On Labor Day morning, a bloated body wearing the tattered remains of a twelve-thousand-dollar suit washed ashore on Governors Island, where it was spotted by a group of picnicking tourists. Two teenage brothers from Akron, assuming the figure was a mannequin and the smell was just eau de New York, posted pictures on social media. The photos were yanked off the site as soon as it became apparent that their subject was, in fact, a decaying corpse. By that time, however, Jo had a screenshot of one of the posts saved on her phone.
She picked up Nessa and drove along Woodland Drive to Harriett’s house. A woman neither of them had seen before opened the door.
“Hello, Jo and Nessa,” she greeted them. “I am Isabel. Harriett is waiting for you both in the garden.”
They found Harriett snipping golden pods from a beanlike vine into a basket. Each gracefully curved pod was the length of a finger and covered in velvety golden hairs.
“Cowhage,” Isabel warned when Nessa went for a closer look. “Don’t touch.”
Harriett appeared to be in an excellent mood. “I see you’ve all met,” she said. “Isabel used to work on the Pointe, but she left a bit early this year. She’ll be staying here as my guest and holding down the fort tomorrow.”
“You’re going somewhere?” Jo asked.
“Celeste and I are taking the boat out. I have an appointment on Culling Pointe.”
Harriett set her basket aside and took a seat in a chair by the firepit. “So what’s the latest?” she asked. “Spencer Harding crashed into the Hudson. John Rocca had a heart attack while chowing down on coffee cake. Jackson Dunn was killed by a swarm of bees. And I can tell just by the look on your faces that the two of you have brought more news.”
Nessa glanced at Isabel nervously.
“Isabel is one of us,” Harriett said. “She knows everything. As a matter of fact, she was at Jackson’s house, watering his plants, when he died.”
“I was traumatized,” Isabel deadpanned.
“So,” Harriett said, “what do you ladies have to tell me?”
“The girl in blue’s name is Faith Reid,” Nessa said. “Her aunt emailed me from Jamaica.”
“Jamaica? How interesting,” Harriett said. “You’re getting closer.”
“And Spencer Harding’s body washed up in New York City this morning.” Jo took out her phone and pulled up the screenshot before passing the device to Harriett.
“Oh dear. It seems as though something’s been eating his face.” Harriett looked up with a grin. “A fitting end, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Harding, Dunn, and Rocca are all dead. Is it over?” Nessa asked cautiously.
“You tell me,” Harriett said. “How’s your headache?”
“It’s still there,” Nessa admitted. “It eased up for a while, but now it’s bad as ever.”
“Hmmm. There’s your answer, I suppose,” Harriett replied matter-of-factly.
“This is the one who sees the dead?” Isabel asked Harriett, who nodded. It was clear they had been discussing Nessa before her arrival.
“Come here, child,” Isabel told Nessa. “And sit down beside me.”
Nessa obeyed, and the older woman took her hand. Isabel closed her eyes, as if listening to the rhythm of blood pumping through Nessa’s veins. “I feel you being called, and I feel you resisting. That is the source of your pain,” she told Nessa. “There’s something you need to see, and you’re frightened.”
“What is it?” Nessa whispered.
“I don’t know, and neither do they.” Isabel gestured to Jo and Harriett. “That is why your skills are more important than any of ours. You are able to see what has been done. Without that knowledge, we don’t know who to punish—or who to protect—and the crimes against our kind go unaddressed. Now we need you to stop resisting and guide us where we need to go.”
“How do I do that?” Nessa asked.
“Accept that what you find may be worse than you ever thought possible. And believe that you possess the strength to see it.”
“But I’m not sure that I do,” Nessa confessed.
Isabel squeezed Nessa’s hand. “This is what you were made for,” she told her. “Why do you think women are designed to outlive men? Why do we keep going for thirty years after our bodies can no longer reproduce? Do you think nature meant for those years to be useless? No, of course not. Our lives our designed to have three parts. The first is education. The second, creation. And in part three, we put our experience to use and protect those who are weaker. This third stage, which you have entered, can be one of incredible power.”
“Can be?”
“There have always been those who want to deny women power. And there are also women who refuse to accept it. Some, who’ve mastered the games men play, choose to betray their own kind. These women are our most dangerous enemies. But many women are simply too frightened to see things as they really are—or to accept that the world men have made must be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Jo had been listening closely.
“The day is coming,” Isabel said. “When I was a girl, bad men didn’t need to hide what they did to women. Now they must keep it behind closed doors. There are more of us than ever. For every woman of my generation, there are three of you.”
“Yes, but are we really supposed to destroy the world?” Jo asked.
“Not the world—their world,” Isabel said. “The world men built to suit their needs and desires. As soon as it’s in ashes, we can build a better world to replace it.”
“That’s right,” Harriett chimed in. “And our work won’t be over until that happens.” Her head turned toward the sound of a car pulling up the drive. “That’s Celeste,” she said, rising from her seat. “Isabel, would you like me to introduce you?”
“It would be a pleasure,” Isabel said.
“I’ll see you ladies tomorrow,” Harriett told Jo and Nessa. “Get a good night’s sleep.”
Jo waited until they’d disappeared into the house, leaving her alone with Nessa. “What the hell was all of that?”
“I don’t know,” Nessa admitted. “But I think we’re gonna find out soon enough.”
The next day, the Tuesday after Labor Day, was Lucy’s first day of seventh grade. Jo dropped her off at her new middle school. The kids swarming the entrance ranged in size from munchkin to monster. Lucy fell right in between.
Lucy planted a quick kiss on her mom’s cheek. “Don’t pick me up after school,” she said. “I’ll walk home.”
“Only if you walk with a friend,” Jo insisted. “And if Dad’s not there when you get home, make sure all the doors are locked and don’t open them for anyone. Do you know what to do if there’s a fire or the toilet overflows?”
“Mom.” Lucy opened the door. “Relax. I got this.”
Jo had no choice but to let her go.
When she arrived at the gym, Jo planned to head straight for the treadmills, but Heather called out to her as she passed the front desk. “Jo? There’s a woman on the phone who wants to speak to you.”
“Take a name and number for me, please,” Jo said. “I gotta get rid of some energy.”
“She doesn’t want to give me her name,” Heather replied. “Should I tell her you’re not in?”
Jo stopped on the stairs. “No, I’ll talk to her,” she said.
When she reached the front desk, Heather passed her the phone.
“This is Jo,” she said.
“Is he really dead!” a woman asked. The voice was oddly familiar.
“Excuse me?”
“That piece of shit Rocca. He was the one who convinced everyone Mandy ran away.”
Jo felt her knees wobble. It was Amber Welsh. “Yes,” she confirmed. “He died of a heart attack when my friends and I confronted him about his involvement with Spencer Harding.”
“Did he help that evil bastard kill Mandy?”
“It’s likely, but we don’t know for sure,” Jo answered honestly.
Amber set the phone down, and Jo could hear her sobbing in the background. “I’m sorry,” Amber said when she picked up the phone again. “I should have known he was in on it, after what he did to me.”
“To you?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, to me and at least one other girl before me. That’s how long Rocca’s been at it. I swear to God, I would be putting a bullet in that pervert right now if he wasn’t already dead.”
Jo spoke to her softly. “I don’t know if you heard, Amber, but we found Mandy’s body.”
“Yes, I did. Thank you,” Amber said. “You and your friend made good on your promise. I’m sorry I called her a witch.”
“Harriett wasn’t offended. We’ve been worried about you. Your family left town so abruptly. Are you and the boys okay? You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“No, no. In fact, I’ve stayed clean all summer, and my boys have a real house for the first time in their lives. The only thing missing is Mandy. But at least now I got some closure. I just hope my baby found peace.”
“We buried her in a beautiful spot, Amber. I’ll take you to see her whenever you like.”
“I can’t come back,” Amber told her through tears. “Not ever. That was part of the deal.”
“What deal?” Jo blurted out.
“The charity wants me to make a clean start. No looking back. And now that my luck’s changed, I’m not gonna screw things up.”
“The charity?” Jo repeated. “What charity?”
“Thank you, Ms. Levison,” Amber said. “I’ll always be grateful for what you’ve done.”
“Wait!”
Then the line went dead.
Jo bolted out the front door of Furious Fitness. It wasn’t until she was halfway to Nessa’s house that she realized she still had the gym’s phone in her hand.
Nessa met her at the front door. “Did you read my mind?” she demanded.
Jo doubled over to catch her breath. “No,” she managed to say.
“I’ve been emailing with Dana Reid—the woman down in Jamaica. Dana said her niece, Faith, was living in Montego Bay when she disappeared. She has no idea how she got to the States. Faith didn’t even have a passport. But every time I start thinking that the name could be a coincidence, I go back and look at the picture she sent, and there’s no doubt it’s the girl in blue. She’s even wearing a gold necklace with a snake pendant. Ms. Reid says it was a family heirloom.”
“It actually makes perfect sense,” Jo said. “That’s why she was never identified. No one here knew her. She didn’t live in America.”
Nessa didn’t seem convinced. “You okay?” she asked. “You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
Jo sat down and held up the cordless phone clenched in her fist. “I brought the wrong phone. Can I borrow yours for a sec?”
Nessa punched in her passcode and handed Jo her phone. Jo typed a query into a search box and began to scroll through the image results.
“What are you looking for?” Nessa asked.
Jo stopped suddenly on a group shot. She enlarged it, checking each face one by one. Then she gasped. Her face was bone white when she passed the phone back to Nessa. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture?”
Nessa scanned the picture on the screen. “I see Leonard Shaw,” she said. “Is this a photo from one of his charity events?”
“Yes,” Jo said. “In Jamaica. This is him with local volunteers. Look closer. Is there anyone else in the picture you recognize?”
Nessa scanned the faces again. This time, she stopped on a face in the second row. It belonged to a girl of sixteen or seventeen, with big black eyes, rosy cheeks, and dimples. Nessa recognized Faith.
“Claude wondered if Leonard might be involved. That’s why we were on our way to Rocca’s house that morning—to ask him about it. But so much happened, and it seemed so unlikely—” Jo stopped. “I should have taken her hunch more seriously.”
Nessa’s headache, previously a dull throbbing pain, had suddenly flared into a full-blown assault on her brain. “Harriett’s on her way out to the Pointe right now. We need to get her away from there. My head’s about to explode. You okay to drive?” she asked Jo.
“Yeah,” Jo said.
“Mama, where are you going?” Breanna called out from inside the house.
“Out to the Pointe. Your aunt Harriett might be in trouble.”