Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

My simple solution to good health for this new year is to bake an apple pie!

Remember the old adage, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"? Okay, you may be smiling, thinking 'Suzanne, I don't think an apple pie is what the doctor was referring to,' and you may be right. But still, I disagree. Not only does eating a slice of apple pie let me check one of the daily fruit requirements off my list, the experience of making the apple pie is guaranteed therapy.

Because making my kind of apple pie isn't as simple as opening a can of apple pie filling and dumping it into a crust. Nope, to make a real good apple pie, you have to put some time into the preparation. Peeling the apples, cutting each one into thin slices, and finally mixing in the spices. It's the extra time that I spend on preparing the fresh apples that allows me to check out of all the other things going on in my life. It's the absolute best and tastiest therapy and it works every time.

And the "apple" must not have fallen far from the tree, because a couple of weeks ago my grown-up son with three children of his own, sent me a text, "Mom, remember the apple pie you used to make all the time when I was a kid? Can you send me that recipe today? I think I need to make an apple pie."

Take a peek at the recipe. Tattered, torn, and stained, it's still the best therapy to be found.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book by Alafair Burke. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

PROLOGUE

It was meant to be a harmless prank. Not even a prank, not initially.

An inside joke, only for the three of them. But now she was locking her apartment door behind two departing police officers.

She had managed to sound appropriately earnest but unworried when they began asking questions. After all, why should May Hanover, of all people, be nervous around police? May was the good girl, always. The one who only needed to be told once by a teacher to open a book to a specific page. The teenager who drove strictly within the limits of her learner's permit. Even her pug, Gomez, seemed to understand at an instinctive level why he needed to break away from his neighbor buddies to ride the building's service elevator while they strutted brazenly with their humans through the lobby.

May, simply put, was a rule follower. A rule enforcer, in fact. It was a trait that had helped her succeed in life, but, as she had learned, could also lead to trouble.

Josh emerged from the bedroom where he'd gone to give her privacy when the police arrived. Gomez waddled slightly behind him. "Was that about Roland Shaw?"

Shaw was the man she'd convicted in her final in-person trial as an assistant district attorney after he was found breaking into his next victim's apartment. "How'd you know?" Could a question be a lie? That one probably counted. So many lies since she'd gotten home yesterday from her long weekend in the Hamptons.

"That was a major case for you. I recognized the big guy from the news."

The trial was before she and Josh had found themselves suddenly living together. Before they were engaged. The media coverage consisted of two small articles in the 'Post,' including a photograph of a defiant-looking May flanked by two detectives in the courthouse hallway--one of them the "big guy" Josh recognized. Whereas May was obsessed with all things crime-related--in her job, the news, truth or fiction--Josh found it all, quote, "dark and depressing." But Josh was interested in all things May-related. Of course he had followed the coverage.

"The DA's Office got an inquiry from another jurisdiction and needed to clear something up," she said. Misleading, but technically true.

"They couldn't just call you?" he asked.

"Actually, he called, but I didn't see the message." That one was a full-on lie. "Guess he's training a new guy and wanted a change of scenery."

"Well, I'm glad they were quick. I really wanted a Negroni but thought the sound of a cocktail shaker might be inadvisable while you were in official law enforcement mode."

"Another reason why you should stir," she said. "I like what I like."

"Make two? I'm getting back into my comfy clothes." She called Lauren once she was alone in the bedroom. "Hey there, woman. We were just saying we miss you."

"Yes, we miss you!" Kelsey called out in the background. "Come back here right now. It's boring without you."

May could hear a few drinks' worth of enthusiasm in Kelsey's voice. "You're clearly having a miserable time. Absolutely suffering." She felt a knot form in her sternum as she steeled herself to explain why she was calling. "I don't even know how to say this, but the police are probably going to call you. Both of you."

"What? How would they even know about us?" Lauren asked. "They came to my apartment. They asked who I was with. I didn't have a choice. They have your names. And your phone numbers."

"How? Were there cameras or something?"

"No, it was because of me. I'm so sorry."

What had she gone and done? No one was supposed to know about any of their stupidity. And now something really, really bad was going to happen--she could feel it. Something she couldn't control. She wanted to open her mouth wide to scream--to scream impossibly loudly again, like last time.

PART ONE

THE BEST TRIP EVER

Six Days Earlier

1

May stood before her open closet, finding a reason to hate everything in it. Her clothes consisted of either suits and sheath dresses or jeans, tees, and hoodies. She was utterly unequipped for a girls' weekend at the beach.

A few years ago, everyone seemed to be purging their belongings- dumping anything that didn't "bring them joy." May had quietly judged them all. To her, the act of finding happiness through decluttering was an indulgence for people who had too much time on their hands and enough money to spend on custom organizers at the Container Store. Now that she was staring down all her sad clothes, she was pining for a little Kondo energy.

She decided her good old reliable black shirt-dress would work if she paired it with a colorful bangle and some cute strappy sandals. She rolled it neatly before slipping it into the carry-on bag she had flopped open on her side of the bed. Resting next to the bag was Josh, his back against the headboard, the reading glasses he only recently admitted needing perched low on his nose. Gomez was curled in a tight ball next to him.

For the first four years of that dog's life, she had trained him to stay off the furniture. All that changed during the lockdown, when he'd been glued next to at least one of them 24/7 for more than a year straight. No going back now.

She noticed that Josh was grimacing as he read.

"That gross?" she asked. Josh was a product manager for one of the world's largest makers of personal care products. Tonight's homework was a report on emerging trends in the personal hygiene market.

"Reviewing a complete list of places to use full-body deodorant.

Want to hear?"

"Nope. People are disgusting."

Josh set the report aside on the nightstand and replaced it with the memoir he was reading by the lead singer of one of their favorite bands. They'd splurged on good tickets to see them live, the very first performance at Madison Square Garden after the world began to reopen. The date landed within those heavenly few weeks after vaccination appointments were plentiful, but before the arrival of the new vocabulary of 'variants, breakthrough cases,' and 'boosters--'when they believed that life was finally back to normal.

A few protesters showed up at the Garden, mocking them as sheep for complying with the venue's vax requirement. The guy in front of them had heckled back. "'Baaah,' motherfuckers. We sheep are going to dance our asses off while you idiots sweat outside."

May cried when the band broke into the first chorus. 'It's times like these you learn to live again.'

Two years later, everyone else seemed fine. They were living again.

But May?

May felt like she was still learning.

"You and your suitcase burritos." Josh smiled at the growing pile of compressed clothing bundles in her bag.

"Oh shoot," she said, immediately rethinking her black-dress choice. "I'm pretty sure I wore this the last time Lauren was in town. Does that sound right? When she had that gig at Lincoln Center?"

The new outfit was a purple sundress that did, in fact, bring May joy. It had that effortless just-threw-this-on boho chic look, which meant it cost as much as catering for two people on the wedding guest list they were trying to find ways to cull. She reminded herself this was only a weekend trip, and they'd probably spend most of it at the beach or sitting around the house, just the three of them. Swimsuit, shorts, T-shirts, all rolled neatly and set in place. Done.

As she finished zipping her bag, Josh stood and lifted it from the bed for her. He was old-fashioned that way. He opened car doors, took out garbage, did the stereotypically male things. When they traveled together, he insisted on pulling both of their suitcases behind him through the airport. He was a caretaker.

As he tucked the bag out of the way in the bedroom corner, she crawled into bed, nestling Gomez into her side like a football. "I'm going to miss you so much, you little pumpkin head."

"And here I was, thinking you were talking to me," Josh said.

"I'll miss you too, but Gomez can't text and call me, can you, sweetie? No, you don't have any thumbs or we'd text all the time."

(continued on Tuesday)

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