“I didn’t mean my sister. I meant you,” I said, determined to rattle his calm front. “You used to be an addict, right? Have you taken anything illicit lately?”

“No, not in years.” He looked genuinely surprised by the question, and I couldn’t blame him. My father had regularly transformed into a monster under the influence of alcohol, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Theo made a similar werewolf-like switch. I was still struggling to reconcile what I knew of Theo—a stand-up guy who worked for a nonprofit that repatriated stolen artifacts—with the man Caro had written about in her letter. “I had a double scotch at lunch,” he added sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure how to get through it otherwise.”

He sounded honest, but I had to be skeptical. “I never saw a copy of the autopsy report. Would you be able to give me one?”

“There was no autopsy.”

That jolted me. My sister’s death was a terrible shock, and I’d been wallowing in grief instead of demanding answers. That had changed with my sister’s message. Everything had changed. “Why not? Isn’t that automatic when a person dies suddenly?”

“Only if there’s evidence of foul play.”

I swallowed hard. “What if there was, Theo?”

He stared at me blankly. “Was what?”

“Foul play.” I leaned forward. “What if someone killed her?”

Theo and I stared at each other for a wary moment. He nonchalantly adjusted one gold cuff link. Again, I could see the edge of the scar on his wrist. Caro didn’t confide much, but she’d told me he was covered in scars.

“You think the man she was seeing did . . . something to her?” Theo asked.

That answer was not on my bingo card. I’d expected him to downplay my suspicions, not invent a suspect. “What man?”

“Caroline wasn’t just out for a jog the morning she died,” Theo said. “We both know that, don’t we? She was meeting someone.”

His voice was quiet, but the words stabbed at my heart. He was actually accusing my dead sister of cheating on him.

“There was no other man,” I snapped. “She would never do that.”

“She wanted a divorce,” Theo shot back. “Why would she ask for that if no one else was involved?”

It was my turn to stare dully at him. Finally, I croaked out, “Divorce?”

A shadow crossed his face. “I thought perhaps you knew.” Theo turned his eyes to the window. “Caroline played everything close to the vest. She never really confided in anyone, did she?”

“When did this come up?”

“A couple of months ago,” Theo said.

“Did you agree to it?”

Theo’s answer was so quiet I almost missed it. “No.”

The car gave a jolt, and I realized we had crossed the broad, grand gates of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. It’s now or never, I told myself. There was no graceful way to do this.

“Maybe Caro wanted a divorce because she found out about your first wife,” I said.

“What did you say?”

“Is your first wife buried here in the Thraxton family plot?”

He glared at me without answering.

“You’re not denying she exists, are you?” My voice was getting louder.

He glanced at his watch and looked out the window. I wanted to grab him by the lapels of his expensive suit and shake him until the truth rattled loose out of his skull.

“Where’s your first wife buried, Theo?”

“How is that any of your business?”

The last shreds of any doubt fell away. My sister’s message wasn’t crazy. There had been a first Mrs. Theo Thraxton, even if that secret was lying in a cold grave.

“I don’t know, Theo. Caro’s dead. Your first wife is dead. Isn’t that what police call a pattern?”

In a heartbeat, the air between us froze into ice. I knew he’d never speak to me again. But that didn’t matter. He’d said enough.

When the car stopped, Theo got out and slammed the door behind him. I knew I should’ve been afraid of what he could do to me, what he could get away with, but I was powered by a cold rage of my own. He was responsible for my sister’s death. Even if it killed me, I’d get justice for her.

CHAPTER 6

DEIRDRE

The gravesite felt like a minefield. There was a glowering Theo on one side and my father simmering on the other. I was glad when Theo’s father came up to me.

“How are you holding up, Deirdre?” he asked. He was a dapper man—whenever I saw him, he was always fully suited up. He was shorter than his son, and his blue eyes were paler and his hair was iron gray instead of black, but the resemblance to Theo was still strong. It was the personalities that were polar opposites: Theo was as withdrawn as his father was gregarious.

“Not well,” I admitted. It didn’t seem right to tell him that his son was the reason why, at least not within Theo’s earshot.

“Same here,” he said. “When you feel up to it, I’d love for you to come over.”

“Your son won’t want to spend time around me.”

He shot a glance Theo’s way. “He doesn’t get a vote. Anyway, he’s not invited. I was thinking you, me, Teddy, and Ursula for dinner.”

Ursula was Theo’s stepmother. She had a serious drinking problem, which made me wary of her, but she’d always been nice enough.

“Sure. I’d like that.” I looked around. “Teddy’s not here, is he?”

“No. I thought it would be too much for him.”

I nodded at that. It was almost too much for me.

The service started, led by the same priest who’d officiated at the church. I didn’t want to think about my sister being lowered into the dank, wormy ground. Instead, I focused on Theo, whose eyes stayed fixed on the angel guarding the family plot. She was a graceful stone maiden with wings so finely carved you could make out the pattern of her feathers. Her face was obscured as she wept over a white marble block with THRAXTON carved in bold letters. The graves were subtly marked with small stone plaques.

After Caro’s casket was lowered into the ground, the family was supposed to take handfuls of rose petals and sprinkle them into the yawning pit. No one wanted to do it. Theo stayed back, as did his father and mine. For the first time, I realized Juliet was absent; it seemed in character for her to refuse to set foot in Brooklyn. In the end, no one touched the rose petals but Caro’s friend Jude Lazare and me. We threw in one handful after another. They were dark red against the burnished mahogany of the casket.

Like blood, I thought.

After the brief ceremony, my father stormed off. Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I noted that he didn’t even speak to the priest, which showed how overcome he was by burying his eldest child. I looked around for anyone I wanted to talk to and spotted Jude. She was standing at the top of one of Green-Wood’s rolling hills with another woman, and I walked up to join them. As I did, I noticed a man in the distance, watching us. He was tall and sandy haired, casually dressed in jeans and a gray shirt. He wore dark sunglasses, and I expected to see a camera in his hands, but they were jammed into his pockets. Caro wasn’t a celebrity, but she was well-enough known in New York to garner tabloid interest.

For a split second, I wondered if I knew him. There was something vaguely familiar. But he was sly and picked up on my approach without looking directly at me. He turned his back and rushed off.

On instinct, I started after him. Theo’s accusations were still reverberating in my head. No way had Caro been cheating on him. My sister wouldn’t do that.

Jude’s voice broke into my thoughts and stopped me in my tracks.

“She was going crazy, and she needed help.” Jude’s back was to me, but the breeze carried her voice over clearly. “But not the kind of help you give.”

The woman facing her was African American, tall and willowy, with graying braids coiled atop her head like a crown. But her voice was too soft for me to make out. All I heard were a few disjointed words, maybe catching every fifth one. “Don’t . . . help . . . let . . . forget . . .” It was impossible to eavesdrop properly.

“That’s not true, and you shouldn’t have encouraged her.”

I stepped closer and heard the tail end of the soft-voiced woman’s retort: “ . . . listened to her.” But my movement caught Jude’s attention, and her head swiveled my way.

“Deirdre,” Jude said, moving toward me and pulling me into an awkward side hug. “How are you doing?”

“You’re Caroline’s sister?” The other woman turned to face me, her eyes warm and curious. “It’s an honor to meet you. I know Caroline adored you.”

That brought a lump to my throat. “Thanks.”

“I’m Adinah Gerstein,” she added, drawing her hands together as if she were praying and holding them over her heart. That had become a popular way of greeting people since the pandemic, and I liked it better than I ever had a handshake. “I have to tell you how sorry I am about Caroline. She was an amazing woman.”

“I need to talk to Deirdre,” Jude said. “Would you mind excusing us?”