Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier

Author:Jennifer Hillier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

PART THREE

That night in Toronto with its checkerboard floors

—THE TRAGICALLY HIP

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Some mothers send birthday cards with sweet greetings. Paris’s mother sends blackmail letters with threats.

Ruby Reyes is the only person in the world who knows her daughter did not die in that house fire in Toronto nineteen years ago, and if Paris doesn’t pay her the money, the rest of the world will know it, too. It won’t matter what her explanation is. She faked her death and assumed a new identity, and the ashes in the urn with Joey Reyes’s name on it aren’t hers. And now here she is, just like Ruby, about to be on trial for the murder of a wealthy older white man.

The irony isn’t lost on her.

She’s certain another letter will arrive any day now, especially since the latest issue of People is featuring Jimmy. Since she can’t exactly pop out to the CVS down the street to buy a copy without being followed and photographed, she asked the concierge at the Emerald Hotel to do it for her. She wouldn’t even have known the magazine had done a tribute if Henry hadn’t told her.

The magazine chose a headshot of Jimmy from the nineties to grace the cover. Crinkled blue eyes, LA tan, still-dark hair, trademark smart-ass grin. It was taken at the height of his fame during the last season of The Prince of Poughkeepsie, which was also when he was the biggest asshole. At least according to Jimmy himself.

“There’s no magic secret to reinventing yourself,” Jimmy said to her once, shortly after they met. “You pick who you want to be, and then you start acting like it. It just takes time. A shitload of money doesn’t hurt, either.”

She understood the concept of reinvention better than he realized.

The People article doesn’t mention Paris until the very end, and the short paragraph only gives three details: she and Jimmy met in a yoga class; they were married a year later in Hawaii; she’s been charged with his murder.

Only two of these three things are accurate. Paris and Jimmy didn’t meet in a yoga class; that’s just the story they’d agreed to tell everyone. While it wasn’t quite a lie, it wasn’t exactly the truth.

Ocean Breath had just moved into its new location, and Paris didn’t recognize Jimmy Peralta when he first walked in. Nobody did. In the dim lights of the hot yoga room, he looked like any other student arriving for class, dressed in a pair of loose shorts and tank top, a rolled-up mat tucked under his arm, Mariners ball cap pulled low.

Midway through the class, she noticed that her new student was struggling. The hot room is kept at 108 degrees, and the key to getting through the hour-long class is hydration. Jimmy’s water bottle was empty. Concerned he might pass out, she approached him to see if he was okay.

Up close and face-to-face in the darkened room, her heart stopped when she realized who he was. And it wasn’t because he was famous.

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