“What about you?” Linda asked, hoping Charity would offer to share a shift.
“I’m used to late hours, staying up until the morning.”
“Aren’t you a cook at a brunch place?” Sabrina said.
“Why don’t you both go to sleep?” Charity said.
Linda hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other. “And Marion?”
Marion hadn’t left Tristan’s side, her hand as close to his without touching as she could manage. “I won’t be able to sleep a wink until he’s safe,” Marion said.
As far as Linda was concerned, the contest should have been Marion’s. It should have been finished before they came to the manor. Tristan should have dropped to one knee in front of Marion and slipped onto her finger one of those massive network-funded rocks, while generic violin notes swelled in the background. It wasn’t fair that anyone else had even pretended at being a contender, that Deja had played into Sabrina’s hopes. Linda swallowed.
“Well?” Sabrina said to Linda, motioning out to the hallway full of bedrooms. “You ready?”
Linda waved a tiny goodnight. As she left the room, she held Charity’s gaze until the wall cut them off from each other.
• • •
Linda and Sabrina slipped into their pajamas and crawled under the same pink quilt in Sabrina’s room. Sharing a bed was a fast pass to intimacy. Linda had experienced it with lovers, those lightheaded nights of so much talking, she stayed up until sunrise without realizing. But she kept to the edge of the mattress, her legs curled stiffly into herself. Sabrina had accused her of killing Brandon. The memory stung.
Finally, just as her eyes grew heavy, Sabrina’s voice broke the silence.“Is it confessional time?” she said.
“What?” Linda’s breath caught as she came alert all at once.
“What was the deal you made with Deja?” Sabrina asked.
“It’s nothing,” Linda said. “Just some stupid shit I did before I knew better, and she said she could get it off my record so the press wouldn’t have a field day with it.” It wasn’t a lie, but it was about to be. “Stealing, fighting, that kind of thing.” Linda forced her breath to even out. “This is stupid. You know it’s Deja who sowed these seeds, right? You and me are supposed to be friends. What’s with the third degree?”
Silence shivered between them before Sabrina once more broke it.
“You didn’t kill Brandon, did you?” It was a whisper, barely audible.
“Of course not.” Her words were a sigh of solace. “I would never.”
“He killed himself?” Sabrina said, her tone failing to gain strength.
Linda sucked in a quickened breath. “I’m…not sure.”
“Was it the same thing that got Tristan?”
Linda thought of the creature sprawled, dead. “Tristan was attacked by a…possum. Or something.” She closed her eyes. “I think Brandon’s death had something to do with Deja.” As she said it, regret and relief twisted in her throat. The accusation left a sour taste on her tongue, and her heartbeat quickened. Deja was always watching. But Linda needed to unload the great weight on her chest. “It sounds crazy, right?”
“Nothing sounds crazy right now.”
Linda rolled over to face her friend. “It’s just, she came and got me in the middle of the night. She led me to this room, a nursery—”
“Charity tried to take me there. It was locked.”
“Probably because that’s where we found Brandon. She said he left a suicide note that blamed me. She said she’d release it to the public—and to y’all—if I didn’t keep going with the show.”
“And how did you find him?” Their words were rushed now, breathless and eager.
Linda waited for the door to burst open, for Deja to rush in and drag her away—to her death, or her public demise. When nothing happened, Linda let herself believe they were truly alone. “Hanging. From a vine.”
For a while, they said nothing, the only sound their heavy breaths in the dark.
“But what if it was the vine?” Sabrina said, and the theory sounded so wild that they both burst into laughter.
After they once more calmed, their shared warmth and lack of surveillance lulled Linda into an unfamiliar sense of security. It was a welcome break from chaos. Even with Tristan dying a few rooms over, this was somehow nice.
“Sabrina, can I ask you a question?” Linda whispered, hoping her friend was not yet asleep.
“Yes,” Sabrina said, her voice groggy.
“Have you ever been with a woman?” Linda felt taken aback at the question as soon as it left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to ask, hadn’t realized it was a question that lived on the tip of her tongue.
“I’m with a woman right now,” Sabrina said.
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean.” Sabrina shifted.
“I was curious. But never mind.” Linda rolled over and faced the wall.
“Sorry. Yes, I’ve had sex with a woman. Hasn’t everyone?”
“No,” Linda whispered. “Not everyone.”
