Page 7 of The Familiar Stranger

She smiled, showing off her perfect teeth.

“What’s on your agenda for the day?” she asked.

“I just booked a trip to Fox Hollow Vineyards.” It was a family-owned, boutique winery, named after the foxes that darted through the vines at dusk, a tidbit that I knew Maddie would love.

“You’ll love it. I haven’t been in ages. In fact … I was just finishing up a class here. Maybe Harmony would want to go.” She pulled out her phone and then seemed to catch herself, adding, “Oh, that is unless you’d rather not have company, which is fine?—”

I cut her off with the wave of my hand. “It would be great if you two joined us. Let me just double check with Maddie, in case she has other things in mind. She may not even feel like doing anything today.”

And that was the truth.

Given the news she’d received about Iggy, she may not have been up for going anywhere.

I dialed her cell phone, then our room phone, but she didn’t pick up, and I wasn’t making plans without talking to her first.

“She’s not answering, but if you give me your number, I’ll see what she wants to do today, then call you back,” I said. “If not Fox Hollow, then maybe we can get together another time before we leave.”

“Perfect,” Almond said, handing me her business card. “And no pressure. Do what makes you guys happy. It’s your vacation, after all.”

When I returned to the room, I was surprised to find Maddie out of bed, showered, and ready for the day. She encouraged me to do the same, which I did. In my absence, I knew she’d been pontificating about life and death in general. I’d known her long enough to know it was one of the ways she dealt with bad news, getting it out, getting some fresh air, and talking about it.

Me?

Not so much.

I held things close to the vest until I was ready to snap, and then I booked little getaways such as these, to ease my mind.

Maddie was partway through a sentence where she muttered something about New Orleans, and I said, “What about New Orleans?”

“Oh, that’s where Iggy is, at the hospital there. The band was there working a gig.”

My stomach dropped, and my previous theory about his accident not being an accident came back to mind.

“Iggy’s still hanging on by a thread,” she continued. “I can’t stop thinking about … well, wishing I’d been there for him, which I could have been if I’d been visiting you at the condo.” She hiccupped back a sob. “Who knows? Maybe if I’d been there, we would have been together, and the car accident .... Oh, Sloane. I could have changed the entire trajectory of … of …”

She flopped back on the bed and covered her eyes.

New Orleans. My home away from … well, RV life. And now it was the source of two doses of bad news in just a few hours.

What were the odds?

CHAPTER6

I pushed all thoughts of peril to the side, focusing instead on the rhythm of the tires as the Havencrest shuttle took us to Fox Hollow. Maddie had agreed that spending more time with Harmony and Almond would keep us from rehashing the what-ifs about the Iggy’s unfortunate situation.

“Oh, Sloane … look.” Maddie pointed as Fox Hollow came into view. A manicured winter garden framed the front of the winery with neat boxwoods, red-stemmed dogwoods, and low stone borders. A single wrought-iron bench sat beneath a pergola, surrounded by rosemary and hellebores—winter roses—that offered small signs of life. It was the kind of garden that didn’t need blooms to be beautiful.

As we debarked the shuttle, our friends slipped out of their SUV and headed our way.

“Hello, ladies!” Maddie hooted and spread her arms wide. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”

There were hugs all around, and then we turned our attention to the quiet beauty of the winter garden. As expected, Maddie was fascinated with the fox-themed touches—sculptures, brass plaques, even a trimmed hedge shaped like a fox mid-leap. As we strolled through the space, my mind began drifting, no matter how hard I tried to stay on point. Then my cell phone rang, causing Maddie’s head to whip around, halting the conversation she’d been having midsentence. Her eyes narrowed in on my phone, and she wagged a finger at me. “All right, you … it’s tour time. Hand it over.”

I held it away from her. “No way.”

“I’m serious, Sloane. Give it.”

Her words were blunt, but her eyes gleamed with mischief.

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