The room felt like it was spinning. I sucked in my breath. “What did she say?”

“She was upset. I said, ‘Didn’t Theo ever tell you about his first wife?’ She said no, never. I told her the family never talked about it, because it was such a dreadful story, what with her being murdered and all. She begged me for details, but I wouldn’t give them to her.”

“Did you tell her anything else?”

“Not a word. It drove her crazy.” Juliet smiled. “She kept asking me, and all I’d say was, ‘It’s too tragic.’”

“Why would you do that?”

Juliet shrugged. “Caroline was always so smug. It was hateful. She had just spent an hour bragging to Father about some stupid award she was getting for philanthropy. You know how lavish she was with throwing Thraxton money around. Father thought it was wonderful news, of course. I couldn’t resist popping her bubble of perfection.”

“You were jealous of her.” I heard the echo of my father in my voice; he’d accused Juliet of jealousy at the church.

“What was there to be jealous of?” Juliet shot back. “Caroline was an anxious little mouse who didn’t fit in anywhere. She obsessed about every stupid little detail, whether it was a press release no one would read or what toothpaste to use. Am I the only person not surprised she had a heart problem? I’m amazed it didn’t give out earlier.”

Before I could respond, the phone on Juliet’s desk rang. She answered it.

“Yes, he’s right here,” Juliet said. “I’ll send him up.” She set the receiver down. “Father will see you now.”

I frowned. “I didn’t come here for him. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, he knows you’re in the building and wants to see you, which is more than I can say for myself. I have work to do, Theo. Go away.”

She pretended to look at something on her computer, but when I didn’t move, she slid her gaze in my direction again.

“Did you enjoy it?” I asked her.

“Enjoy what?”

“Being cruel to Caroline.”

Juliet propped her head on her hands as if she were considering the question. “Everyone should have a hobby.”

My sister mocked everything, but I wasn’t letting her shunt this off to the side.

“Before we married, you gave Caroline an etiquette guide,” I said. “You told her she would need it.”

“I remember. She actually seemed excited about it.”

“She was,” I said. “She read it cover to cover. But then you gave her another etiquette book, and another. She was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you simply had to prove what a horrible person you were, didn’t you?”

“If you’re hosting charity galas, you have a responsibility to know what a fish fork is.”

“You were hateful to her, and you made her life miserable.”

Juliet leaned back in her chair, smiling. “Let me get this straight. I’m a bad person for schooling a climbing vine from Queens? Okay, fine. What does that make you for keeping so many dirty little secrets from her?”

“What’s past is past.”

Juliet laughed. “Our father’s famous words. How convenient for you, Theo. It lets you off the hook, doesn’t it? You didn’t tell your new wife that you’d killed your first wife because that’s in the past.” She leaned forward. “Let me tell you something. The fact you butchered a woman is the first thing I think about when your pathetic face crosses my mind.” She picked up the phone on her desk. “Now get out of my office before I call security.”

CHAPTER 16

DEIRDRE

I blinked at Jude. “You mean ex-boyfriend, right?” I said, thinking of the old photo I’d thought Caro sent me by mistake.

“I don’t know.” She tapped a button to decline the call.

“You’re saying my sister was seeing this guy?” I was incredulous. Caro had never hinted at anything like that to me. “I don’t believe it.”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Jude said. “They were extremely close, and then Caroline broke up with him and they never saw each other again. Until he popped up a few months ago.”

“Caro gave me a bunch of photos, and there was one of her with Ben. I couldn’t understand why. It was from a house in High Falls . . .”

“From when they lived together.”

“They what?” I couldn’t hide my astonishment.

“They lived in High Falls for about a year. It was back when you two weren’t speaking,” Jude said.

“But my mom and I never stopped talking. She didn’t tell me Caro lived with anyone!” Even more than I was shocked, I was hurt. When I’d stopped living with my family, it wasn’t exactly voluntary—I’d ended up in the not-so-tender care of the juvenile detention system at fifteen. After months of legal drama and multiple psychiatric evaluations, I’d been released to my parents’ care. But I couldn’t live with them again, which is how I wound up, like a stray animal, at Reagan’s house. I talked with my mom every week—and saw her every month—but she was the only family member I had a relationship with. It wasn’t until my mom was diagnosed with cancer that my sister came back into my life. There had been four long years of silence between us, and while we picked up where we left off—sort of—we never addressed what had happened. I was nineteen then and Caro twenty-four, and we were both immature enough to pretend it was water under the bridge.

“I don’t know anything about Ben,” I said, thinking of how he hadn’t answered my email. “Caro was already dating Theo when we reconnected. Tell me about him.”

“They met in journalism school,” Jude said.

“They graduated together?”

Jude laughed. “No. He was a guest speaker. He’d graduated a decade earlier.”

“Oh.”

“They were close, but he wasn’t really The One,” Jude said. “He was this fearless reporter who would drop everything to fly to Bogotá just to talk with a source. Caroline said once that she wasn’t sure if she was in love with him, or if she wanted to be him.”

“Caro was a hearts-and-flowers kind of person. You’re making her sound cynical.”

“She was,” Jude said. “I mean, Theo definitely swept her off her feet, but that was the first time I ever knew her to be head over heels about someone. And it didn’t last.”

I thought about that and realized Jude was right. Caro had always regarded relationships with a jaundiced eye. More fallout from our parents’ disastrous marriage, even if she’d refused to admit it.

“Did Caro tell you she was seeing Ben again?”

“She told me when they reconnected. That was six months ago. But until . . .” She stopped speaking for a moment. “Three weeks ago, Caroline wanted to drop off my birthday gift. I told her I was going to bed, but she said she was practically in my neighborhood already. You know I live by the Midtown Tunnel, right? When she came over, she said she’d been at Ben’s. He’s living in his parents’ old pied-à-terre in Tudor City.”

Theo’s voice was echoing inside my skull. Caroline wasn’t just out for a jog the morning she died. We both know that, don’t we? She was meeting someone. The news reports about Caro had mentioned her dying across from the United Nations. I’d stood in the spot that morning, at the foot of that grand stone staircase. It had led up to Tudor City.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said defensively.

“She told me Teddy liked him. They bonded over zoos and exotic animals.”

I was quiet for a minute, processing that. You didn’t introduce someone to your kid unless you were serious. I bit my lip. “Why is he calling you?”

“It started the day after Caroline died,” Jude said. “He thinks Theo was involved.”

“I hope you have Ben’s address,” I said. “Because I’m going to need it.”

CHAPTER 17

THEO

My father’s office was a floor above Juliet’s, at the south end of the building. Standing guard in front of it was his man Harris.

When I was a boy, I thought Harris was a brooding giant. He was a solid six foot four and broadly built, with tree-trunk limbs and a bald head that shone like a bronze bullet. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was with clipped vowels and an accent that was hard to place. He was from Bermuda, but he’d served in the British military at some point before he’d come into my father’s service. He’d never been married and had no children. He was solitary as a stone castle, with the cold, predatory eyes of a reptile guarding a moat.