Who is Maud Dixon?(79)

She pushed herself up from the table and followed Amira into the house.

“Hi, Greta,” she said tentatively into the phone.

“Florence? What’s going on? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over twenty-four hours.”

Florence looked at her watch. “What time is it there?”

“Florence, I’m here. I’m in Marrakesh.”

“What?”

“I’ve been here since yesterday afternoon.”

“Where?”

“At La Mamounia.” Florence recognized the name of the hotel from the research she’d done before booking their trip. It cost over five hundred dollars a night. “Listen, where are you? I don’t know where to come meet you.”

“I’m leaving. I’ll come to you.”

“But what about Helen?”

“I told you—Helen left. She’s not here anymore.” As soon as she told the lie, she realized that she was never going to turn Helen in. Her loyalty would never belong to rule-bound functionaries like Officer Idrissi and Dan Massey. Nor, even, to Greta Frost.

“Do you think she came back here, to Marrakesh?”

“Yes,” Florence said decisively. “Our return flight is on Wednesday. I have no reason to believe that she won’t be on it.”

“Alright. Let’s meet here then. You’re leaving today?”

“As soon as I take care of one or two things.”

“Fine. Let’s plan on getting a drink at my hotel this evening. There’s a nice bar just behind the lobby. I’ll be there at six.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

“Call my cell if anything comes up.”

Florence hung up and wondered whether she would actually go through with the meeting. What would she tell her?

She’d ask Helen. Helen would have a plan. She always did.





44.



Half an hour later, the high-pitched whine of a scooter grew in volume, then abruptly cut off. Florence looked out the window. Meg was climbing off her motorbike in the driveway. Florence went to open the front door.

“Is Nick here?” Meg asked without preamble.

“No, why?”

“Have you heard from him?”

“No. What’s going on?”

“He was supposed to meet Liam and Jay to surf this morning, like two hours ago, but no one can get in touch with him. He’s not at their place either.”

“Didn’t he go back with them last night?”

“No, they said he stayed behind.” Meg looked uncomfortable. “He was talking with Florence? I mean, totally platonically or whatever.”

Florence smiled. “That’s okay. He’s allowed to talk to other women.”

“Well, if you hear from him will you let one of us know?”

Florence nodded.

After Meg had left, Florence sat down in the living room. There was an uneasy churning in her gut she could no longer ignore. The coffee had kicked in, and all the questions that she hadn’t been able to formulate the night before bombarded her with insistent clarity.

How had Helen emerged unscathed from the accident? How, exactly, had she swum out of a sinking car? Had she even tried to save Florence? Why couldn’t Florence remember anything from that night? And, while she was at it, why had Helen hired her to transcribe pages from an already published novel?

There had been something off about Helen’s confession. It had been too forthright. Helen was brilliant and engaging and thrilling, but transparent? Sincere? Never.

Unless it wasn’t a confession at all.

And if it was something else, then what was Helen still hiding? If she’d admit to killing her best friend, what deeds were too dark to name?

Florence suddenly had an idea of where to look.

Helen had left her laptop behind at Villa des Grenades after faking her death because nothing could be missing. But why had she brought it to Morocco at all? They already had a computer—the one Florence had been using to type up Helen’s drafts and send her emails.

Florence used it now to Google: “Forgot my mac password.” Why hadn’t she thought of this before? The process for resetting a computer password couldn’t have been simpler.

She ran up to her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time, and took out Helen’s computer from the drawer she’d found it in three days ago. It was dead. She plugged it in and hit the Power button while holding down the Command and R keys. She consulted the instructions again on her own screen. Now Helen’s laptop was in recovery mode; all she had to do was type “resetpassword” into the terminal.

Suddenly she froze; there was a noise coming from downstairs. She listened closer. It was Amira singing softly to herself. It was nothing.

She turned back to the computer and reset Helen’s password to “zoodles.” Now there was no turning back. The next time Helen tried to use her laptop, she’d know that Florence had been tampering with it.

Florence watched as Helen’s desktop filled the dark screen. Her excitement deflated quickly. There were no files or folders on the desktop. She clicked through the documents folder and the trash. They were both empty. She opened the Internet browser. The search history had been wiped.

Florence tapped her fingers lightly on the keyboard. Then she Googled “recover deleted files on mac.” The top hits were ads for software that claimed to do just that. She downloaded the first one for $1.99, and watched as it searched the hard drive. A neon green status bar showed its progress; it hit 50 percent, then 80, and still nothing.