“I bought you a beautiful silk scarf, Patricia, and I thought it would look lovely on you,” she said as she draped emerald fabric around my neck.
The silk felt soft against my skin, yet I felt a strange unease as if something coiled beneath its beauty.
The following morning I rose before sunrise, dressed in a simple gray outfit, and went downstairs where Vanessa was already in the kitchen preparing chamomile tea.
“You woke up early, so I made you tea to help you relax,” she said while sliding a cup toward me.
The familiar scent that once calmed me now turned my stomach, and I lifted the cup to my lips without drinking before setting it down and saying, “It is too hot, I will let it cool.”
She smiled, yet I noticed her shoulders tense for a brief second, which was a detail so small that I might have ignored it if not for the phone calls.
I told her I had a book club meeting and left in a taxi, clutching my purse tightly as if it held all that remained of my life.
Harbor Light Café sat tucked into a narrow side street near the marina, and inside it smelled of roasted coffee and old wood.