Kate felt sick. Bishop? Selby’s father and her mother had slept together?
“What are you talking about?” Harrison thundered. “She and Bishop were having an affair?”
“She said it only happened once. When you were still at Stanford. Palmer was just a baby. They went to a party together.” Her voice turned angry. “We were all supposed to go together, but then Palmer wasn’t feeling well. I told Bishop to go on without me. Stupid me, I thought nothing of it when he came home late, stinking of booze. What a fool I was. He’d been with Lily. But I thought she was my friend. My best friend. Ha!”
Harrison’s face was white. “Did Bishop know about the baby?”
Georgina shook her head. “No. Apparently, Lily never told him. They made fools of both us, Harrison.”
“What happened that night?” Kate asked impatiently. “What did you do to my mother?”
“When she told me that she’d slept with my husband, I saw red. It didn’t matter that it happened all those years ago. She was my best friend. How could she have done that to me? How could she have lied to me all those years, betrayed me, pretending everything was normal? I was out of my mind. I pushed her. She fell. Backward against the coffee table. She wasn’t breathing. And there was so much blood. I knew she was dead. Oh God . . . forgive me.” She began to sob, her hands in a prayerful pose and her small body heaving. “I panicked. I thought if it looked like a robbery . . . I don’t know. That’s when I took the bracelet. Smashed a window. And then I took a bookend from the shelf and hit her on the head. Oh dear God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident. I didn’t mean it.” She was hysterical now.
Kate doubled over, gasping for breath. Georgina had killed her mother? The image of Georgina smashing her mother’s head in flashed in her mind. “How could you?” She flew from her seat and grabbed Georgina by the shoulders, shaking her. She felt arms pulling her away. Kate lifted her hands to her face, and it was wet with tears.
Detective Anderson picked his coat up from the chair. “Please come with me, Mrs. Hathaway.”
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Blaire was preparing to go back to New York. Despite Anderson’s best efforts and Kate’s statements, he didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest. Blaire had denied everything, claiming Kate had made it all up. Simon was still in jail when Blaire left, but the next day, she heard on the news that he’d been released. He’d actually been innocent. Well, innocent of Lily’s murder anyway. Blaire didn’t regret what she’d done, though. After all, he’d still been cheating on Kate. And more importantly, he was the reason Blaire had lost Lily all those years ago. Simon had been responsible for taking away the only real mother Blaire ever had. There was no punishment harsh enough for that.
Kate had refused to take any of her calls, but Blaire was surprised to get a message from Harrison at the hotel, asking her to meet him at Baltimore Coffee and Tea the next morning. He was already there when she arrived, and she grabbed a latte and joined him in the corner.
“Hello,” she said carefully, not knowing what to expect.
He nodded. “Blaire, I called you out of respect for Lily. If it were up to me, I would never see you after what you’ve done.”
She stirred her coffee and waited for him to continue.
“I won’t beat around the bush. I’ve discovered who your father is.”
She felt her heart skip a beat. Was it possible that she still had a chance with a family member? Leaning forward, she asked, “Who?”
He stared at her. “Bishop Hathaway.”
Blaire blinked, the words taking a moment to sink in. “What? Selby’s father?” Her heart sank as another thought occurred to her. “Selby and I are sisters?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Stunned, Blaire sat back in her chair, thoughts racing as she tried to picture Bishop in her mind. She’d only met him a handful of times over the years, but she could still picture the tall athletic man with dark hair and a winning personality.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
Then he told her the rest of it. How Georgina had been the one to kill Lily in what the police thought was a jealous rage. She claimed it had been an accident, but she’d just found out a secret that her best friend and husband had been keeping from her for almost forty years. No way was it an accident. Blaire hoped they would lock her away forever. How ironic. Selby, the woman that she hated most in the world, was related to her. It didn’t matter what the blood said, though. They would never be sisters.
“Does Selby know?”
“Yes, of course. Georgina’s been arrested. It’s all come out now.”
Blaire’s only consolation was that Selby would be even more upset than Blaire to discover they were related. That snob, looking down her nose at Blaire all those years, when they were cut from the same cloth. Well, the scandal would ruin everything for Selby. She and Carter would be knocked down a peg in their social circle. And now she would lose her mother too. It served them right.
Harrison stood. “If there’s nothing else you need to ask, I’ll go now.”
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
She handed him an envelope. “Please give this to Kate. It’s a copy of the letter that Lily sent to me. No matter what you think of me, I loved Lily.”
He nodded and took the envelope from her. Then he turned and walked away.
The next morning, Blaire left for New York.
The first thing she did when she got home was call Daniel again. She had tried him numerous times while still in Baltimore and left messages, but he hadn’t called her back. When she finally reached him a few days later, he sounded weary.
“Blaire. I told you that anything you have to say to me can be told to my attorney.” His tone was exasperated. He hadn’t even asked her how she was.
“Why are you being so cruel? I don’t want to talk to your attorney. Why are you shutting me out like this?”
A loud sigh came over the line. “Kate called me.”
She gripped the phone. “How did she even get your number?”
“She got in touch through my agent. Listen, Blaire. She told me everything. You need help.”
Blaire felt her face flush hot. She hadn’t missed that he’d said “my” agent, not “our.” “What did she tell you?”
“Everything. How you sent her all those horrible messages. The dead animals.”
“She’s lying. Her husband is a gold digger, and she doesn’t want to see it. He’s been cheating on her. I have pictures I can show you. She’s putting this all on me to save her reputation.”
“Blaire, she told me about the fire. That you tried to kill her and frame her husband.”
“No, no. She’s choosing Simon over me all over again, and now she’s trying to turn you against me.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and she heard a loud exhale. “I’m sorry, Blaire. But this is just too much. Thing were already bad between us, but this . . . I don’t even know who you are anymore. You need to get help.”
“No!” she screamed, banging her fist against the wall. “They’re all liars. Can’t you see it? Daniel, you have to come back to me. I need you.”
“I’m hanging up now. Please don’t contact me again. My attorney will be in touch.”
She threw the phone across the room and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Running into the dining room, she began to pick up crystal glasses and hurl them at the wall. When her rage was spent, she sank to the floor, sweat dripping down her face, and stared unmoving at the wreckage.
After she had calmed down, she poured herself a whiskey and pulled out an old photo album from high school. Most of the pictures were of her and Kate together. There were shots of them at the beach, at Kate’s house, Blaire’s dorm room. Parties and events. She looked at their two faces, trying to see
if it was obvious that they were sisters. Did they have the same dimples around their smiles? Graduation and holidays. She paused a moment at a photo of Lily and herself outside the Booth Theatre in New York. Her mother. Her real mother. Beautiful and kind. There were pages and pages of wonderful times and proof of Lily’s and Kate’s affection for her. Proof that she’d been part of a loving family once. She felt something wet on her hand and realized she was crying. She’d loved them all, hadn’t she? Given them everything until she had nothing left. But it wasn’t enough. Why did they all leave? Why did everyone always leave?
She pulled out a second album, this one full of pictures from signings and book events and articles about her and Daniel. Shots of the set the first day of their television show. The two of them had been perfect together. They belonged together. She studied each photo, dispassionately evaluating her looks. She was still a knockout. She’d easily find another husband. But this time she’d make sure it was one who didn’t want kids, or maybe one old enough to have grown children. That way she’d have a ready-made family. She thought about one of the actors on her detective show. He’d be perfect. Late fifties, sexy in a silver fox way, and always giving her the eye.
Daniel might be gone, but she still had her fans. They adored her. But would they still love her if she didn’t produce any more books? Fans could be fickle too. They’d forget about her eventually. Blaire wasn’t stupid. She had great ideas, but without Daniel, the series was done. Maybe she should get into acting. Then everyone would really love her. She’d be famous, not just at book events but everywhere she went. That was it. She’d put a plan in place tomorrow. She had plenty of connections now because of the series. She knew producers, actors, money folks. She just needed to do her research, figure out which prospect to go after, and chart her course. It could be fun. A new start for her.
She closed the album, went into the kitchen, and opened her laptop. She’d started over before, and she could do it again. Time to find a new life.
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Kate held Lily’s letter in her hands and wept. She’d read it over and over.
My dearest Blaire,
Have you ever done something that changed everything forever? One impulsive act, the consequences of which are more far-reaching than you could have ever imagined? One bad decision that led to another and another. My darling, Blaire, I sit here, pen in hand, wondering how to begin. How to make you understand why I did what I did.
You know the world in which I was reared. A world of privilege, abundance, and responsibility. I’m not complaining. I was well loved, and my life was easy. I knew what was expected of me, my world was well defined and my future assured. But at times, the strictures of that world were utterly suffocating. I met Harrison at a party the summer after I graduated from Smith. He’d just started medical school at Stanford. It was a whirlwind romance, and he was everything I was looking for. We knew it would be difficult to sustain a relationship three thousand miles apart with three years until his graduation, but somehow we did. Over summers and breaks and letters every week, our romance blossomed. We got engaged the summer before his final year in California.
After we got engaged, Harrison changed. He worried about me more, cautioned me not to stay out late, urged me to begin settling down. I’m sure it was hard for him, being so far away, but I was young and nervous. I was about to make the biggest commitment of my life, and he was telling me to act like I was already married. I began to feel suffocated again, wondering if I was making the right decision.
I was in a reckless mood the night of the party. The usual crowd was there, along with some new faces. The music was loud, and Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” was blaring through the speakers. That’s how I felt that night. Every pent-up urge pushing to get out. I’d never done any drugs before, but that night I wanted to try something new. I won’t make excuses or blame anything else. I joined in when the pills came out, and the next thing I knew, I was in one of the bedrooms with the wrong guy. I didn’t know anything about drugs—someone told me they were quaaludes, something to make the party more fun. Afterward, I was horribly guilt-ridden, and we swore never to tell anyone. And I realized then that I did love Harrison, and a life with him was what I desperately wanted. How could I tell him what I’d done? He would never forgive me. And the man I’d been with was also committed to someone else. It would have ruined his life as well if anyone found out. We vowed to put it behind us and pretend it never happened. But forgetting wasn’t so easy. Three months later, I discovered I was pregnant. It was too late to terminate, but I felt a connection to the baby already and wouldn’t have been able to do it.
I never told him the truth, but he must have suspected when I left town a few months later under the guise of caring for my mother in Maine. It was her idea to pretend she was sick, and Father went along. They wanted to protect my reputation, after all. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was to give you up. Mother and I found a private adoption agency and interviewed dozens of couples. Your parents seemed so perfect. How could I have known that your mother was unstable and would leave you when you were so still so young? I’ve stayed in touch with your father your entire life, and it was my idea to bring you to Mayfield when he married Enid. My heart overflowed when you and Kate became so close, and you can’t imagine how many times I wanted to tell you. How often I wanted to gather you in my arms and tell you that you were mine. I convinced myself it was almost as good as the truth coming out. You moved in with us, and you were a daughter to us in everything but name. And I got to love you.
I know you’ll believe that I chose Kate over you after that terrible fight. But it wasn’t that simple. I know now that I should have come out with the truth then. But I told myself that by staying in touch with you over the years, I’d still get to be in your life without upending the lives of so many others who would be affected. And you had your own family soon—Daniel and his parents, and I hoped, one day, children of your own. But now, finding out you’ve already lost a child, and can never have another because of that terrible accident, I can’t bear to think of you all alone. It’s time for the truth to come out. For you to come home and take your rightful place in this family—if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Take your time. When you’re ready, call me, and we’ll arrange a time to meet and talk about this before I make it public. I know you will have so many questions. I’ll tell you everything then.
All my love,
Lily
How differently things might have turned out if her mother had revealed the truth sooner, Kate thought. Who knows, perhaps she would have rejected Blaire, knowing that she was the product of her mother’s illicit liaison with a family friend. She didn’t understand how Lily and Bishop could keep the secret all those years. The families had socialized together, even vacationed together. Georgina and her mother had been friends since they were girls. The only rationalization that Kate could come up with was that Lily felt too guilty to cut the friendship off. After all, what excuse could she have used? But it must have eaten her alive over the years. And Bishop, he was a married man at the time of Blaire’s conception. Even if her mother had no clue about how those pills would lessen her inhibitions, Bishop must have known. He was an experienced criminal attorney, with well-heeled clients who paid handsomely for his cunning and connections. Kate was certain he’d defended a client against a drug case more than once. Had he intentionally steered Lily toward taking them? He’d always struck Kate as bit of a letch. She remembered the way he’d looked her and all of Selby’s friends up and down when they were swimming at the pool, making her uncomfortable. And she’d heard rumors about his liking the paralegals and secretaries a little too much. But Lily wasn’t blameless, regardless.
Now that Kate knew the truth, it made sense to her that Lily had given Blaire her own bedroom at the beach, that she’d engin
eered her living with them in high school. She wished her mother had trusted her enough to confide in her. Kate realized she’d concocted an image of perfection about her mother. She’d put her in her own ivory tower, where everything she did was right and proper. But Lily had been human, of course, just like the rest of them, and fallible. It pained her to think of her mother bearing the burden of this secret for over twenty years after her own mother and father passed. Had she been able to go to her mother and mourn the child that she’d lost, or had it all been taken care of and swept under the rug, never to be discussed again?
Kate hadn’t seen Blaire before she left. She couldn’t forgive Blaire yet for what she’d put Kate through. Or maybe Kate couldn’t forgive herself for her part in depriving Blaire of the mother she needed. All she knew was that she couldn’t face her yet. The memory of her systematic and cruel campaign of terror was too fresh.
Simon had been released the following day. Kate asked her father to pick him up, nervous at how he’d react to seeing her after the way she’d treated him. Even if he had been cheating on her, the fact that she’d believed him capable of killing her mother and terrorizing her made her feel ashamed. They needed to have a long talk about what they would do going forward, and how they would co-parent Annabelle. She’d rented a suite at the Sagamore Pendry while the house was being inspected for structural damage, and she’d asked her father to wait until evening to bring Simon over, so she could get Annabelle to sleep and they could talk privately.
Harrison and Simon walked in, and Kate rose from the sofa in the living room, tentative.
He looked terrible—his skin ashy, his clothes wrinkled. It had only been a few days, but she could see jail had taken its toll.
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