“Graydon Spires.”
“I can get Graydon Spires to do exactly what I say. You believe that, right?”
Edie considers this. Can Alessandra be a total bitch? Yes. Can she get men to do whatever she wants? Also yes. She gives Alessandra the number, then squeezes her eyes shut. She overhears fragments of the conversation:
Mr. Spires, this is Alessandra Powell with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department…Report of threats against…class-four felony before you even get to the blackmail…understand you work at Dove…We can either come round you up…Venmo the amount of fifteen hundred dollars back to the victim…internet fraud, identity theft…prosecute to full…
There’s a pause. Edie can hear Graydon’s voice on the other end of the line. Does he have just the right words for Alessandra now? Is he hitting the correct emotional note—contrite but charming? He was only kidding…he would never dream of posting…
Alessandra says, “I don’t want to hear your bullshit, Mr. Spires. Venmo Ms. Robbins what you owe her immediately and leave her alone, otherwise we will file an electronic restraining order. If you ever threaten to post those videos again, we’ll arrest you immediately. Am I understood?” The crystal under Alessandra’s right eye seems to wink at Edie. “Am. I. Understood?” She pauses. “Well, I hope so. I won’t trumpet my own accolades, Mr. Spires, but I’ve created quite a reputation wiping the floor with little men like you.”
She ends the call and tells Edie, “If he doesn’t Venmo you what he owes you immediately, I’m going to fly out to Arizona and put his balls in a vise grip until he turns it over. But you are getting that money back.”
Edie looks at Alessandra. “Thank you.”
Alessandra smiles—not the cold, plastic smile Edie has grown used to but a warm, genuine one that illuminates her face and makes her look like a completely different person. “You’re welcome, Edie,” she says.
Edie’s phone dings. A Venmo payment has just come in from Graydon Spires for fifteen hundred dollars.
Richie and Kimber are having the kind of summer romance that people write songs about—songs like “Summertime,” by Cole Porter, “A Summer Song,” by Chad and Jeremy, “Summer,” by Calvin Harris—and Grace isn’t sure how she feels about it. On the one hand, she can tell it won’t end well—they aren’t being honest with each other!—but on the other hand, they both seem so…happy, and how can that be a bad thing? Now that they’ve—Grace will say it, even though they haven’t—fallen in love, Kimber’s insomnia has disappeared and she lets Richie work the night desk undisturbed. She goes to bed after tucking in the children and doesn’t stir until Richie joins her at two a.m. Then there is some spirited adult time. Kimber and Richie sleep intertwined （always in pajamas because of the children） until seven o’clock, which is when Louie heads out to the lobby to play chess and Wanda asks the hotel guests if they’ve heard the “Mystery of the Haunted Hotel.” （Wanda is Grace’s own little PR person.） Kimber goes down with them and then brings two cups of coffee—light and sweet for her, splash of milk for Richie—back to the suite. The children eat the complimentary breakfast in the lobby—they’re both partial to the croissants filled with almond marzipan that Beatriz makes—and Richie and Kimber skip breakfast for more alone time. Then they shower and embark on their day. Kimber seems to have abandoned writing her memoirs for the time being; she hasn’t been on her computer in nearly two weeks.
Richie and Kimber deliver Louie to his chess lesson with Rustam and Wanda to the Atheneum so that she can read quietly for an hour and check out the next Nancy Drew mystery （she’s up to number twenty-six, The Clue of the Leaning Chimney）。 Then they return to the hotel, put Doug on a leash, and disappear out the side door to go for a walk. The afternoons are adventures, ones Kimber selects from Lizbet’s Blue Book and that Grace gets to live vicariously through the photos on Kimber’s phone. Grace sees pictures of the big-enough-for-two sandwiches they get from Something Natural （turkey, Swiss, and tomato with sprouts and mustard on the famous herb bread） and watches the videos Kimber took of their trip up to Great Point. The long arm of golden sand in the afternoon sun is so appealing that Grace yearns to be able to leave the hotel, if only for the afternoon. She hasn’t been to Great Point since before her brother died; George used to take her up in his fishing boat. There are pictures of Richie surf-casting with a rod Grace knows he borrowed from Raoul and then some photos of the children frolicking in the water with seals. （Doesn’t Kimber know that seals mean sharks? Doesn’t Richie know? What kind of outdoorsman is he, anyway?）