And then suddenly Hannah was a threat as well, though as I surmised before, Wendy must have assessed it as a manageable one. I can imagine the conversation between the two of them, Hannah telling Wendy that she needed more of a support system in the family and that if she agreed to be her advocate, Hannah would keep her mouth shut about what she’d overheard. That, I realized, must have been the reason Wendy went from describing Hannah as an interloper to acting sympathetic to her role as a newcomer. I have no idea if the background check was a complete fabrication, but either way, she probably lied about the results.
Everything changed, though, when she misread Hannah’s sly remark to her about foxgloves, and she decided that Nick’s fiancée had to be eliminated.
The decision to make the scene look like an attempted rape gone wrong must have been a frantic, spur-of-the-moment thing—an art aficionado trying to dictate our perception of events.
How freaked she must have been when she realized she’d killed the wrong person, and that Hannah was still in the picture, a real danger, she assumed. And then there was me, blurting out my theory in the kitchen, having discovered the book on poisons. She knew it might be only a matter of time before I recalled seeing her by the bookcase, remembered that she had her iPad by the pool even though she’d claimed it wasn’t working, and started finding my way to the truth.
Looking back, I wonder if she actually experienced any cramping or fears of miscarrying, or if she made that up to cover for her mounting alarm. And of course, the trip for the sonogram gave her a way to dispose of the weapon she used on Jillian.
If she’s convicted, it’s not likely she’ll ever see much of her child. For a time we wondered if Blake would agree to a role, but he says he can’t bring himself to do so. Fortunately, the biological father is eager to raise the child with the help of his parents.
Those are the things I know, or feel pretty sure about. But there are other questions I still don’t have answers for.
What was really going on with Marcus and Hannah? Late in the summer, Keira admitted to me that she’d suspected Hannah and Marcus were meeting privately during that awful weekend, and she’d not only confronted Marcus about it but had also shared her fears with Nick—the conversation I’d witnessed in the yard. I doubt Hannah harbored any feelings toward Marcus; rather, I think she liked the power derived from having two brothers in her thrall. Though things looked strained for a while between Marcus and Keira, they appear much better now.
I also don’t know if Ash was having an affair with Jillian. He’s sworn to his sons that he wasn’t, but I suspect that he was at least moving in that direction. Nick admitted to Gabe that he had started to feel uncomfortable watching some of his father’s interactions with Jillian at work, and that it might have been one of the reasons Ash was encouraging him to take on a new project, one that would keep him out of the main office.
Claire must have suspected, too. Perhaps she even was considering hiring a private investigator to confirm or disavow her fears. When she’d changed her will, she was protecting some of her assets but she also might have been sending Ash a warning that she didn’t trust him.
And I still don’t know what Claire discovered about Hannah. Gossip hound that he is, Billy Dean eventually learned that she’d indeed been booted from USC for some type of cheating. Maybe that’s what Claire dug up, but I have no way of knowing.
By and large, I’ve pretty much stopped torturing myself at night with questions I’ll never have the answers to. All families have secrets and I have to accept that.
At least Hannah’s out of the picture. She’d sucked it up and spent that last night in the carriage house alone, then Ubered back to the city the next morning. Nick told us he was relieved, that he’d already begun to second-guess his decision to marry her. For one he’d found her behavior regarding the memorial service phony, and he hated that she’d insisted on speaking. Added to that were the suspicions Keira shared with him.
“You want more tea?” Gabe asks me, rising from the cottage sofa.
“Sure, why not.”
Things have been good with us over the past months. We had a few rough conversations following Wendy’s arrest, during which I told him how hurt I was by him not taking me seriously and he shared how upset he was that I thought he was being insensitive about his mother’s death. But gradually, we moved on. We spent the rest of the summer lying low—working, reading, sampling interesting wines at home, avoiding the occasional calls from reporters, and orchestrating several staycations in the city with Henry.
Gabe returns and tops off our mugs and sets the teapot on the coffee table. As he settles back on the couch, a tear slides down his cheek, which is still windburned from the run he took first thing this morning along the Hudson River.
“Gabe, what is it?”
“Wow,” he says, brushing it away with the sleeve of his sweater. “I didn’t see that coming. I guess I’m feeling kind of emotional. I know it’s important to come out and see my dad, especially since we won’t be doing Thanksgiving at the house this year, but it’s not getting any easier to be here.”
“Oh, honey, I know. It must be so tough for you.”
We haven’t even considered bringing Henry to Bucks County the few times we’ve come. Master eavesdropper that he is, Henry’s picked up some of the gritty, gory details about Jillian’s murder, and in the end of course we had to tell him about Aunt Wendy going to prison. We’ve actually taken him to my family home a couple of times, and my parents have relished his presence.
“At least this might be the last time.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Nick called me earlier today and told me he overheard Dad saying he’s probably going to put the property on the market.”
“Jeez. But it certainly doesn’t surprise me.”
“He’s apparently thinking of buying a place out on Long Island. Near the water.”
“It’s for the best, right? I know being in the house is hard for you. For me, too.”
“Even being in here creeps me out.”
“The cottage?” I say, surprised. “Why?”
“I haven’t had the guts to tell you yet, but maybe now is as good a time as any. The day my mother died, when my father, Marcus, and I met, I found out it was her who was mainly against Dad investing more in our business.”
It’s what Nick had told me about back in July. And it’s what I’d always hoped Gabe would share with me.
“She felt Nick deserved a turn?”
“Partly, but she also told Dad she thought Marcus and I needed to stand on our own feet for a while. I was so upset with her. That attitude was fine, but Dad had asked to be involved and we’d counted on it. I can still remember walking up the path to the cottage after the meeting, and then standing in this room, feeling livid. I took a hike to burn off my anger, but it didn’t help very much. And then a couple of hours later, she was dead.”
“Gabe, first, you had a right to be angry,” I say. “It was unfair of your mom to do that after your dad made you a promise. And everyone gets upset with their parents at times. That’s normal. The bottom line is that your mother knew you loved her.”
“She was just so much more controlling than I ever acknowledged. Like trying to guarantee we were the family she wanted us to be. My dad told me earlier today that he’s been going through some of my mother’s digital files and figured out that she hired a private investigator after she spotted Wendy with that guy in Palm Beach. She had a whole freaking dossier on her.”