A Grave Beneath The Floorboards

Joanna has always been the spice fanatic, and her best friend Bella spent a year training herself to handle heat just to keep up with her. Bella even joked that if she ever sat across from Joanna and refused spicy food, Joanna should call the cops, because that wouldn't be her.

Then, at their favorite dive bar, Bella recoils from a Suicide Wing and snaps that she can't do spicy food. Her laugh is wrong too: she throws her head back with an open mouth, though the real Bella always covered her mouth out of habit. Convinced the woman across from her is an impostor, Joanna finds Bella's condo spotless, her succulents dead, her closet empty. Carved beside their initials in the floorboard is an address from Bella's childhood, in a complex scheduled for demolition years ago.

Driving there, Joanna notices a white van keeping steady pace behind her.