Wish You Were Gone(58)

The doorbell rang, startling her half to death. Emma hurried over to keep whoever it was from ringing again and swung open the door.

“Gray! Is everything okay?”

Gray gave her an irked sort of look. “Well. It’s like we’ve swapped places.”

Emma bit her lip.

“Everything’s fine!” Gray said. “Did you forget?”

Gray whipped out a stack of papers—a list of names. Emma’s eyes went wide. “Is that the list for the memorial?”

“Confirmed RSVPs,” Gray said, striding inside. “And there are four female JMs on here.”

Emma was about to close the door when headlights flashed, and a car pulled into the front circle behind Gray’s. It was Lizzie. Emma couldn’t believe it, but she had forgotten. Between coming home to find her garage obliterated and getting the call from the school, she’d entirely spaced that she’d made this date with Gray to go over the list, and invited Lizzie to join them. Maybe she was growing? Maybe it was a sign that she should just drop it like Lizzie had suggested so many times?

She waited for Lizzie to get out of her car and gave her an air kiss at the door.

“How’s it going?” Lizzie asked, toying with the silver rings on her fingers.

“Fine. Gray’s already inside.”

“Great.” She didn’t even sound sarcastic when she said it, and she seemed oddly distracted as she breezed past Emma into the kitchen.

“Oh, hello,” Gray said coolly.

“Don’t be so happy to see me, Gray,” Lizzie replied. “It’s embarrassing.”

Emma rolled her eyes. Sometimes she thought her friends were going to actually duel over her. She closed the door and joined them.

Gray had the eight pages, typed, single-spaced, laid out on the countertop. Emma saw that the names were already highlighted, but that was not where her focus fell.

“All these people are coming to the memorial?” Her voice was strangled.

“James was pretty popular,” Lizzie stated.

“It’s gonna be a scene,” Gray confirmed. “Pretty much everyone Darnell and James ever did business with is going to be there.”

“How’s Darnell doing with all this?” Emma asked, watching her friend carefully.

“Fine. He’s fine,” Gray replied. She looked past Emma at the wine fridge. “Do you have any rosé?”

Emma knew she was skating on thin ice even coming close to the Darnell subject with Lizzie around, so she resolved to keep herself in check.

“I do,” Emma said. “And truffles. I bought them this afternoon.”

Once the wine was poured and the chocolate distributed, Emma and her friends gathered around her laptop and brought up James’s Facebook page. Jennifer Mahone was on the confirmed RSVP list, and Lizzie actually whistled when she saw her profile picture.

“Oh, Darnell loves her,” Gray supplied, taking a sip of her wine. “If she’s on ESPN, I’m not allowed to change the channel.”

Emma squirmed in her seat. She had this awful sense that James was leaning over her shoulder. His derisive laughter was clear as a bell in her ear.

“But I’m sure it’s not her,” Lizzie said, patting her knee in a comforting way. “She’s clearly not James’s type.”

“What? Young? Hot? Successful?” Emma asked.

Lizzie took a slug of wine and pulled her rings on and off.

“What about Jelena Martinez? Look her up,” Gray directed.

Emma typed the name in the search bar. “There are a few, but this one’s in New York.” She clicked on her profile. “Doesn’t look like they’re connected on here, but… yeah, she’s a board member at The Willis Foundation. James was on that board for a while, too.”

“Must be her. But she’s ancient,” Lizzie said, reaching over to click on a picture of Jelena with her adult children and grandkids. “I think you can cross that one off the list.”

“Unless he had some kind of fetish,” Gray said.

Emma laughed, and only then did Lizzie laugh, too.

“What about Janet McElroy?” Emma said. “Did she RSVP?”

“Yep. She’s on here,” Gray said, and chucked her chin at the computer. “Let’s see her.”

Emma brought up her profile. Her friends tilted their heads in opposite directions and Emma had to take a bite of chocolate to keep from giggling. Why was this fun? They were trying to pinpoint which of these women her husband was sleeping with, and she felt giddy.

“Maaayyybeee,” Lizzie considered.

“She does look a little like you,” Gray conceded.

“Is that what it is?” Lizzie asked. “I was going to say she looked familiar.”

And that’s when Emma understood. She was giddy because her friends were getting along. She’d finally found the thing that bonded them: mutual distaste for her husband.

“I don’t know. She looks a bit stick-up-her-butt to me,” Emma said. “What’s the last name on your list?”

“Jasmine Missoni.”

Emma gulped. She did not like the sound of that.

Lizzie stopped chewing on a white chocolate truffle. “Isn’t she a model?”

Fingers trembling, Emma typed in the name. Instantly, half-naked pictures of a woman with shimmering South Asian skin, perfectly thick eyebrows, and an intricate tattoo across her back filled her screen.