Killer Getaway by Amy Korman

might not have actually been alive. But then she hung a right into a bank parking lot.
    â€œHere, check my iPhone tracker,” Joe instructed me. “I’ve got Holly on there, it’s the icon at the top right. Just click it, and it’ll tell you exactly where she is. And it better not be the Gucci store.”
    â€œShe’s still on Palm Avenue,” I told Joe, peering at the screen, where a small circular icon on a map showed Holly’s location.
    â€œIt’s part of a manic episode brought on by Howard being away in Indianapolis,” Joe sighed, shaking his head. “That’s why she’s been working out so much, too.” Joe paused at the stoplight before the causeway and looked at me with a concerned expression under his jaunty straw hat.
    â€œShe’s in the middle of a full-­blown Howard meltdown,” he said, then gunned the car when the light turned green. “And this time, I don’t think she’s inventing a problem.”
    I was truly upset to hear this. And worried for Holly, especially since she seemed so manic. She’s naturally skinny and hates exercise, so when Holly starts working out excessively, there’s something seriously bothering her. I mean, once in a while, she’ll put on a tennis outfit and go to lunch in it, but that’s mainly because she looks good in a short white skirt. She doesn’t actually pick up a racket or anything.
    Everything had seemingly been going well in Holly’s marriage over the last six months, or at least I’d thought. She and Joe had even created a “man room” with brown walls, a huge antique desk, and a pool table for Howard at their house in Bryn Mawr, since Howard didn’t share her obsession with airy, all-­white and pale-­gray modern decor. And, understandably, he wanted one small space in their nine thousand square feet of house where he could drink a glass of red wine without fear of leaving a ring on a white marble table. Holly had also received a gorgeous antique ruby ring from Howard as a getting-­back-­together present, after which they had thrown a non-­divorce party at their newly renovated house.
    Then Howard had actually taken time off, which he never does, and they’d spent August in Tuscany. I mean, how bad could things be?
    â€œHolly had a Google freak-­out last week,” Joe said, turning left onto the Dixie Highway, which had a charmingly run-­down, old-­time Florida look to it. There were high-­end antiques stores in low-­rise shopping centers, and next to the fancy shops, I noticed a few consignment stores. There were also, I noticed, quite a few liquor stores.
    â€œGoogle Images, actually, was what triggered the Palm Avenue shopping,” Joe clarified further. “And the obsession with working out.”
    â€œWas there a picture of Howard doing something, you know, illicit?” I asked, worried.
    Howard’s truly devoted to Holly, or so I’d always thought. He never gets riled up by anything she does or suggests. Take their trip to Italy: When Holly bought out the row of first-­class seats behind theirs so that her new leather goods would have their own seats and wouldn’t get smooshed on the flight home, did he say anything? Not at all. He just smiled and dutifully toted boxes of Valentino sling backs and Miu Miu leather satchels to seats 3A and 3B. I guess the shoes and bags hadn’t wanted to ride in coach.
    â€œHoward’s been out in Indiana for almost a month now on that garbage-­company takeover,” Joe reminded me. “He told Holly he couldn’t come down here to Florida last weekend—­which he’s been doing every Friday since we’ve been here—­because the company he’s buying in the Midwest was doing a major charity event that Saturday. It was like Habitat for Humanity.
    â€œOr something,” Joe added vaguely, waving his hand dismissively at