OTHER TITLES BY LAURA HANKIN The Summertime Girls Happy & You Know It BERKLEY An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2021 by Laura Hankin Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hankin, Laura, author. Title: A special place for women / Laura Hankin. Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2021. Identifiers: LCCN 2020035470 (print) | LCCN 2020035471 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984806260 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984806284 (ebook) Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction. | Occult fiction. Classification: LCC PS3608.A71483 S68 2021 (print) | LCC PS3608.A71483 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035470 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035471 Cover design and illustrations by Emily Osborne Cover images: doorways © RCW.studio/ Shutterstock; neon © wacomka/Shutterstock Book design by Tiffany Estreicher, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. pid_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0 For my mother, whom I see in all sorts of places. CONTENTS Cover Other Titles by Laura Hankin Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty-One Chapter Fifty-Two Chapter Fifty-Three Chapter Fifty-Four Chapter Fifty-Five Chapter Fifty-Six Chapter Fifty-Seven Acknowledgments About the Author There is a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women. —Madeleine Albright PROLOGUE Over the past few years, rumors had started swirling about a secret, women-only social club called Nevertheless, where the elite tastemakers of NYC met to scratch one another’s backs. People in the know whispered all sorts of claims: Membership dues cost $1,000 a month. Last time Rihanna had been in town, she’d stopped by and gotten her aura read. Nevertheless took its no-men-allowed policy so seriously that when some belligerent guy tried to follow his girlfriend inside one night, a (female) security guard swiftly broke his collarbone. Then, there were the more serious rumors: that the women of Nevertheless had been responsible for electing New York City’s first female mayor. And the conspiracy theories: that when she’d come for their fortunes, they’d taken her down. If you had, say, founded a judgment-free exercise studio that donated half its profits to schoolgirls in Haiti, you’d probably done it to help the world. But you also hoped that now they would notice you. Now you’d get an invitation. Once, a reporter had been interviewing Margot Wilding, a former socialite who’d invented a popular astrology app, and whose presence at your gallery opening or fund-raiser immediately boosted its chances of being covered by Page Six. “I’ve heard rumors that you’re a member of Nevertheless,” the reporter had said, leaning in, sycophantic. “What do I have to do to get you to dish?” For just a moment, Margot stiffened. Then she switched on a languid smile. “Oh,” she said. “We’re just a coven of all-powerful witches, of course.” “Of course,” the reporter said, laughing politely. “Really, though—” “Next question,” Margot said. That was the closest anyone got to publicly confirming Nevertheless’s existence until the night I burned its clubhouse to the ground. ONE Sometimes when you’re having the shittiest of days, you need to take one more tequila shot and splash some water on your face. Then, as absurd as it seems, you’ve got to go to a restaurant opening. On one such shit day—the day that would end up setting everything in motion—I stood in front of a storefront lit with lanterns. In the window, my reflection wobbled, a disheveled figure in a corduroy miniskirt, dark curly hair all mussed from the windy September evening. That afternoon, I’d lost my job. The idea of hobnobbing in a crowd of loud, sparkling people made my stomach turn. But I had to go inside. This was Raf’s opening. He was fancy now, profiled in Vanity Fair as the hot new celebrity chef on the scene, but he was also still the stringy boy down the block. After my parents divorced, when my mom needed a place for me to stay with free supervision until she got home from work, I’d spent multiple afternoons a week in Raf’s living room. Raf had always shared his Doritos and listened to me declaim the terrible poetry I’d written when I should’ve been paying attention in math class. In and out, that was the plan. I threw my shoulders back and walked into the chatter, the sweet garlicky smells. Raf’s parents had grown up in Cuba before immigrating to the States together, and the press loved talking about how this fast-rising chef was reinventing the food of his roots with distinctly American twists. The breads were baked in-house. The meat came from a farm upstate where the animals were treated like family, until they were slaughtered. I gave my name to a young woman at the door, and she scanned the clipboard in her hand, then waved me into the throng. There were two contingents in attendance—the older investor types, and then a smattering of New York’s privileged millennial crowd, who dropped by restaurant openings as casually as I dropped by my neighborhood bodega. Waiters
