3

Florence

Fifteen Months Later

I read a story on the internet about how elderly people without hobbies are among the saddest sacks on earth, although I’m sure I have that wrong and they didn’t use the word “sacks.” Anyway, it went on to say how having hobbies could greatly reduce one’s chances of developing dementia. They didn’t give a percentage and I would have liked a percentage, because if it’s only a one percent chance reduction, well then, why bother? But I guess they wouldn’t have written the whole article, in that case, or used the words “greatly reduce one’s chances” for that matter either, would they? So I decided I would like a hobby. 

So, when I Googled “how to start a hobby” the first advice given was to break it into small steps so you’re not overwhelmed. For Christ’s sake, I didn’t Google how to embezzle diamonds from the Russian mafia, I was simply thinking I might take up cookie making or something. How could I get overwhelmed? Anyway…then I learned that professional cookie decorators call themselves “cookiers” and I just found the term so irritating I gave up on the whole thing. 

Then Millie told me I could knit with her and I told Millie that she’s shamefully cliché, and how does she not have carpal tunnel by now? And it’s not really a hobby, is it? She’d be sitting in front of the television watching Bonanza with or without her knitting in hand, so it’s quite mindless, and I don’t think a hobby should be mindless. Bernie has taken up winemaking, but his room smells like a boiled egg, so I don’t think he’s doing it right. It’s still at the top of my list, though. 

Gardening was a contender too. I was quite the gardener once, but the snow won’t melt until April, so that seems a long wait. I could be dead by then for all I know. But then Herb said I should make a podcast about gardening and share my wisdom with the world. This intrigued me—because I was once a news announcer on public radio, and in a way it’s a perfect idea. My love for plants and helping people learn, hmm. But how would one even begin? I just showed up and talked into a mic at the station, and that was long ago. I would need to figure out a lot of things, but learning it all would keep me busy, and maybe that’s a hobby all in itself. I was almost sold on the idea. 

But then something very serendipitous happened. I was at Murph Moyer’s funeral, which was such a sad occasion since Murph had just had a hair transplant he was very excited about, and had planned a trip to the Bahamas to swim with the pigs. I guess that’s a thing… He even bought a bottle of spray tan on Amazon, and then just like that, a fall on the ice on his way down to The Angry Trout for a pint one night and that was it. And now he looks orange in his casket, poor Murph, and he never even got to put his new hair to good use. It’s like that these days, though. When you get to be our age, you start receiving invitations to a lot more funerals. And part of you gets used to it, but the main part of you never does. 

At the reception, I was chatting with Rosie and Susan by the punch bowl. We were sitting in metal folding chairs and holding little slices of white cake on napkins when I noticed Winny pouring a long pull of scotch into a Santa Claus coffee mug and sitting by herself next to a fake ficus in need of dusting. She was hunched over her drink, and I saw her dot her eye with the corner of a napkin, so I excused myself and went to sit with her. 

I could tell it wasn’t her first scotch because she had a glassy-eyed look and loose lips, but that’s a good thing. It was easy to get her to confide in me and tell me why she’d missed our bridge game last Tuesday and what in the world was the matter. I mean, I know her husband passed only a couple of months ago, of course. But he’d been battling severe diabetes complications and was in the hospital for who knows how long. He was even left unable to speak after a diabetes-induced stroke. Lord help him. It was a mercy, really, him passing. It was very expected. So I am quite surprised at what Winny tells me—that she thinks her husband was murdered and didn’t die of natural causes. Well, I had to set my punch on the floor next to me and rest my hand on my heart a moment. 

“Sweetheart, why would you say that? Otis was so sick, bless him,” I say to her, placing my hands on her knees. I thought she lost the plot, if I’m honest, but I was still going to be sympathetic. She picks at Santa’s chipping glitter beard and talks into her lap. 

“Something wasn’t right there,” she says with a haunted look on her face. 

“What do you mean, love?” I ask, trying to look in her eyes so she’s forced to look back at me, but she continues to mumble. And I suppose I would speak quietly too if I were saying the crazy thing she was about to say. 

“Someone there killed him,” she whispers. 

“At the hospital?” 

“Yes, Florence. I… Yes. I’m not just—I’m not crazy. I’m not making shit up.” 

“Of course you’re not, dear,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. “Well, did you tell the police?” I ask, because what else does one ask in this sort of situation? “Of course, but they don’t believe me. I can tell. They say they’ll ‘have a look,’ whatever that means, but I know when I’m being condescended to. They will not have a look. Plus that old detective Riley has a head full of chipped beef. Has he ever helped anyone solve anything in this town?” she asks, becoming louder and more agitated as she goes. She puts her mug down and takes a deep breath. 

To be fair, the only crime I can remember happening in the last few years in this town, besides petty bike theft or drunk fistfights, is the tragedy that happened to Mack and Shelby that terrible night last year, but I can’t blame Riley for that. It absolutely baffled everyone. He does have a head full of chipped beef though, I’ll give her that. 

“Why would you think something like that, love? You know all of the hospital workers,” I say, which is a given. She pretty much knows everyone around here. “You think one of them hurt Otis? That’s…” I stop, because I don’t know what to say. It’s absurd and makes me worry for Winny. I wonder if she’s gone around telling other people this sort of thing. 

“He told me,” she says, and since I know he was unable to speak, now I really zip my lip and just look over at the bottle of scotch on the refreshments table with a longing gaze, wondering how to kindly extract myself from the conversation. 

“Something’s goin’ on around here, Flor. Something is happening. First Shel and Mack, and poor Leo wherever the hell he really is. Now this.” It’s strange to hear someone say “poor Leo,” because the general, mostly unspoken consensus is that he’s a rat bastard who ghosted his wife. I hope I’m using that term correctly. Ghosted. Anyway, I wonder if it would be rude to lean over and pick a few cucumber sandwiches off of the table while she’s talking. I do hate to be rude, but I really am famished, and I know Liddy Wingfield made them, and she uses the pimento cream cheese on them, which is a dream. 

Before I can decide, Winny leans in conspiratorially. 

“Can I show you something?” she asks. 

“Of course,” I agree, giving up on my chance for a cucumber sandwich as she motions for me to follow her. The reception is at Dusty Waltman’s house because he and Murph were very good friends. I suppose he’s a nice enough man, I just can’t get past the urge to take a bottle of Pledge and a washrag after him each time I hear the name Dusty. Not his fault, I suppose, and his house is quite tidy, although too drafty for my taste. 

Even so, I follow Winny down his front hall with the brown plaid wallpaper and creaky wood floors, and we pull our coats from a pile of other sad-looking black and navy down coats draped over an old steamer trunk near the door and walk out into the frozen air. It’s so cold the snow is having trouble trying to fall, and it swirls around the lampposts in light, icy specks. Before I can complain about freezing to death, I hear “My Heart Will Go On” start to play inside, and now I’m happy to be out here, so I give her a minute as I shift from foot to foot and blow on my hands while she pulls something from her pocket. Why do they play songs like that at funerals? Everyone is already sad, and now I can hear sobs from inside. I hope they play “Another One Bites the Dust” at my funeral. And have it at a Dave & Buster’s, where everyone will get free mojitos and play free SkeeBall, and not in a drafty house with peely wallpaper and stale sheet cake. 

Winny finally fishes out whatever it is she’s been digging for, then shoves the pieces of a ripped-up sheet of paper at me. I take it, examining it and have no idea what the hell she’s playing at. 

“What is it?” I ask. She takes the papers back, swipes a layer of snow off of Dusty’s porch swing, and sits. I sit next to her, and she lays them out on her knees. 

“Look,” she says, and I do. I see a scrap with the words “Help me” scrawled across it, and another that reads “Trying to kill me.” But the words before it are torn away. She stares at me, waiting for a response. “Well, what is this?” I ask. “Otis wrote it. Look! This is the clearest one.” She puts a scrap on top of the others. It says, “You have to tell someone what’s happening here.” The last part says, “Warn Mack and Shel…” but the end of her name is torn away. 

“See,” she says, “and then it stops, like he couldn’t finish.” 

“I don’t… Why is this in scraps? Why would he write this?” I’m shivering from the cold, and my words come out in white puffs. 

“All I can think is that he was trying to get this note to me. Maybe something happened when I went home that last night, because he was gone by morning and he never had a chance to give it to me. And then I think back to all the people who were in the room when I was there, and maybe he couldn’t risk giving it to me then, but I was there so much it’s all a blur. I can’t keep it all straight. I found it just a few days ago in the wooly sweater he always wore over his hospital gown. It was sitting in a bag for weeks and then I went through it all and… God. He was begging for help. I’ll never forgive myself. Maybe he didn’t want someone to find he’d written it—someone he was afraid of. I don’t know,” she says, tears welling in her eyes as she pushes the paper shreds back into her pocket. 

“Why else would it be torn up?” she asks before I even have a chance to respond to all this shocking information. “I mean, that’s all that makes sense, right? For why it’s torn up? It’s like he was afraid of someone finding it, I mean why else? He was trying to warn me—to get help, and he was afraid the person who was after him would find it. I know how that sounds, but I have gone over this a million times in my head, and what other reason could there be?” 

“Shit” is all I manage to say. 

“My poor Otis, I couldn’t help him and he was all alone there with someone trying to hurt him. But who would want to hurt Otis? I mean, who in the world?” she says, and that’s exactly what I was going to ask. 

“And you told all of this to Detective Riley?” I ask. 

“Yeah right. What do you think he’d say—that Otis had a stroke and we didn’t know the extent of the damage, so this was probably some delusion or paranoia?” she says, and he would have a point, of course. “But I know my Otis, and he seemed different those last days. I know, of course, a stroke makes people different, but I still know him, Florence. I know him, and I saw his eyes change. Now I think it was fear, not just being sick, but…this…” She half motions to the papers in her pocket. 

“I can’t let it go. I can’t have his cries for help literally in my hand and blow it off as paranoia. I need to find out the truth. And fine, people can think whatever they want about me, but what about Mack…and poor Shelby Dawson. It was a warning to them too.” 

“You think he meant they’re in danger?” I ask. She closes her eyes and blows a cone of white mist into the frozen air, shaking her head. “I don’t know,” she says. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

“This could all be connected,” I sort of mumble to myself, thinking about any reason why, even if he was suffering from some delusion, he would bring Mack and Shelby into it. That’s pretty specific for a delusional man’s imaginings. Winny holds her head in her hands and I put my arm around her shoulder. We shiver together for a few moments. 

“I believe you,” I say. 

“You do?” she asks, straightening up and looking at me with wet, desperate eyes. 

“If there’s some motherfucker out there responsible for this, we’re gonna find him,” I say. She puts her arms around me and cries while I hold her and tell her it’s going to be okay. 

And that’s the moment everything was set in motion. I didn’t know it then, but hunting a killer would become my new hobby, not gardening, as it turns out.

Excerpted from NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE by Seraphina Nova Glass. Copyright © 2025 by Seraphina Nova Glass. Published by Graydon House, an imprint of HarperCollins.

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A confidence scheme, when properly executed, will follow five movements in close and inviolable order:

I. The Mark.

Wherein a fresh quarry is perceived and made the object of the closest possible study.

II. The Intrusion.

Wherein the quarry’s outer layers must be pierced, his world peeled open…

III. The Ballyhoo.

Where a golden opportunity shall greatly tempt and dazzle the quarry…

IV. The Knot.

Wherein the quarry is encircled by his new friends, and naysayers are sent gently on their way…

V. All In.

Where all commitments are secured, and the business is happily—and irrevocably—concluded.

A coda: there may be many counterstrikes along the way, for such is the nature of the game; it contains so many sides, so many endless possibilities…

Rulebook—1799. 

Day One

The Mark

1

Quinn

Five days earlier

Here was how it began. Four miles east of Berkeley Square, a few turns from Fashion Street and several doors down from the synagogue, stood a humble old house in Spitalfields. Four floors high, four bays across. Rose-colored shutters, a green trim to the door. A basement kitchen hidden from the street, and a colony of house sparrows nesting in the eaves, feasting on bread crusts and milk pudding scrapings.

On the first floor, behind peeling sash windows, stood Quinn Le Blanc.

She changed her gloves. She had a fine selection at her disposal, per her exalted rank in this neighborhood—chevrette kid, mousquetaire, pleated gloves for daytime, ridged ones for riding, silk-lined, fur-edged. All shades, too—dark, tan, brandy, black, mauve. No suede, of course. And no lace: nothing that could snag. The purpose of the glove was the preservation of the skin. Not from the sun, not from the cold.

From people.

She pulled on the French kid—cream-colored with green buttons—flexed her fingers, tested the grip. For she was the reigning Queen of Fives, the present mistress of this house; the details were everything.

“Mr. Silk?” she called from the gaming room. “Have you bolted the rear doors?”

His voice came back, querulous, from the stairs. “Naturally I have.” Then the echo of his boots as he clumped away.

The gaming room breathed around her. It was hot, for they kept a good strong fire burning year-round, braving incineration. But now she threw cold water on the grate, making the embers hiss and smoke. She closed the drapes, which smelled as they always did: a tinge of tobacco and the sour tint of mildew. Something else, too: a touch of cognac, or absinthe—one of the prior queens had enjoyed her spirits.

Quinn examined the room, wondering if she should lock away any valuables for the week. Of course, she had no fears of not returning on schedule, in triumph, per her plan—but still, she was venturing into new and dangerous waters. Some prudence could serve her well. The shelves were crammed with objects: hatboxes, shoeboxes, vinegars, perfume bottles, merino cloths, linen wrappings. But then she decided against it; she despised wasting time. The most incriminating, valuable things were all stored downstairs, in the bureau.

The bureau contained every idea the household ever had, the schemes designed and played by generations of queens. It stood behind doors reinforced with iron bolts, windows that were bricked up and impassable. It was safe enough, for now.

“Quinn?” Silk’s voice floated up the stairs. “We must be punctual.”

“We will be,” she called back with confidence.

Confidence was all they had going for them at the Château these days.

The Château. It was a pompous name for a humble old house. But that was the point, wasn’t it? It gave the place a sense of importance in a neighborhood that great folk merely despised. There were tailors and boot finishers living on one side, cigar makers and scholars on the other, and a very notorious doss-house at the end of the road. Quinn had lived in it nearly all her life, alongside Mr. Silk.

Quinn descended the creaking staircase, flicking dust from the framed portraits lined along the wall. They depicted the Château’s prior queens, first in oils, later in daguerreotype, with Quinn’s own picture placed at the foot of the stairs. Hers was a carte de visite mounted in a gilt frame, adorned with red velvet curtains. In it, Quinn wore a thick veil, just like her predecessors. She carried a single game card in one hand, and she was dressed in her inaugural disguise—playing the very splendid “Mrs. Valentine,” decked in emerald green velvet, ready to defraud the corrupt owners of the nearby Fairfield Works. She was just eighteen, and had already secured the confidence of the Château’s other players—and she was ready to rule.

That was eight years ago.

Quinn rubbed the smeared glass with her cuff. The house needed a good spring clean. She’d given up the housekeeper months ago; even a scullery maid was too great an expense now. Glancing through the rear window, she caught her usual view of the neighborhood—rags flapping on distant lines, air hazed with smoke. The houses opposite winked back at her, all nets and blinds, their disjointed gardens tangled and wild. She fastened the shutters, checking the bolts.

Silk was waiting by the front door. “Ready?” He was wearing a bulky waistcoat, his cravat ruffled right up to his chin. His bald head shone in the weak light.

Quinn studied him, amused. “What have you stuffed yourself with?”

“Strips of steel, if you must know.”

“In your jacket?”

“Yes.”

“For what reason?”

“My own protection. What else?”

Quinn raised a brow. “You’re developing a complex.”

“We’re living in a violent age, Le Blanc. A terribly violent age.”

Silk was forever clipping newspaper articles about foreign agitators, bombs being left in fruit baskets on station platforms.

“Stay close to me, then,” Quinn said, hauling open the front door, squinting in the light.

Net curtains twitched across the road. This was a quiet anonymous street, and the location of the Château was a closely guarded secret, even among their kind. But the neighbors kept their eyes on the Château. Nobody questioned its true ownership: the deeds had been adulterated too many times, sliced out of all official registers. In the 1790s, it was inhabited by an elusive Mrs. B—(real name unknown). Some said she’d been a disgraced bluestocking, or an actress, or perhaps a Frenchwoman on the run—a noble comtesse in disguise! She caught the neighborhood’s imagination; they refashioned her in their minds. B—became “Blank,” which in time became “Le Blanc.” Her house was nicknamed le Château. Smoke rose from the chimneys; queer characters came and went; the lights burned at all hours. Some said Madame Le Blanc had started a school. Others claimed it was a brothel.

In fact, it was neither.

It was something much cleverer.

The Queen of Fives. They breathed the title with reverence on the docks, down the coastline. A lady with a hundred faces, a thousand voices, a million lives. She might spin into yours if you didn’t watch out… She played a glittering game: lifting a man’s fortune with five moves, in five days, before disappearing without a trace.

The sun was inching higher, turning the sky a hard mazarine blue. “Nice day for it,” Quinn said, squeezing Silk’s arm.

Silk peered upward. “I think not.” He’d checked his barometer before breakfast. “There’s a storm coming.”

Quinn could feel it, the rippling pleasure down her spine. “Better and better,” she replied. “Now, come along.”

They made an unassuming pair when they were out in public. An older gentleman in a dark and bulky overcoat, with a very sleek top hat. A youngish woman in dyed green furs, with a high collar and a sharp-tilted toque. He with his eyes down, minding his step. She with her face veiled, gloves gripped round an elegant cane. Always listening, watching, rolling dice in their minds.

Silk and Quinn had a single clear objective for the day. Audacious, impossible, outrageous—but clear. He showed her his appointment book: Three p.m.—Arrive in ballroom, Buckingham Palace, en déguisé.

“In disguise? Doesn’t that go without saying?”

“You tell me. Has your costume been delivered?”

“Not yet. But we have a more serious impediment.”

“Oh?” he asked her.

“I’ve still not received my invitation card to the palace.”

They turned into Fournier Street. Silk tutted. “I’ve dealt with that. Our old friend at the Athenaeum Club will oblige you.”

“You’re quite sure? We’ve never cut it so fine before.”

“Well, you might need to prod him a little.”

“Just a little?”

“The very littlest bit, Quinn.”

Unnecessary violence was not part of their method. But persuasion—well, that was essential. Let’s call a spade a spade: the Château was a fraud house, a cunning firm, a swindler’s palace ruled by a queen. It made its business by cheating great men out of their fortunes. In the bureau stood the Rulebook, its marbled endpapers inscribed with each queen’s initials, setting the conditions of their games.

And this week the Queen of Fives would execute the most dangerous game of her reign.

Quinn paused outside the Ten Bells. “Very well. We can’t afford any slips. I’ll go to the Athenaeum now. Anything else?”

Silk shook his head. “Rien ne va plus.” No more bets.

They gripped hands. He gave her his usual look: a fond gaze, then a frown. “Play on, Le Blanc.”

She grinned at him in return. “Same to you, old friend.”

They parted ways.

And the game began.

Excerpted from THE QUEEN OF FIVES by Alex Hay. Copyright © 2025 by Alex Hay. Published by Graydon House, an imprint of HarperCollins. 

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7 December 2022, 7:30 p.m. 

I am a ghost in the room tonight. A shadow no one will notice, exactly as it should be. Guests arrive, flowing toward the heat and hum of the glass atrium at the back of the bookshop. Turning my back to them, I retreat farther into the deserted aisles of Anthropology, reach for a slim volume, inhale the flutter of air as my thumb zips through the pages. I wait for that aroma, dry and sweet, biscuits and sawdust to work its usual magic, a sensory hit that never fails to reassure me. Until now. Books used to be an escape. A window to another world that for a short time might alter me in some unfathomable way. But I’ve been too close to them, seen how they can taint and twist the truth. 

I slip into the atrium packed with a hundred or so more guests. It is easy enough to lose myself here, hovering at the back behind a pillar. I’ve been paid to melt away into the ether, but I doubt they’ll be looking out for me. 

So why risk coming along at all, what will it solve? His book is displayed on a table next to me in a tower of carefully spiraled spines, a DNA strand to show every angle. On top a hardback copy is perched upright, his name embossed across the front in glossy black. I imagine teasing out the bottom copy, watching them topple to the floor. The cover is luxuriant, creamy, a lily in one corner. It could be a bereavement card. 

In a way, it is. Loss in fifty shades of vanilla. In those pages resides a version of his wife, Eva, much-loved, much-missed, much-constructed, packaged up for public consumption. The other ghost in the room tonight. 

It is his back I see first as he walks through the crowd. Briefly he turns around and from my vantage point I watch him, this stranger who only three months ago I thought I knew so well. He pauses to chat to someone, draws his fingers through the back of his hair, letting his hand rest at the nape of his neck, something I know he does when he’s tired or anxious. He looks a little older this evening, a little grayer, a scattering of salt at his temples, a silvery haze of stubble at his jawbone. I see now, or is it wishful thinking, how the past few months have punished him too. He is leaner perhaps, his face more angular. His brow bones protrude a little, lending him an almost hawkish glare. 

From my vantage point, I spy an attentive young woman as she approaches him, offering up an open copy of the memoir, the shadow of a smile as they connect. Even from here I can see she is transfixed, caught up in whatever he is telling her, that way he has diverted the conversation and channeling it elsewhere. 

He pauses, bites his lip, and I see something new in his expression, a tentativeness perhaps as he excuses himself from the guest, disappears into his public persona. Slowly he climbs the spiral staircase to a gallery that circles the room and by the time he’s at the top, he has become Dr. Nate Reid, any shade of hesitation vanished. 

Priya, his editor, is already there, smiling down at the crowd. Everything about her is sharp and precise, the cut of her pale silk dress cinched at the waist, the razored line of her dark glossy bob tucked neatly behind each ear. She taps her ring against a champagne flute and the clamor subsides. 

“Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for coming tonight. I’d like to start by saying what a privilege and an honour it has been working on this book.” She turns and raises her glass to him, her hand touching his arm. 

“Nate’s instinct for storytelling is rare and inspiring. Many of us are used to hearing about Dr. Reid as a distinguished neuroscientist and TV personality, so it has been even more impressive to discover his gift for personal writing, his unflinching honesty and extraordinary ability to let the reader in.” 

As she hands it over to him, there’s a peal of applause. Unflinching honesty? Here’s to fantasy fiction. 

He clears his throat and steps toward the balcony edge. “I’d like to return Priya’s compliment and say how deeply satisfying it has been collaborating with her.” He touches her hand. “One silver lining in my journey is that it has brought me here tonight. To be here with so many friends who have given me their unstinting support. In a strange sort of way, it’s like Eva’s last gift to me. I feel very loved.” 

He falters, falls silent for a moment. 

Priya passes him a glass of water and there is a tingling anticipation as the silence stretches. 

“When I started this book, I was overwhelmed. My first thought was, why would anyone do this? Then I realized here is a golden opportunity. My chance to help others in a similar situation. There are more of us around than you’d think.” He looks down at us, as if seeking out other grief-stricken souls in the crowd. “No one can really bear the truth that every minute of our life hangs by a thread. However much we think we can script our own existence and try to ensure nothing bad can ever happen to us, it does and it will.”

His index finger silently strikes the iron balcony rail, in sync with the rhythm of his words. “To each and every one of us. Tonight, tomorrow, at some point. Of course, that’s why memoirs about grief are so popular. They’re a window to a world that one day we’ll all inhabit, if we haven’t already. It’s only a matter of time.” He grips a copy of the book, raising it up. 

“Eva was an extraordinary person, someone who radiated optimism, a hunger for life. As many of you are aware, she was best known as a sculptor, her work was widely regarded. She also made headlines around the world when I first diagnosed her with a rare medical condition, congenital analgesia, the inability to experience pain. But pain is nature’s alarm system helping to protect us, or as C.S. Lewis once put it, ‘God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ The value of pain is only evident when you see its absence. Which was why Eva was the most fearless person I ever knew, but the most vulnerable too.” 

Guests lean in, heads tilt and crane. One woman tucks loose hair behind her ear in the hope of catching more. That voice. Gentle, well-spoken. Articulate and low. Gravel and smoke. He’s lectured around the world, been interviewed by the New York Times and doorstepped by the Sun. As his reputation grows, his words became quieter, loaded with a particular power. 

A waitress passes with a tray of champagne and reluctantly I shake my head. It’s been five months since I touched a drink. Five months since that night at Algos House. Now I can’t help wondering if everything would have turned out quite as it did if I’d kept a clear head the whole time. I sip on a flute of orange juice, watch as he effortlessly ramps up his performance. 

“I wanted to examine how you carry on after something like this, how to accept the horror of it. To come back home one evening and discover, in an instant, that my wife had died. How do you begin to make sense of it?” 

How indeed. 

“Death is the great leveler, even for those who appear to be invincible.” He pauses, eyes shining. “Because it shows us who we really are, and reveals how much we truly love the person we have lost. Here’s to Eva. Tonight is for you.” 

He raises his glass as a tide of rapturous applause swells. It takes a moment or two, as the clapping subsides, to identify another noise in the crowd. A shriek. Like a contagion it spreads through the room, palpable and urgent. 

“Murderer! We know what you did!” 

I swallow hard. There are ripples of movement close to the door, security staff swarm, a scuffle ensues. “Justice for my sister!” she shouts, saying something else inaudible before she is bundled outside and removed from the event, leaving the crowd murmuring in her wake. I know I should leave but I’m frozen to the spot. 

Back up at the gallery, Priya steps steadily in front of him. “Well, I guess grief affects us all in different ways,” she says. “And hopefully Nate’s book will offer comfort and understanding to anyone who’s suffered great loss. As a publisher, I couldn’t ask for more. Nate’s on his way down now to sign copies so do buy one and see what all the fuss is about.” 

He appears, unphased, unflustered, his enigmatic reserve intact. There is nothing like the fury of a scorned woman to add intrigue, allure even. Priya knows this, so does he. Scandal swirls around him, somehow raising his stock rather than dimming it. I watch as he works the room. 

“Well, that was all highly entertaining, wasn’t it?” says a woman next to me, her breath ripe with wine and crisps. “Who was she?” 

“I’m not sure,” I lie. “Eva’s sister, I guess?” 

“Ah, the disgruntled sibling desperate for the true story to be told. Delicious.” She regards me for a moment and there’s a flicker of recognition in her eyes. 

She seems familiar, but I can’t quite place her. “Maybe a bit misery memoir for my liking,” she says, her tone conspiratorial. “But a great idea. Whoever got him to do it was completely on the money. Even more so if the sister doesn’t like it. I’m Jane. Jane Burton by the way. Mail On Sunday. And you?” 

I should have known; the over-highlighted hair and green quilt jacket are a giveaway. She swooshes the bubbles around her mouth and studies me as if I’m a puzzle to be solved. There’s that familiar glint in her eyes that I have grown to recognize down the years, a precise and very familiar brand of curiosity, watching from the sidelines, prying, insinuating, picking away. It’s part of the job, until it becomes part of you. 

“So you’re covering the book,” I ask. 

“Yes, we ran first serial last Sunday. Triumph over tragedy, the usual.” She shrugs lightly. “Still, if you cry, you buy, they say.” She smiles briefly, moves in a little closer so I can see a smear of fuchsia lipstick on her front tooth. I’m repelled by something in her that feels too close to home. I shudder slightly, step away from her, but she inches closer, as if we’re both coconspirators. 

“Good-looking, isn’t he? In that rather obvious way.” She crooks her head to one side, her eyes slide over him. 

“I guess, I hadn’t really noticed.” 

“What a horrible thing to happen. I don’t think you ever get over something like that, do you?” 

“I hear he’s doing pretty well.” 

“I wonder if he wrote it all himself?” Her steady look unnerves me. “A lot of them get help these days, don’t they?” 

“I wouldn’t know. If they choose to have a ghostwriter, it’s usually kept a secret.” A flush prickles my neck and spreads upward. 

I make my excuses and head for the exit, via Memoir & Autobiography for old time’s sake. The siren-call of those glittering lives on display spilling all—fame, grief, misery and addiction. “Read all about me, me, me,” they seem to echo, screaming for attention. I walk to the end of the aisle and stop in my tracks. There he is with Priya, standing just yards away. 

Something in me deflates, and I know that it’s all over. He talks quietly, rapidly, and Priya nods in affirmation, her head dipped. 

They carry on, deep in conversation. As I walk briskly past them toward the door, he looks up and our eyes lock. Priya reaches for his arm, but he pushes her away, starts toward me as I turn to the exit. 

“Wait,” he shouts after me. But I don’t turn back. I have spent too long under his skin and now it’s time to burrow out. I won’t be another acolyte like Priya. I don’t deserve Eva’s fate. 

I take off my heels, stuff them into my bag and start to run. Away from him. Still, I hear his voice, urgent and cracked, calling my name. I turn a corner and break into a sprint, my bare soles slap the cold wet pavement. Keep going, I tell myself, my breath ragged, my lungs burning. Only two questions keep circling. 

What did you do to Eva? 

What could you do to me?

Excerpted from YOU CAN’T HURT ME by Emma Cook, Copyright © 2024 by Emma Cook. Published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.

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