Page 17 of The Familiar Stranger

Before we left, we double checked that each of us had the other’s cell number, and Almond had been kind enough to text me a photo of the note—something the police had told her to keep to herself. They’d wanted her to delete it, but she refused. Another big checkmark for Team Almond. I promised to treat the evidence with care and said we’d let her know of any updates. I hoped we would have something to share that would move the investigation in the right direction, finding the person behind Harmony’s attack, whomever that might be. Almond could think of no one who wanted to harm either one of them, which made the search more difficult but not impossible.

Maddie and I stopped at a printing shop and made a copy of the note. Then we enlarged it several times to get an even better look.

We thought about dinner, but neither of us were interested in food—not yet.

What we were interested in was answers, and when we got back to the room, I couldn’t swipe the keycard fast enough.

We threw our purses on the antique writing desk, changed into sweatpants and Ts, and flopped on the bed.

“The first thing we need to do is to make notes about everything we talked about with Almond,” I said. “You write, I’ll talk.”

She rolled to the edge of the bed and pulled out a notebook from my laptop case. Then we covered it all. From the day we’d met Harmony and Almond at dinner to today’s events, and everything in between. Discussions we’d had with the nail technician, coworkers and friends, and with Almond herself. Maddie then pulled out my laptop, and we made notes of key points from online articles about the crime and subsequent investigation, which wasn’t much but we didn’t want to leave anything out.

I reached out my hand, prompting her to hand over the pen and notebook.

“My turn,” I said.

“Time to study the note?”

“Not yet. Time for dangling questions.”

Maddie giggled. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“True. I think we should brainstorm for a while, concentrate on some of our unanswered questions, barring the contents of the note.”

“We should discuss the note, though, and what we think the ‘friends of the PI’ and stuff is all about.”

“We’ll get to that, but not yet. The note could have been written to throw the police off the trail. There’s a chance it’s not even related to us.”

Did I believe that?

I did not.

Still, none of it made any sense.

I’d just met Harmony.

How could the note be related to me?

Maddie flipped onto her back and said, “Questions, gotcha. Thinking …”

While I waited for hers, I wrote down a few of my own.

The big question: Why would someone hurt Harmony?

Expanding from that, I wondered if it was someone from her drug past?

Did she even have a drug past?

I’d wanted to ask Harmony, but because I’d gotten the information from the gossip chain, I was hesitant to bring it up. And Almond had not offered any such story—even when we talked about their relationship—nor had she brought up any sinister characters or situations associated with Harmony’s drug addiction. In her mind, that was a long time ago.

So, was the threat geared more toward Almond, who was known to be less than sunny when she was feeling threatened? During our conversation in her office, she’d admitted to being terrified—because of a threat—yet, she’d handled herself with grace and honesty once she’d loosened up.

How and why were they targeted?

Was it because they were a couple, two females, two races, living together, in love …?

As I pondered that thought, Maddie shot straight up on the bed. “Where’s the weapon the attacker used?”

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