Nancy walks toward me. I suppose she must save face and murmur something kind in my ear, too. It’s only right. I am the grieving wife and the co-owner of EventCo. She’ll report up to me. It’s Kate and me in charge from now on. Won’t that be fun?

What? Nancy just wagged her finger at me, turned, and walked away. She didn’t come over to me to express her condolences. How dare she? As I watch her slow retreat, I fantasize about all the ways to fire her. I’ll get awful Sandra in HR on this immediately. Sandra is ruthless, I know from firsthand experience. She tried hard to force me out of the company after John and I were engaged. She’d pleaded with John to have me quit. But I told him I loved working with him, promised him some more after-hours fun on the conference table, and I won. I always do.

I glance at my purse sitting on the ground beside me. John’s phone is in there. I pull it out and hold it in my hand, although I’m not sure why I’m still carting it around. I tried to get into all his apps, but he never gave me a password to anything but his phone. And that doesn’t work on any of the apps—an extra layer of security that I find completely annoying. What was he trying to hide? I tried Ashlyn’s birthday, my birthday, our anniversary, and all the usual suspects. Nothing. I’ve kept it charged, hoping I’ll think of something.

I was able to clean up his texts, delete a few sweet notes from Kate, who calls herself Mabel for some reason. She was a little flirty but nothing overt. I suspect there were more that he deleted to hide them from me, and I have no way to retrieve them. The ones that weren’t deleted covered basic logistics of their sneaky affair: lunch dates, call time reminders, and the like. I can see how many calls John made to her. He even called her the night before he died, but she is the only one who has the voice mail messages if there are any. Not that any of it does her any good now. Or him. The cheaters. Kate likely reads the texts over and over again, pining away for what might have been. Too bad. She lost. How desperate to go after a guy who dumped you for a younger model.

It’s a shame Kate has no spine, trying to weasel her way back into my man’s life.

I look at John’s phone. Odd, isn’t it, how his voice mail has outlived him.

I drop John’s phone into my purse and grab my phone. I quickly check for messages. There aren’t any. I’m beyond bored. It must be time for this thing to end already. There’s nothing left to say. John is dead.

I, for one, am ready to go. There is so much to do now that I’m back in town.

CHAPTER 21

KATE

Nancy’s words of support give me the energy to handle the last of the mourners. I see the end of the line, some twenty people deep. Jennifer pulls on the heavy doors to seal off the ballroom and to keep anyone else from joining the line. She knows we’ve had enough. I nod thanks in her direction, and she offers a brief wave.

“How are you holding up?” Lance has tears in his eyes. He’s so much more than our COO. He’s family. Lance folds me into his strong arms.

“You must be exhausted, Kate.” Jennifer is behind me, patting my shoulder. “Have a seat. Drink some water.”

I do as she suggests and remind myself to breathe. I sip the cold water, not minding as condensation runs down my hand and puddles in my lap. I’ll never wear this dress again anyway.

Ashlyn is hugging someone I don’t recognize, engulfed in a conversation she doesn’t want to have. Tish is alone. She smiles at me and shakes her head at what she thinks is my weakness.

I want to jump out of my chair, grab her, and shake her. Hard. She has no idea how strong I am.

“Feeling better?” Lance asks. “You looked really pale for a minute, like you were going to faint or something.”

“I’m fine, thank you. Do I need to speak to anyone else?” I’m shielded from the remaining mourners in line by Jennifer and Lance who stand side by side to create a sort of protective screen blocking the view of what they decided was my near fainting.

“You can be finished. You’re not feeling well. You’ve done enough,” Jennifer says. “We’ll tell the rest to send you a note of condolence. They’re happily joining the celebration of life cocktail party.”

My shoulders relax. I glance up just as Tish darts down the center aisle of the room and out of sight. Ashlyn stands alone, staring out at the now-empty ballroom.

Don’t worry, Ashlyn. We’ll be fine. I make that silent promise to my little girl as I watch her. Ashlyn and I will come together. We’re family. We’ll reconnect. She just doesn’t realize that everything I do, I do for her. She’ll understand. It will just take time. I’m all she has now.

As for Tish, I know her type. She’ll take the money and run. I am almost Tish-free.

“Ashlyn, ready to head home?” I don’t tell my daughter that I have a lot of work to do making sure this IPO doesn’t fall apart with John’s death. I know she doesn’t understand. She’d call me work obsessed.

Ashlyn stands frozen at the front of the stage, alone, staring at her phone. When I call her name, she blinks, as if she’d forgotten where she was.

My heart is heavy for my daughter. There is no telling what effect all this will have on her. John and I tried our best to be great parents. He couldn’t help his shortcomings, I suppose. But over time, I’ll help her see things clearly.

“I have some stuff to do, Mom. I’ll see you back at the house later.” Ashlyn picks up her purse from the floor. It looks just like Tish’s purse. The bags were like twins sitting side by side. Likely from one of their girls’ shopping trips. Another thing Ashlyn faults me for, my complete lack of interest in shopping. She can’t believe I outsource it to my stylist. I’m pretty much a big disappointment.

She’s practically running down the aisle of the ballroom. What is so important? I hope she isn’t meeting up with Tish.

She wouldn’t do that, of course not.

CHAPTER 22

TISH

It’s nice to be outside, away from those ghoulish people who wanted to touch my shoulder, hug me. Yuck. As I begin to walk to my car, I stop in my tracks when I see a surprise. Ashlyn walked out the door, too. Maybe she wants to make up? We’ll have a mother-daughter parking lot chat. How wonderful. Or not. She’s giving me a strange look.

Interesting.

“Hey, how are you holding up?” The poor little rich girl and I have barely spoken since I flew home with John’s body. Not his body exactly, his cremains. Strange word, isn’t it?

“Fine.” She crosses her arms, a smirk on her face. The designer bag I bought her hangs from her shoulder.

“You know I loved your dad. More than anything. And I’ll always be here for you.” I take a step toward her.

“He didn’t want to go to Telluride. You know it,” Ashlyn proclaims. “He was dreading it. He was supposed to have dinner with me. Why’d you make him go?”

“He needed a getaway. A break. You wouldn’t understand all the pressure he was under. The IPO was overwhelming, among other things that were taking up his attention. But I won’t fill you in on that adult stuff. He was overly stressed.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Dad was happy. He loved working on the IPO. And once that was finished, he was going to dump you.” Ashlyn takes a step toward me. “I think you knew it, and you did something to him.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic. He had a heart attack. Look at the death certificate. You should be nice to me. I’m running EventCo now.” Am I yelling? No, just speaking with conviction.

Ashlyn steps back, shaking her head. Over her shoulder, I see Jennifer hurrying toward us.

“Everything good, ladies?” Jennifer says, stepping into our standoff like an annoying watchdog.

Jennifer places a hand on Ashlyn’s shoulder. “Where’s your car, honey?”

“Over there,” Ashlyn says, still staring at me.

“Why don’t you get going, Tish?” Jennifer says.

“Good idea. Glad this is over. Is there anything else we’re supposed to suffer through?”

“The funeral?” Ashlyn spews out the words as if I forgot or something.

“I know that. It’s tomorrow. I planned it. I’ll be there, of course. But today? I’m outta here.” I check my watch. I’m not busy, but I’ll pretend to be. “I have an appointment.” I blow a kiss to Ashlyn, just for show, and walk to my car, swinging my hips.

I sense the dagger eyes of the two women behind me slicing into my back. Whatever. I stop, turn around, and wave toward them. Ashlyn and Jennifer ignore me.

I’m surprised how bright the sun is today. The windowless ballroom, with its artificial light and heavy, tearful mourners, would make you think it’s dark out.