“What service!” Mr. Ianucci says, helping himself to two. Again, not quite a “thank you,” Edie thinks. She wants to peek at whatever Mr. Ianucci is writing on his laptop. Is Shelly Carpenter really Bob Ianucci? A man?
Oh, Edie hopes not. That would be such a disappointment.
Edie steps back into the lobby to see a woman heading for the front desk like a blond bullet. She looks at Edie, then at Alessandra’s unmanned computer.
“Where is she?” the woman hisses.
“I’m sorry?” Edie says. “Where is who?” Though Edie fears she knows.
“The little Jolene!” the woman says.
Jolene? Edie thinks, and she relaxes a bit. She thought the woman was looking for Alessandra.
“Her!” the blonde says, holding up her phone. She starts scrolling through photos: Alessandra in someone’s kitchen, Alessandra on a bathroom scale, Alessandra lying across a very nice king-size bed that Edie suspects is not her bed at Adam and Raoul’s house. “She sent these to my husband and told him she’d forward them to me if he didn’t pay her fifty thousand dollars.”
Despite her empty stomach, Edie feels like she might vomit.
“She’s blackmailing him!” the woman says. “Where is she?”
“At lunch,” Edie whispers. What’s that saying? It takes a thief to catch a thief. Alessandra is a blackmailer just like Graydon! She’s a hypocrite! She had sex with this woman’s husband and took pictures of herself in their home （they aren’t nudes, thank God）。
It’s now a quarter past three; Alessandra left for lunch two and a half hours ago. Of course Alessandra would make an exit right before she had to face the music.
“Let me call her cell,” Edie says. “What’s your name?”
“Heidi Bick. She knows who I am.”
Edie dials Alessandra’s number, her eyes stinging with tears. She and Alessandra became friends. They bonded. Not only because Alessandra stood up to Graydon and got Edie’s money back, but also because Alessandra is smart and funny, and she’s the only person who understands the ins and outs of Edie’s days. Graydon told Edie she gave people too much credit, and that’s something Edie now cherishes about herself. But she was wrong this time. So, so wrong.
The call goes to voice mail. Edie looks at Heidi Bick in frustration. “She’s not answering.”
“She slept with my husband,” Heidi says. “She lived in my house.”
Edie closes her eyes. She thinks about how, in nature, insects and reptiles that are brightly colored or flagrantly marked are the most venomous. Alessandra had all the signs—the attention-grabbing hair, the eye crystals, the upside-down name tag. She lured in vulnerable people, trapped them, exploited them.
“And then!” Heidi says. “The pièce de résistance! She robbed my neighbor Lyric and planted her things in my house so I would think Michael was having an affair with Lyric!”
Good God, Edie thinks.
Heidi narrows her eyes. “It was so damn clever that if I weren’t appalled, I might be impressed.” She reels back. “But I’m appalled. She’s a despicable human being.” Heidi holds up the phone. “This is blackmail. Fifty grand? It’s extortion. I’m pressing charges.”
The door to the family pool opens and Mr. Ianucci steps in. “Pressing charges?” he says. “Sounds like things are getting hot in here.”
Edie whips out her fake smile like a gun from a holster. “Can I help you, Mr. Ianucci?”
“Seems I’ve lost my room key,” he says. “Can you make me another?”
Please, Edie thinks. You mean, Can you please make me another?
“Happy to!” she says in her fake cheerful voice. Mr. Ianucci won’t know it’s fake, but Alessandra would because it’s a desk thing. Edie doesn’t want to be angry at Alessandra; she doesn’t want the accusations to be true. She burgled the neighbor’s house and planted the neighbor’s belongings!
Edie turns to the back counter to make Mr. Ianucci a new key for room 307 and sees a manila envelope with Edie scrawled across the front in Alessandra’s handwriting.
Suddenly Edie feels like she’s living in a Nancy Drew mystery. Where did this come from? It’s obviously been there since Alessandra went to lunch and Edie hasn’t noticed it, though Alessandra knew Edie would notice it eventually.
Does this mean Alessandra isn’t coming back from lunch…at all? Edie is crushed by the thought; she wonders how she can feel so angry and simultaneously so dejected.