She jumped when Florence said hello.
“Florence, you surprised me.” She took off her glasses and snapped them shut. “Please, sit.”
Florence settled into the plush velvet chair opposite Greta’s.
“Here’s the man,” Greta said, beckoning a server in a burgundy vest. “Tell him what you’d like.”
“Whatever you’re having,” Florence said, gesturing at the nearly empty wineglass on the table.
“Two more of the same,” Greta told him. “The Pinot Noir.” The man nodded and retreated as unobtrusively as he’d arrived.
“What happened to you?” Greta asked Florence, frowning at her injuries.
“Well that’s one chapter in the story I have to tell you. And I should warn you: It doesn’t have a happy ending.”
Greta raised her eyebrows. “Okay, you have my attention.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks, and they both sat in silence as he carefully arranged the glasses on white doilies. When he left, Florence took a sip of her wine and began.
“What would you say if I told you that Mississippi Foxtrot was a work of nonfiction? That the murder was real, and Helen Wilcox is the one who committed it.”
Florence watched Greta’s face carefully. She saw both concern and disbelief flash across Greta’s features, as if she couldn’t quite decide whether to take Florence seriously. But there was no doubt in Florence’s mind that she was taken aback. Florence had half-wondered whether Greta might have known Helen’s secret this whole time.
“Let me start at the beginning,” Florence said.
She then proceeded to explain what had happened between Jenny and Helen when they were teenagers, how Helen had killed a man and let her friend go to prison for it. How Jenny had gone to visit Helen after she was paroled in February; how Helen had killed her.
Greta listened mostly in silence, but when Florence got to the part about the compost pile, she interrupted: “Florence, these are incredibly serious allegations. How sure are you about all this?”
“Look it up,” Florence said. “Google ‘Helen Wilcox Cairo New York.’” Some of the local papers had already picked up the story; the discovery of a dead body in a compost pile was big news in a small town like Cairo.
Greta hesitated, then started typing into her phone. Florence watched as the blood slowly drained from her face.
“Good god,” Greta whispered.
Florence went on. She explained why Helen had hired her: so that she could fake her own death and assume Florence’s identity, even changing her will so she could keep her money.
Greta shook her head. “I knew something was off when she told me she wanted an assistant. It made no sense. Privacy had always been her principal concern.”
Florence described the car accident. “That’s how I got this,” she said, holding up her cast. As she recounted Helen’s return to Villa des Grenades to complete the job she’d botched, tears welled up in her eyes.
“She had a gun, Greta. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Where would Helen even get a gun?” Greta asked in wonderment.
“Rabat, I think. Where she got the passport. The police are looking into it.”
She doubted this last part was true. Massey certainly wasn’t; perhaps Idrissi would. Either way, Florence wasn’t too concerned. Anything the police found in Rabat would corroborate Florence’s story. Helen was the criminal. She was the victim.
“The police…” Greta said. “So Helen is in custody?”
Florence shook her head and a tear dripped down her cheek. “I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before,” she whispered.
Greta’s voice dropped an octave. “Florence, what’s happened?”
“It was pure instinct. I lunged at her before she could pull the trigger. And in the struggle, Helen went over the railing. She fell down into the courtyard. According to the police, she was killed instantly.”
Greta’s eyes grew wide. “Helen’s dead?”
Florence nodded.
“My god.”
Florence sat silently while Greta absorbed the news.
“My god,” she said again, shaking her head.
“I’m so sorry.”
After a moment, Greta placed her hand on top of Florence’s cast. “I’m sorry too. It must have been a terrible experience, watching Helen die like that.”
“It was awful. I keep asking myself what I could have done differently.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. If she was pointing a gun at you, what choice did you have?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should have tried harder to reason with her.”
“Reason with Helen Wilcox? That’s a tall order in the best of circumstances.”
Florence smiled sadly. “True.”
Greta shook her head again. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I know. I’m still in shock.” Florence paused. “And I don’t even have as much of a stake in all this as you do.”
Greta glanced up sharply at Florence. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Maud Dixon is dead too, of course.”
“Florence, I assure you, that’s not my primary concern right now,” Greta said, but her tone lacked its usual confidence.
“Of course not. It’s awful that Helen is dead, I just meant that it’s also a tragedy that the world will never get another book by Maud Dixon. She was so talented.”
Greta nodded, rotating her wineglass in one hand. “She was.”
They both sat quietly for a minute. Florence looked around the room, which was filling up quickly, and took another sip of the wine. She quite liked it. It wasn’t as heavy and oppressive as the Chateauneuf-du-Pape that Helen had favored.
Greta had gone back to staring blankly at the tabletop. Florence wondered what she was thinking; her expression was inscrutable.
After a beat or two more, Florence cleared her throat. “Unless…”
Greta looked up. “Unless what?”
“No, you’re right, this isn’t the time to be thinking of things like this.”
“Unless what?” Greta said impatiently.
“I just thought I should mention that I have Helen’s manuscript—for her second novel. It wasn’t what I was typing up in Cairo at all; she was working on something entirely different. The Morocco Exchange. The story was based on the plan she was carrying out while she wrote it; the plan to kill me and steal my identity.”
Greta put down her glass. “Helen finished her second book?”
“It’s not finished. I mean, it’s certainly too early to be calling it a book. But I can already tell that it’s the same caliber as Mississippi Foxtrot.”
The color started to come back to Greta’s cheeks. “You have it here? With you?” She glanced at Florence’s bag on the floor.
“No, I didn’t think that was prudent. It’s in the safe in my hotel room.”
“Florence. I need to see that manuscript.”
“Well, like I said, it still needs a lot of work.”
“That’s okay. We can find someone to help with that. Fitzgerald died before he finished The Last Tycoon.” She let out a small laugh. “Come to think of it, that was a roman à clef too.”