Best Friends Forever

by Margot Hunt

  “That would have been terrible,” I agreed.

  “Thomas is convinced that the police are pursuing this as a possible homicide only because of who he is. They don’t want to be seen as giving favorable treatment to Kat just because she’s Thomas Wyeth’s daughter,” Donnelly continued.

  “Maybe. But the police told me they have a witness who claims he saw Howard being pushed off the balcony.”

  Donnelly shrugged, clearly not impressed. “If they ask around long enough, they’ll find a witness who will say he saw a UFO land on top of the Grants’ house and little green men came out and zapped Howard with ray guns. Witnesses are inherently unreliable.”

  “I don’t disagree,” I said. “I’m sure that’s why they questioned me. I know they’re trying to build a case. I’m just not sure whom they’re building it against.”

  Donnelly nodded. “That’s why I asked you to come in today. In the future, the Wyeths would prefer it if you didn’t cooperate with the police investigation.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by cooperating.”

  Donnelly raised both of his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture. “Don’t misunderstand. No one’s accusing you of disloyalty. But the family would like your assurances that you won’t speak to the police again.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” I said, feeling a growing sense of discomfort. I wasn’t sure what Donnelly was getting at. I didn’t often find myself in the position of not grasping a situation. It made me uneasy. “But what if the police want to speak to me again?”

  “Then you call me. I’ll deal with it,” Donnelly replied, smile back in place.

  “Look, I appreciate your help yesterday, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. But the police weren’t just asking me about Kat or about her marriage to Howard. They asked me if I knew how to access the Grants’ house and they wanted to know where I was the night Howard died,” I said.

  Donnelly waved a dismissive hand. “They were just trying to scare you.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they’re treating me as a suspect.”

  “I doubt that,” Donnelly said. “You don’t have a motive.”

  “I didn’t like Howard.”

  “No one liked Howard.” Donnelly grinned. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but he was an asshole. If everyone who thought he was an asshole was a suspect, they’d have an overly large number of people to consider.”

  Despite my growing trepidation, I cautiously returned his smile. I could see why Donnelly would be successful charming clients through the otherwise unpleasant process of drawing up a will. Actually, I wondered how much of that he did these days. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was in Thomas Wyeth’s inner circle. That in itself might be a full-time—not to mention quite lucrative—job.

  “My point is, if there’s any possibility that the police are going to look at me as a potential suspect, even if it’s only a remote one, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to retain an attorney who isn’t obligated to put my interests first,” I added carefully.

  Donnelly tipped his head to one side. “What would make you think I don’t have your interests at heart?”

  I looked back at the attorney. Surely he didn’t expect me to join in a pretense that his main objective here was to help me.

  “Look.” Donnelly sighed. “I know that Kat values your friendship, and I know you feel the same about her.”

  “Of course I do,” I said, softening. The truth was, I missed Kat. The past few days had been stressful for me, and I could only imagine how much worse they’d been for her.

  Donnelly folded his hands together, and he leaned forward slightly, like someone with a secret to share. “I’ve been authorized to tell you that the family will be generous.”

  This startled me out of my nostalgic reminiscing. “Excuse me?”

  “Any consideration would have to wait until the police investigation is resolved, of course,” Donnelly continued. “But once that’s concluded and Kat is in the clear, they are prepared to make a significant settlement on your behalf.”

  A significant settlement. Translation: the Wyeths were offering me a bribe if I agreed to stay away from the police investigation. I stood. “I don’t want their money.”

  “No, please. Sit back down. You’re taking this the wrong way,” Donnelly assured me, his tone soothing, a hand held up in protest.

  “Am I? I don’t think so.”

  “They aren’t asking you to do anything illegal or even unethical. They just want you to know that your loyalty will be rewarded.”

  “I hope this is coming from Kat’s father and not from Kat,” I said. “If it is, I’ll overlook how incredibly insulting it is, because I know that parents will do anything to protect their children. But please make it clear to him that I find his offer offensive.”

  Donnelly tapped his fingers on his desk, and for the first time in our short acquaintance, he looked serious. Finally he nodded. “I’ll tell him, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want.” I turned to leave, figuring we had said everything. But Donnelly called after me before I reached the door.

  “Thomas just wants to make sure that Kat is safe,” he said. “It’s the only thing that matters to him.”

  I looked back at the lawyer.

  “I hope she’s safe, too. She’s my best friend.”

  17

  Twelve Months Earlier

  It was late, but I was still up working, my fingers flying over the keyboard. I was so, so close to finishing A Zombie Bit My Math Teacher, the first in the series of logic books I had contracted to write for Kidtastic. The book was set in the fictional town of Shrieksville, which had recently been attacked by a horde of the undead. The remaining survivors had to solve a series of logic puzzles to figure out who had been infected and who remained human.

  The most challenging issue was to keep the zombie attacks bloody enough to capture the attention of modern-day tweens, already jaded by movie and video game violence, without alienating their parents by allowing the attacks to degenerate into an unacceptable level of blood and carnage. I thought I knew where to draw the line. A zombie could bite its victim, even hunch over a body it was feeding on. But agonized screams of pain, appendages ripped from bodies and pooling puddles of blood were over-the-top. My zombies might be deadly, but they weren’t butchers.

  The book had come together faster than I’d thought possible. I was even more surprised by how much I enjoyed working on it. Writing had become a haven away from all the problems—in my life, in my marriage—crushing me under their weight. I was yet again able to retreat into logic to soothe my mind, to order my world.

  There was a soft knock on the office door.

  “Come in,” I said, expecting one of the children. Liam was still up, too, working on his science fair project on hovercraft. I had tucked Bridget into bed before retreating to the office, but she always had a hard time settling into sleep. It wasn’t unusual for her to get up for a glass of water or to voice a worry about a strange sound she’d heard.

  The door opened. I looked up from my laptop and saw my husband standing in the doorway, as though he wasn’t sure he should cross the threshold. He had dark smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, and his green-striped tie was loosened and slightly askew.

  “Hi,” he said. “I just got home.”

  Todd was working on a contract basis with a firm in Miami. The job required long hours, bookended by a two-hour commute each way, so he would regularly get home after nine. We didn’t see much of him during the week.

  “Hi,” I replied. “I made chicken for dinner. It’s in the fridge, if you want to heat up a plate.”

  “Thanks, but I ate on the road.” Todd nodded to my computer. “Are you working?”

  “Yes. I want to finish writing the solution to this problem before I go to bed.”
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  “Then I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

  It was my turn to nod. This was what passed for our marital communications lately, ever since I’d learned about Todd losing his job. It was as though the lie had taken on a life of its own and was now spreading its tentacles into every corner of our relationship. Todd had once asked me, in an aggrieved tone, why I couldn’t forgive him. I’d shrugged this question away. It wasn’t that I couldn’t forgive him. It was that I no longer trusted him.

  Todd was closing the door behind him when I said, “Hold on a minute.”

  He turned back. “What’s up?”

  “Don’t forget I’m going out of town tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve arranged for Max’s mom, Jennifer, to drive the kids home from school. Then Emma is coming over to babysit until you get home from work.”

  “Oh, right. The big Girls’ Weekend Away.” His tone was sour, and I could feel my spine straighten with anger.

  I knew he was calling it that just to irritate me. Kat had invited me to go to Key Biscayne with her for the weekend. In fact, it had been her birthday present to me the month before. At first I had refused to accept it. We hadn’t paid back a penny of the twenty thousand dollars she had already lent us, so I could hardly accept another extravagant gift from her. My advance and Todd’s contract work were keeping us afloat, but we were hardly flush. I couldn’t justify the expense of a vacation right now.

  “I need to get away,” Kat had said, trying to persuade me. “Howard and I are barely speaking, and getting the new exhibit installed at the gallery has been hideous. I’m so stressed out, I can barely breathe.” This had surprised me. Kat never looked stressed out, and that day had been no exception. I figured she was just saying it to talk me into the trip. “Please, Alice! It would do us both some good.”

  I had finally given in and accepted, even though doing so gave me a slithering sensation of guilt. When had I become this person who allowed others to pay my way for me?

  But now, with Todd looking down at me, disapproval etched on his face, I experienced a flash of self-righteous anger. The man who had gotten up every day and pretended to go to a job he’d been fired from while he cashed out his retirement account was going to judge me for going away for a weekend? That, I would not put up with.

  “Something like that,” I said coldly.

  “How long will you be gone for?”

  “I’ll be back Sunday.”

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “That you don’t drink too much. Or let Kat drive you when she’s been drinking.”

  My anger flared up again. “Stop talking to me like I’m a delinquent teenager. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. It’s just when you’re with Kat—”

  “What?”

  “You drink more than usual.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I gestured toward my laptop. “I need to get back to work. I have to finish this chapter before I can go to bed.”

  Todd stood there for a few beats, blinking at me, before he finally turned away. He shut the door quietly behind him.

  * * *

  “What did I tell you?” Kat exclaimed as we walked out onto the back patio of the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne. “Isn’t this heaven?”

  I had to agree. It was absolutely gorgeous, easily the nicest hotel I’d ever stayed at. There was an enormous pool surrounded by tables and chaise lounges. Dozens of tall, stately palm trees swayed gently in the breeze. I could see a large tiki bar where people were sitting on wicker sofas, sipping rum cocktails. Beyond that was the beach with powdered sugar sand and the aqua sea I remembered from my Miami days.

  I inhaled deeply. Even the air seemed more luxurious as it filled my lungs. I could feel my body relax as tension I hadn’t even noticed I was holding on to started to seep away.

  “It’s amazing,” I replied. “It’s perfect.”

  I turned to smile at Kat, who looked pretty and much younger than her age in a coral patio dress. For once, I was almost as well dressed as Kat. I had treated myself to a new dress from Nordstrom to bring on the trip. The navy blue silk shift had been on sale, of course, but it had still been a highly pleasurable purchase. I felt coolly glamorous in it. Like a totally different person, leading a totally different life.

  Kat grinned back and squeezed my hand. “Shall we get a cocktail?”

  We headed for the tiki bar, where we perched on tall stools that looked out at the ocean, calm today with only the occasional whitecap visible. The bartender was so handsome, and the waitresses so pretty and shapely, I wondered if the hotel had a policy of hiring only beautiful people to work there.

  “What can I get you ladies to drink?” the bartender asked, setting cocktail napkins in front of us. He was wearing a name tag that read HUDSON. When he smiled, deep dimples appeared in his cheeks.

  “What do you recommend?” Kat asked, smiling back at him.

  “I don’t want to brag, but I happen to make the best grapefruit-and-mint mojito you will ever have in your life.”

  “That’s a pretty bold statement,” Kat said, glancing at me. “What do you think, Alice? Should we see if his game is as good as his talk?”

  “Why not?” I agreed.

  But Kat’s attention was so fixed on Hudson, I wasn’t sure she’d even heard me.

  “And what will you give me if it isn’t the best mojito of my life?” she asked him, lifting her chin in a way that showed off her pale, slender neck.

  Hudson tipped his head to one side as he considered this. “If it’s not the best mojito of your life,” he finally said, “I will stand on the bar and strip naked while singing ‘Lady Marmalade.’”

  Kat laughed and clapped her hands in glee. “And how exactly does that benefit me?” she asked flirtatiously.

  “Well, you’d get to see that I have a terrible voice,” Hudson said, matching her tone.

  “Okay, then, challenge accepted,” Kat replied. “Two mojitos, please.”

  “You won’t be sorry,” Hudson promised.

  We watched him set about making the drinks, squeezing grapefruits and muddling the mint.

  “Remember Awful Ashley, the sister-in-law from hell?” Kat asked, spinning her stool to face me. “When she heard we were coming here for the weekend, she said, ‘How decadent. I’d love to have a weekend away on my own, but I’d rather have a happy marriage.’”

  “As though the occasional weekend away from your husband somehow violates the sanctity of marriage?” I asked incredulously.

  “Exactly. She’s so ridiculous.” Kat grinned. “Not that either of us is exactly the poster child for the happily married.”

  “True, but that happened well before we went away for the weekend,” I said. “What’s her deal, anyway?”

  “She’s always been a nightmare.” Kat rolled her eyes. “I still can’t figure out why Josh married her. She does that whole ‘I’m just a little Southern belle’ bit.” As Kat mimicked Ashley, she inserted an extra twang in her accent. “All while retaining the personality of a pit viper.”

  “When I met her at your parents’ Christmas party last year, I got the feeling she wasn’t your biggest fan,” I commented.

  “God, no, she hates me. Hates.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? I think it’s partly because she thinks I had some incredibly privileged childhood. Ashley’s father was a Baptist minister in rural Alabama. Her mama was a preacher’s wife. They didn’t have money for new clothes and birthday parties, much less riding lessons and sleepaway camp. Or maybe she hates me because Josh told her that I tried to talk him out of marrying her. The idiot. I don’t know why he couldn’t have kept that little nugget of information to himself.” Kat shrugged carelessly as though she couldn’t care less.

  “Why didn’t
you want him to marry her?”

  “You met her,” Kat said. “Do you think it’s possible that all the Botox she’s injected into her head has made her even crazier than she was before?”

  “I doubt it. If insanity was a side effect of Botox, every Floridian over the age of forty would be nuts.”

  “Who says they’re not?” Kat countered.

  “Here you are, ladies,” Hudson said, placing tall frosty glasses in front of us.

  “Cheers,” Kat said, lifting her glass to mine. We clinked our glasses, then sipped our drinks while Hudson waited for the verdict.

  “Oh, my God,” I exclaimed. “This is fantastic!”

  “It really is,” Kat agreed. “This is the best mojito I’ve ever had.”

  Hudson beamed. “I told you.”

  “I guess that means we’re going to miss out on your rendition of ‘Lady Marmalade,’” Kat teased him.

  “You never know.” Hudson was grinning widely. I suspected his dimples were good for tips.

  “When you see our drinks get down to here,” Kat said, leveling her hand against the middle of her glass, “go ahead and make us another round.”

  Hudson saluted her. “Will do. Enjoy.”

  Kat turned back to me. “Where were we? Oh, right, Awful Ashley. When Josh met her, she was a waitress. You know the kind. Big boobs, small tank top. She was obviously rebelling against her Holy Roller parents.”

  “Just like in the movie Footloose.”

  “Right, except with chicken wings and hand jobs in the customers’ cars instead of teenage kids dancing,” Kat said.

  “Seriously?” Kat enjoyed saying shocking things. I couldn’t always figure out when she was telling the truth or just being provocative to amuse herself.

  “Who knows? Anyway, Josh was smitten by her—” Kat rolled her eyes “—charms. They started dating, and six months later they eloped. Their first daughter was born a few months later. As you can imagine, my mother was horrified by the whole thing.”