“What did she say?” I leaned forward. This was important.

“She said no, but that wasn’t the point. Then she asked what would I do if I found out someone I loved had committed a terrible crime?”

“What crime?”

“I don’t know. I told her my faith would guide me, that if a person truly had remorse, that if they had truly changed, I would forgive.”

“You’re a better person than I am, Jude. I’m an eye for an eye.”

“Violence begets more violence,” she said. “But if a person has no remorse . . .” She swallowed hard. “Caroline told me Theo had been lying to her as long as she’d known him.”

“About what?”

“I can’t say what. It would embarrass her.” Jude rubbed her temples. “It wasn’t a crime, though. She never told me what that was supposed to be.”

“She found out Theo killed his first wife.” I put it together in a heartbeat. Growing apart was one thing—Caro was a fairly devout person, and she wasn’t going to get a divorce unless there was a reason—but discovering her husband was a killer would’ve been the end of everything.

“I brought up practical things to her,” Jude said. “I said she wouldn’t want to give up her beautiful town house in a divorce. She told me she wouldn’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“She said her in-laws were on her side. Her father-in-law owns the house . . .”

“I thought he gave it to them as a wedding gift?”

“He didn’t sign it over, apparently,” Jude said. “He controls the purse strings. He told Caroline that the house was hers and Teddy’s, and Theo could go back to living at one of the hotels.”

I hadn’t stopped to think about what Theo’s motive might be for killing Caroline. His family was the one with money, but that big cushion of cash wasn’t actually his.

“What about Teddy?” I asked. “Who’d get custody?”

“Caroline wanted full custody, but Theo said he’d fight her for it. He told her . . . he said she was an unfit mother.”

In that moment, every nerve ending in my body was electrified. I wanted to kill Theo with my bare hands.

“I kept something from you yesterday,” Jude said. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“What?”

“That woman you overheard me talking to, Adinah Gerstein? We were discussing Caroline.”

“So you did call her crazy.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” Jude’s expression was horrified. “But Caroline was struggling, there’s no doubt of that.”

“Struggling how?”

“She’d suffered from depression for a long time. It wasn’t just postpartum. That only brought things to a head.” Jude’s shoulders drooped. “Did she mention the gremlins to you?”

“The . . . gremlins?”

“The ones who put her shoes in different boxes and moved her jewelry around,” Jude said. “They rearranged the books on her shelf. She must’ve told you some of this stuff.”

I thought about that. A few months back, I’d noticed that Caro had fired most of her staff, including the cleaning people. Her Upper East Side town house had been growing increasingly musty. When I’d mentioned it to her, Caro said the staff couldn’t be trusted. It had struck me as weird, but I’d never had a staff of any kind, so what did I know?

“Maybe something about the staff moving things around. She was so organized she’d notice the littlest thing.”

“Caroline was seeing things that weren’t there,” Jude said. “The last time I talked with her, she told me she was going to fire her son’s nanny.”

“Gloria? Why?”

“She said Gloria was reporting on her to Theo.”

I wondered if that was true. Gloria had always been terrific with Teddy, but who knew where her allegiances were? “That’s bizarre.”

Jude nodded and glanced at her phone, lying faceup on the desk. “I should probably get back to work soon.”

“There’s one other thing I need to show you.” I wasn’t carrying the printout the guy at Osiris’s Vault had given me, but I’d photographed it with my phone. “Caro sent three messages. One to me, one to our father, and one to someone listed as X. Here’s that last one.”

“‘If I fail, you have to do it. I am putting all of my faith and trust in you. My son’s future depends on it,’” Jude read aloud. “Who did this go to?”

“I wondered if Caro sent it to you.”

“Definitely not. Did you reach out to this email address?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Nothing back yet. Do you know who the email belongs to?”

“No,” Jude said. “The letters and numbers make it look like spam.”

Jude’s phone rang, and I glanced at the screen. The name on it was Ben Northcutt.

“Wait, isn’t that—”

“Caroline’s boyfriend?” Jude sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.”

CHAPTER 15

THEO

“I’ll be damned. Look what the cat dragged in,” my sister said when she found me in her office, a corner suite at the Thraxton International headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. Tall and broad shouldered, Juliet entered the room with the aggressive grace of a well-fed predator. She’d lost her hat but was wearing a navy suit that could’ve passed for a twin of her funeral attire. “You’re the last person I’d expect to find here. Security still allows you in?”

“I had to check my conscience at the door,” I said.

“As if you had one in the first place.” Juliet smirked. “But please, continue your self-righteous routine. Just don’t scare the axolotls.”

I was standing beside an aquarium that housed a pair of pale ghosts, who were resting at the bottom of the tank. Each was six inches long, with gills and tails like a fish, yet they also had four lizard-like legs. Their broad, rounded faces had eyes so far apart they were on opposite sides of their heads, the hallmark of a beast of prey. “What are they?”

“They’re a type of spooky salamander,” Juliet said. “Meet Dewey and Louie.”

“Where’s Huey?”

“Those two ganged up and ate him,” Juliet said. “Siblings are the worst.”

I stepped away from the glass. “You missed the service at Green-Wood.”

“I went to the church, Theo. And the luncheon. I don’t have the luxury of spending all day at a funeral.” Juliet sat down behind her desk. “Besides, there was more than enough drama at the church. Between you punching out that tabloid sleaze and Deirdre getting into it with a security guard, people really got their price of admission.”

“What happened with Deirdre?”

“A new hire got aggressive about demanding her invitation.” She shook her head. “Security was shown photos of every family member. It’s not like Deirdre isn’t distinctive looking. He had no excuse.”

“You fired him?” It wasn’t really a question. Firing staff was Juliet’s hobby.

“Of course I did.”

That exhausted our limited supply of small talk. “I need to talk to you about something important.”

“I knew you weren’t here just to check out my amphibious office mates.” She eyed me with the careful attention of a crocodile sizing up its lunch. “Go ahead, ask me anything.”

“Did you tell Caroline about my first wife?”

Juliet stared at me in what appeared to be unfeigned astonishment. Then she started to laugh. Her face flushed and her shoulders shook.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Juliet wiped her eyes. “I just realized what a great conversation starter it would be: ‘You know, this reminds me of the night Theo murdered his first bride . . . ’ Think of all the situations it could work in.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Did you mention Mirelle to Caroline?”

“I can promise you, I never uttered Mirelle’s name to her.”

I turned to leave Juliet’s office, then stopped dead. The ancient Egyptians believed in a female demon named Ammut, who was equal parts lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile. Ammut wasn’t worshipped, but she was feared. After death, in the Hall of Two Truths, she devoured impure hearts, preventing those souls from ever resting. Whenever I encountered Juliet, I speculated on the possibility of a demon from antiquity being reincarnated as a sadistic socialite with a penchant for gold jewelry, strappy sandals, and sashimi.

“You never uttered Mirelle’s name,” I said slowly. “But you told Caroline something about her.”

Juliet’s eyes brightened. “You are getting good at this game, Theo. All right, you win. I may have dropped a sly little reference into a conversation I had with Caroline.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing much. It was ages ago.”

“You have an excellent memory,” I said. “What happened?”

“Caroline was planning some postpandemic European travel—Paris, Barcelona, blah blah blah—and it just came up. I asked if Berlin was on her itinerary, and she said she’d always wanted to go. I said that I supposed you never took her there because it would bring back tragic memories. Caroline thought I meant when you were a drug addict who flunked out of college, but I told her that I meant it because of your first wife.”