months. Jo didn’t want to add to his worries. She prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Art would get his big break and they could go back to having a functioning partnership—before her rage detonated and destroyed them both.
At two o’clock in the morning, Jo woke up drenched in sweat, just as she had almost every night for over a year. She climbed out of bed, stripped out of her T-shirt, and left her yoga pants in a heap by the side of the bed. Bare-chested and wearing only her underwear, she walked out onto the master bedroom’s balcony and stood spread-eagled in the chilly late-spring air. Jo could have sworn she saw steam rising from her muscular limbs. She no longer questioned what was possible. Her body had become a constant source of amazement, even pride. She didn’t duck back inside when a faint glow lit the trees at the edge of her lawn. It grew brighter until a car’s headlights appeared. A slight swivel of his neck, and the driver would see Jo standing there, her naked chest exposed to the elements. But it felt too good to go in. And she’d already given up giving a shit.
As soon her temperature dropped to the normal range for a human, Jo returned to the bedroom and sat cross-legged on the floor. She sensed every atom in her body pulsating. Her nerves buzzed, her synapses crackled, and loaded blood cells raced through her vessels. She’d never be able to sleep right away. Jo closed her eyes and laid her hands in her lap, palms facing up. She visualized the energy coursing through her body’s passageways, traveling up and out through the crown of her head, then cascading around her in a shower of silvery sparks. It was all part of Jo’s regular meditation routine. But for the first time, she experienced a strange sensation in the palms of her hands. She could feel the presence of a fiery ball hovering just above them. Had her eyes been open, she would have seen the bathroom light flicker.
When she climbed back into bed, Art rolled over and threw an arm across her waist. “Everything okay, naked lady?”
“Yeah.” She hadn’t planned to say any more, but it all came out at once. “I was meditating, and it felt like I generated a ball of fire in my hands. I swear to God, Art, I could literally feel it.”
“Hmmm,” Art mumbled sleepily. “That’s great, honey. But can I be honest with you?”
“Sure,” she said warily.
“That’s the dumbest superpower I’ve ever heard of.”
Jo couldn’t stop laughing while he kissed her, and she didn’t stop until his pants were off and he was inside her. That was one thing about their relationship that kept getting better.
For years, the only gym in Mattauk had been a meat market for the recently divorced and soon to be single, where the women wore thousand-dollar outfits and meticulous contouring while middle-aged men pumped and preened for the mirrors. Jo had driven to a dingy old gym in a neighboring town to avoid the scene. Dressed in ten-dollar Old Navy sweatpants and an army surplus tank top, she would climb on a bike and ride until the rage burned off. There was nothing pretty about it. Back then, she was still managing a hotel in Manhattan. On top of her long hours, she spent an hour at the gym every day after work. Art bitched and moaned a few times until she explained that her workouts had probably saved his life. The more time she spent at the gym, the less likely he was to end up buried in the backyard he never bothered to mow.
As the months passed, Jo began to spot more of her neighbors at the run-down gym. Every one of them was a woman her age. Their choice of equipment varied. Some stuck to the treadmill; others showed an unsettling devotion to a particular elliptical. While they worked out, Jo watched their lips form silent curses and their fists punch the air. She saw them walk in wearing prim professional attire and later head for the showers with crimson faces and hair plastered to the sides of their heads. And Jo realized her fellow women had all driven miles out of their way for the same reason she had. They were blowing off steam before they exploded.
Jo saw an opportunity, and for the first time in her life, she leaped on it before anyone else could snatch it away.
She called her gym Furious Fitness. It took up two stories of an old five-and-dime on Mattauk’s main street and accepted only women as members. Jo hired the two hottest male trainers from the meat market gym to offer private sessions, but her other employees were all female. Even though Art wasn’t allowed in the building during business hours, he had been supportive of the enterprise from the very beginning. She waited until the gym was a success to confess that she’d liquidated her 401(k). Fortunately, it didn’t take long to get the business up and running. Jo knew how to give her clients exactly what they were after—and it wasn’t exercise. Almost all of them wanted things to punch, pound, and kick. Even in the dead of winter, her air-conditioning bill was often higher than the rent. The energy released in that one little building could have powered most of Mattauk—or, as Jo sometimes fantasized, burned the whole fucking town down.
Jo was at the front desk when the latest newcomer walked in. She could spot the newbies a mile away. They were almost always in their mid- to late forties, and they all arrived looking lost. No wonder, Jo thought. For decades, they’d been dutifully following the map the world laid out for them. School led to work. Dating led to marriage and then to motherhood. But now those milestones were behind them, and they’d entered uncharted territory. Somewhere in the distance lay the final destination, but that was decades away, and a featureless wasteland seemed to stretch in between. These women, who’d done everything that had ever been asked of them, now felt forsaken. Just when they were reaching the height of their powers, they felt like life had led them astray.
The newcomer approached the counter, where Jo was helping another client. She was wholesome-looking and pretty, with shoulder-length black curls and a large, lovely butt. She wore leggings and a silky pink shirt that would never survive in the wash.
“I’ll be with you in just a minute,” Jo told her, assuming the woman was there for a membership. She usually took newbies under her wing for their first visit. “Have a look around if you like. If I take too long, just go ahead and hop on a machine and knock yourself out.”
“Okay.” The woman smiled shyly, revealing a sweet set of dimples just before she backed away.
Jo kept watch out of the corner of her eye as the woman made her way around the ground floor. She saw her pause at the base of the stairs, glance anxiously toward the second floor, and then retreat to a treadmill near the entrance. She climbed on and stood with a finger hovering a few inches from the screen.
“Just start walking and the machine will guide you through setup,” Jo called out.
Thank you, the woman mouthed gratefully, as though she’d been spared from great embarrassment. Jo watched until she was walking at a steady clip, then turned her attention back to her other client. By the time she made it over to the newbie, the woman was walking with a limp.
“What happened?” Jo reached over to the control panel and brought the treadmill to a halt. “Did you get hurt? Can I help?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing.” The woman smiled through her agony. “Just a cramp in my calf. Not much you can do.”
Jo knew who she was dealing with. The sweet-tempered stoic was a common type. They’d pass out from pain before they dared complain. “Mind if I try?” Jo asked. “I’ve been told I have magic hands.”
The woman stared at Jo with such intensity that Jo wondered if she was attempting to read her mind. “Okay,” she finally said, and sat down at the end of the machine.
Jo gripped the woman’s calf between her hands and let her palms grow hot.
The woman’s eyes widened. “You weren’t joking. How do you do that?”
Jo winked at her. “I channel my hot flashes. Dunno about you, but when I get one, I swear I could poach an egg in my fist.”
The woman laughed. “I was spared the hot flashes. I got the weight gain instead. Believe it or not, I used to be an itty-bitty thing.”
“Didn’t we all,” Jo said. “Don’t know about you, but I like taking up more space. I’m Jo Levison, by the way.”
“Nessa James,” the woman replied, grimacing as Jo honed in on the source of her pain.
“You get cramps like this often, Nessa?”
“I’ve never worked out before,” Nessa confessed.
Jo never laughed at anything her clients told her. She knew that for many of them, Furious Fitness was one of the few places where they were always taken seriously. “Well, that explains it. Why’d you decide to start today?”
“I didn’t. I mean, not really. I get these impulses sometimes, and today I ended up here.” Nessa threw up her hands as if to suggest she was quirky, not crazy. “I’m glad I did, though. Last time I saw the doctor, he told me I needed to get more exercise because he said I’m—” She cleared her throat to make room for the word that came next. “Overweight.”
Jo often wondered if some of the doctors around Mattauk had chosen the profession so they’d have an excuse to humiliate women. She counseled her clients not to go through menopause with a male doctor, who was more likely to see it as a condition to be treated than an evolution to be embraced. “Yeah, well, that’s his opinion,” she said. “You ever gotten any complaints?”
Nessa giggled like a girl. “Nope.”
“Then fuck that asshole.” The words slipped out, and Jo glanced up nervously. “Sorry about the language.”
“Why?” Nessa asked. “I look like some kind of prude to you?”
“No,” Jo said. “But you do strike me as the upstanding, churchgoing type.”
Nessa had never gotten so much as a speeding ticket, and she could be found sitting in the third pew of the town’s Baptist church every Sunday. “I’ve read the Bible a few times,” Nessa admitted. “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert when it comes to scripture, but as far as I know, Jesus never had a problem with the word fuck.”
This time, Jo had to laugh. “Was that the first time you’ve said it out loud?” she asked on a hunch.
Nessa grinned. “Not exactly.” But it wasn’t something she said on a regular basis.
Jo leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Felt good to get it out, didn’t it?” she stage-whispered, then sat back on her haunches. “What do you say you and I add some good old-fashioned cussing to our workout routine?”
“You’re a trainer?” Nessa asked. “I thought you owned this place.”
“I do, but training gives me an excuse to work out. I wouldn’t have started a gym if I didn’t need one more than anyone else.” That may have been true, but Jo hadn’t accepted a client in over a year. And Nessa was a newbie. Even a less experienced trainer would have a great deal to teach her. But there was something about Nessa’s presence that soothed Jo. For the five minutes they’d been chatting, she’d felt remarkably calm. There was no one in sight that she wanted to kill.
She stopped kneading Nessa’s calf. “That better now?”
Nessa looked down at her calf as if she’d almost forgotten it was there. “It is. You’re amazing.”
“Take it easy for the rest of the day.” Jo stood up and offered Nessa a hand. “Then how about you and I get started tomorrow at five?”
“That sounds good.” Nessa seemed surprised that the conversation was over. “But before you go, I gotta be honest with you. I didn’t come here for the exercise. I think I’m here to see you.”
“Me?” Jo asked, just as a man brushed past her with the gym’s assistant manager trailing behind him.
“Sir, sir!” the assistant manager called out, but the man kept on going. Despite the sign on the front door that made it clear that Furious Fitness was a women-only environment, they would still get the occasional male visitor. It was hard for some men to understand there were places in the world where they weren’t wanted.
“Excuse me,” Jo told Nessa. “I’ll be right back.”
She caught up to her employee and gave her a sign that she’d take over from there. Then she stood her ground and waited. Most of the men who made their way into Furious were there to leer. This one appeared to be on a mission. His head swiveled from side to side on his thick neck as though he were searching for someone. He wasn’t a giant, but he was powerfully built. He looked like a man whose muscles might be his meal ticket.
Jo watched as he hit the back wall of the ground floor and came marching out again toward the stairs to the second floor.
“May I help you?”
The man would have stormed right past if Jo hadn’t blocked the way with a hand held out in front of her. His momentum came to a halt when he made contact with her palm. He glanced down at her hand in surprise before meeting her eyes. Jo held his gaze without blinking until he looked away. She felt the energy streaming down the arteries of her arm toward her fingers. The gym went silent, aside from the pop music piped over the speakers. Her clients had paused their workouts to watch. Their faces glowed, their eyes sparkled, and the corners of their mouths twitched with glee. They wanted to see the man taken down. Jo wished she felt as confident as her clients. She’d only used her power twice before—both times by accident. She still wasn’t convinced that either incident had been more than a fluke.
“I’m sure my colleague informed you this gym is for women only,” Jo said.
“I did!” the furious assistant manager confirmed. “I told him five times!”
“I’m looking for someone,” the man said, his eyes now everywhere in the room but her face. He wanted her to know their conversation was beneath him.
“Who?” Jo demanded. Whoever it was, Jo would want to warn her.
The man didn’t see any need to respond. She was nothing to him but a momentary inconvenience. He’d barged into her business, ignoring Jo’s signs and insulting her employee. They were just women, after all, and he owed them nothing, least of all his respect.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go,” Jo informed the man, hoping he’d leave without a fight.
“I’ll finish looking,” he told her. “Then I’ll go.”
A blast of red-hot rage shot through her veins and left her cells boiling. “I’m sorry. Maybe you didn’t understand. By leave, I mean get the fuck out of here. Now.”
“Step out of the way,” the man ordered. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Jo glanced back at Nessa, who already had her phone to her ear.
“I hope you’re dialing an ambulance,” another client called out from a treadmill, “’cause if that motherfucker touches Jo, he’s going to need one.”
Before Jo could turn back around, he came at her with his shoulder dropped slightly, as though breaking down a door. The force sent Jo stumbling back a few steps. Then she surged forward, her body acting of its own volition. She smashed the heel of her hand into his face, grabbed his arm, and effortlessly flipped him over her back. He landed faceup on the floor, his head pinned to the mat by the heel of Jo’s Nike trainer on his neck. Blood gushed from his nose and ran in rivulets down the sides of his face. Rage and fear coursed through Jo’s body. Every part of her vibrated with energy. The muscles of her raised thigh shook with it. She could destroy him. And she wanted to. When she pressed down harder with her sneaker, the release felt almost orgasmic.
The women watching were riveted. They’d all been in her place at one time or another. They wanted her to kill him, too.
“Don’t.” Nessa’s soft, soothing voice washed over her. “Not now.”
Just then, Jo sensed new eyes on her. She glanced up, past Nessa’s worried face, and found a woman standing frozen on the staircase. Rosamund was one of the gym’s warm-weather clients. Jo couldn’t recall ever seeing her in the winter. In late spring and summer, Rosamund showed up every afternoon at four o’clock and pounded the treadmill for ninety minutes straight. She’d exchanged fewer than two dozen words with Jo—or anyone else at the gym, as far as Jo could tell. When she ran, Rosamund didn’t wear headphones or watch TV. She kept her eyes focused on an imaginary spot in the distance, and only the alarm on her smartwatch would bring her to a stop.
Now she locked eyes with Jo. Her fingers were latched onto the staircase railing so tightly that her knuckles were white. There was little doubt she was the one being hunted. Jo nodded and her client bolted down the stairs, out the door, and into the evening. Flashing red lights swirled on the ceiling as a police car pulled up in front of the gym.
Two officers entered. One was an old hand named Tony Perretta who’d gone to high school with Jo and whose youngest son was classmates with Lucy. At his side was a lanky kid named Jones who looked far too green for his uniform. Perretta escorted the intruder outside while Jones stayed indoors and nervously scribbled notes as Jo offered her account of the incident. She kept an eye on Perretta in the parking lot, where his conversation with the suspect quickly evolved from professional to practically chummy. A few minutes later, the older cop returned to the gym, leaving the man leaning casually against the side of his car, dabbing at his bloody schnoz with a Kleenex.
“What the hell are you doing!” Jo demanded. “That asshole barged into my business and attacked me and you’re leaving him out there on his own?”
“Jones, go outside and keep an eye on our guy while I have a word with Ms. Levison,” Perretta ordered the younger man. Then he gestured for Jo to join him away from her clients and employees.
“He shoved me, Tony,” Jo argued once they were on their own. “I know the law, goddammit. That’s assault.”
When Perretta replied in a low voice, Jo knew he was going to piss her off. Men always lowered their voices when they tried to talk sense into you. “He claims you were blocking the exit and he was just trying to get past you.”
“And you’re taking his word for it? Did you bother to ask any of the fifty women who witnessed what happened? Would you like a look at the security tapes? Who is this guy, anyway, Tony? One of your fucking poker buddies?”
The cop raised his eyebrows to let her know she was pushing it. “His name’s Chertov, and I’ve never spoken to the guy before in my life. I’ve made it pretty clear that he’ll be in deep shit if he ever comes back here. Though considering the ass-kicking you gave him, it seems pretty unlikely he’ll try. I don’t think you need to be concerned for your safety, Jo.”
“He was hunting for one of my clients. What are you going to do to protect her?”
“You’re talking about Rosamund Harding?” Perretta asked, and Jo nodded. “Then there’s no need to protect her. Chertov works for her husband.”
“I don’t give a damn who pays the thug’s salary. She bolted out the door when she saw him. She obviously didn’t want him to find her.”
Perretta sighed wearily and leaned in closer. “Look, I’ll arrest Chertov if you ask me to. But he’ll be out in less than an hour—and you’ll be starting something you might not be able to finish. Take my word for it, Jo, you don’t want this to go any further.”
“Why not?”
“Your client’s husband is Spencer Harding,” the cop said.
“So?” Jo demanded. “Is that name supposed to mean something? Who is he?”
“You know that empty lot down on Ocean Avenue—the one where the Italian restaurant used to be?”
“Yeah,” Jo said, bemused by the sudden turn the conversation had taken.
“Five years ago, the man who ran it was out for a jog with his dog. A passing car swerved and hit the dog. It could have been an accident, but the driver kept going—didn’t even bother to stop. As you can imagine, the dog’s owner was pissed as hell, so he did some detective work and found a surveillance camera that had caught the whole thing. He got the car’s license plate and filed suit against the owner. The case was settled for a few thousand dollars, and the guy figured everything was over and done with. Then, the same day he received the settlement check, he got word that the building that housed his restaurant had been sold to an anonymous buyer, and he had two days to vacate the premises. The same night the restaurant closed for good, the building was bulldozed. It’s been an empty lot for the last five years.”
“Let me guess. The car that hit the man’s dog was owned by Spencer Harding?”
“That’s right, and Chertov is his bodyguard.”
“His bodyguard?” Jo scoffed. “Who the hell is this guy—some kind of mobster?”
“No,” Perretta said. “Just a man with enough money to always get his way.”
Days later, Jo was still infuriated. Even the smoothie in her hand and Nessa’s presence couldn’t cool her down.
“What was I supposed to do?” she asked as they drove along the winding road through Nessa’s neighborhood. “Lose everything I’ve built over the last three years just to make a point?”
The two women had become fast friends, despite the fact that they had nothing in common. Less than a week had passed since they’d met, and they’d already developed a routine. Each afternoon, Nessa would walk down to the gym, they’d work out for an hour, then grab Purple Haze smoothies before Jo drove Nessa home.
“You called the Harding guy’s wife,” Nessa said. “You warned her.”
“Yeah.” Rosamund Harding had politely thanked Jo for calling and assured her it was all a misunderstanding. But she hadn’t been back to the gym since. “Maybe I’m just paranoid. I looked up Spencer Harding. He’s an art dealer, for God’s sake, not some kind of supervillain. But why is he sending some thug to hunt down his wife? It’s like the start of a Newsnight episode. This kind of shit is how women end up getting hurt. I shouldn’t have let the bodyguard get away with it.”
“Well, he didn’t get away with it completely,” Nessa pointed out. “You did kick his ass.”
Jo gasped. “Nessa,” she said. “Did you just say ass?”
“I did,” Nessa responded proudly, like a kid holding out a straight-A report card.
“Sweetheart, that is some motherfucking excellent progress.”
“Awww, thanks, baby,” Nessa cooed. “I owe it all to you.”
Jo turned her eyes back to the road and whistled. “Would you look at that.” She slowed the car down to appreciate the sight of Brendon Baker’s yard. A week had passed since she’d spotted Brendon doing battle with the giant plant in his lawn. Now no trace remained of his perfect green carpet of grass. Weeds bursting with spiny seedpods or shiny black berries now competed for every square inch of space. Poison ivy climbed the trees, and thick green stalks shot out of the earth, exploding into umbrellas of little white blooms ten feet off the ground. “Those giant flowers weren’t here the last time I drove by. I like them. They add a certain Seussian touch.”
“You haven’t spent much time in the country, have you? That’s hogweed,” Nessa informed her. “Brush up against it, and it’ll scar you for life. The rest of those plants are dangerous, too. Nightshade. Jimson weed. Hemlock. The guy who mows my lawn told me all the landscapers think Baker’s been cursed. That’s one of the reasons he can’t pay anyone to come clear it out.”
“One of the reasons?” Jo was loving it. “What are the others?”
“Well, look at it! No one wants to mess with a thing of beauty. The tyrant of the HOA gets kicked to the curb for failing to obey his own rules? That’s some first-class poetic justice right there,” Nessa said. “Serves him right for harassing that woman.”
“Harriett Osborne,” Jo said.
The name, said out loud, seemed to cast a spell of its own. “You ever meet her?” Nessa asked.
“A long time ago. If I thought she’d remember me, I’d go knock on her door and shake her damn hand. Getting Brendon Baker kicked off the HOA board was the best thing that’s happened to Mattauk in years.”
“He’s still telling anyone who’ll listen that she’s responsible for destroying his lawn.” Nessa looked over at Jo. “What do you think?”
“I think if you’re gonna go around saying shit like that, you better have proof. There have to be a thousand security cameras between here and her house. As far as I know, not a single one of them got a picture of Harriett Osborne,” Jo said. Then she smirked. “Though I’m not sure that means she’s innocent. Have you seen her property lately?”
“She lives half a mile from me. I walk past it every night,” Nessa said.
“Harriett’s got quite a green thumb.”
“That’s the other reason nobody wants to help clean up Brendon’s yard. They say the Osborne lady has powers. Nobody wants to get in her way.”
“Do you think she has powers?” Jo asked carefully, feeling her friend out. She’d considered telling Nessa about the ball of fire, but she hadn’t quite worked up the nerve.
“Seems pretty obvious to me,” Nessa said. “Brendon Baker messed with the wrong bitch.”