The Heiresses

by Shepard, Sara

  Corinne chose a glass from the remaining three. “To Poppy.”

  Everyone sipped quietly, the strange mood settling around them again. Corinne sucked in her stomach, hoping everyone would cheer up. Then Natasha’s phone, which was sitting on the coffee table, bleated. On instinct, Corinne glanced down. A familiar 212 number was on the screen.

  Aster was looking at the phone too. “Agent Foley?”

  Natasha grabbed the phone and silenced it. “She wants to interview me. I wish she’d just drop it.”

  Aster flinched. “You haven’t done your interview yet?”

  Natasha shrugged. “Things keep coming up.”

  “But everyone else has talked to her already,” Corinne said softly, irritated by Natasha’s cavalier attitude, as if finding Poppy’s murderer was just a big inconvenience.

  Natasha turned her phone over. “To be honest, the FBI seems kind of useless. Don’t you think? They don’t even have a single suspect.”

  Everyone exchanged a glance.

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Rowan said.

  Natasha crossed her arms over her chest. “What about James?” Winston jumped on Natasha’s lap and began kneading at her legs. “You always hear that the husband is the first suspect? Maybe James had a motive.”

  “James didn’t do it,” Rowan said, dismissing the idea out of hand.

  “I agree,” Corinne agreed. James seemed so devoted to Poppy, so proud of all she’d accomplished. One time, when they were all at Meriweather, Poppy was being featured on the cover of Time magazine. James had gotten up at six in the morning to drive to the mainland’s newsstand to buy the first copies the day it came out, even though the family had received advanced copies the day before. He was so excited when he pulled back into the driveway.

  Aster crossed her arms over her chest. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Yes, maybe we should go through pictures?” Corinne said loudly. She wanted to choose some photos of the family to display at the wedding. The wedding. Even in Corinne’s mind, she couldn’t call it her wedding.

  “How can you be so sure?” Natasha challenged, looking at Rowan. “Unless . . . you were with him?”

  Shame flashed across Rowan’s face. “As a matter of fact, I was, okay?” she blurted out. “He was at my apartment. In my bed. Are you happy now?” Rowan hid her face in her hands.

  “Oh my God,” Corinne heard herself say. The room was silent except for Winston’s purrs. She met her sister’s gaze; for once, she looked as shocked as Corinne felt. She cleared her throat and looked at Rowan. “I mean, how did it happen?”

  With her head still down, Rowan explained how James had come over, convinced Poppy was having an affair. “We were so drunk, and one thing led to another,” she said at the end. “And when I got to the office and Poppy was dead—­I thought it was my fault. I thought James told her . . . and she jumped.”

  Corinne remembered how Rowan had seemed almost relieved to hear that Poppy was murdered. She couldn’t imagine the guilt she must be carrying around with her. And she couldn’t judge Rowan for sleeping with James. Not after what she’d done. You should tell them, Corinne thought, the notion pinging into her head.

  Rowan’s shoulders heaved up and down. “I don’t know what to think right now. I just wish . . .” She trailed off, her gaze toward the stairs.

  “Is it going to continue?” Corinne dared to ask.

  Rowan stared at her with round eyes. She blinked once, then looked at the ground. “It’s happened again,” she admitted, cringing as she said the words. “But if Poppy was with someone else, maybe . . . oh I don’t know.” She shook her head. Corinne could see two ideas warring in her mind: that what she’d done was wrong and unforgivable, but that if Poppy had done it first, then maybe . . .

  “Do you really think Poppy was having an affair?” Corinne asked suspiciously.

  Rowan nodded, explaining the reason for James’s suspicion. She also told them about her old assistant noticing unusual appointments in her calendar. “She was sneaking around,” she said. “Telling lies. I don’t know.”

  “Do we have any idea who Poppy was with?” Natasha asked, her brow furrowed.

  Rowan drained the rest of her wine. “No clue. I had no idea anything was going on.”

  “Me, neither,” Corinne offered.

  “Definitely not,” Aster agreed.

  “But say she was having an affair,” Natasha piped up, gripping the sides of her chair. “Isn’t that even more of a reason to suspect James? He thought she was having an affair. Maybe he even caught her. There could be more to the story.”

  Rowan stared at her hard, her mouth small. “He’s telling the truth.”

  “Maybe you just think that because you’re with him now,” Natasha argued. “You have to look at the big picture.”

  The voice in Corinne’s head grew louder. You should tell them. You can’t just sit here, pretending you’re perfect.

  Rowan shook her head vehemently. “I left the house before James did. By the time I got to the office, Poppy was dead.”

  Natasha crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, did anyone see him leave?”

  Rowan leaped up from the chair and paced over to the window that overlooked the sea. “He didn’t kill Poppy, okay, Natasha? He just didn’t.”

  “But—­”

  Corinne heard the voice again, and this time it was booming. Tell them, it said. Tell them, tell them, tell them. “I cheated on Dixon,” she blurted, just to silence it.

  Everyone’s heads turned. Aster’s mouth dropped open, her face like a charades clue for the word shocked. Rowan blinked hard, some of the color leaving her cheeks. Natasha’s eyebrows knitted together.

  “With who?” Rowan asked, walking back from the window.

  Corinne took a long sip from the glass in front of her. “Will Coolidge.” It was torture even to utter his name.

  Everyone just stared blankly. It was Natasha who spoke first. “The guy from Coxswain? His name was in your journal.”

  Corinne gritted her teeth. Natasha must have really studied that Blessed and the Cursed post to have found that. “That’s right,” she said quietly. “I met him the summer Dixon and I broke up.” She cleared her throat. “Only Poppy knew about us.”

  She peeked at her family, a hot flare of shame in her cheeks. Rowan looked stunned. Natasha had her arms crossed over her chest. And Aster was blinking rapidly, as though her vision had blurred and she was waiting for the world to right itself again.

  “Now he’s a chef, doing the food for our wedding. Dixon couldn’t come to the wine pairing, and it just . . .” She trailed off. Then she looked at her lap, fearing the expressions on everyone’s faces. “I don’t know what happened.”

  A small hand touched her knee. Aster was staring at her. “It’s okay. We all make mistakes.”

  Corinne swallowed hard. “But I don’t,” she snapped, her eyes filling again.

  Rowan returned to her seat and poured another glass of wine. “Okay, forgive me for saying this, but are you sure you want to get married? Are you sure Dixon’s the person for you?”

  “Of course he is,” Corinne answered. “It was just cold feet. I had to tell you guys to get it off my chest. But now it’s fine. It’s over.” She tried to take a breath, but it still felt like a pile of bricks on her chest.

  Natasha leaned back on the couch. “Why did you and Will break up?”

  The memory washed over her like a wave. It was the night of the end-­of-­summer party, the same night Steven Barnett died. Corinne stood barefoot on the cold marble floor in the upstairs Jack-­and-­Jill bathroom that straddled her and Poppy’s bedrooms. Everyone else was downstairs on the patio, celebrating Poppy’s promotion, but Corinne had retreated upstairs for privacy. Slowly, she unwrapped a pregnancy test from its plastic and stared at it for a
long time.

  Her head had been spinning all day, her stomach had turned at the chicken salad the cook had prepared for lunch, her breasts had felt swollen for a week, and her period was late—­really late. Earlier, she had taken the car out to a drugstore across the island, intending to purchase the test, but she’d been so freaked out about bringing it to the register that she’d slipped it into the pocket of her cashmere cardigan and walked out without paying. In one summer, she’d become a girl she didn’t recognize.

  She sat on the toilet, peed on the stick, and then stood up, the test wand in her hand. Slowly, the dye filled the result window. The control line appeared, and the second line popped up immediately, the pink dye cheerful and bright. Corinne’s heart pounded. Her ears felt wet and full, as they always did when she felt she might faint. Her fingers had started to shake. Stupid, stupid girl.

  A particularly loud wave crashed against the rocks, and Corinne looked up. “I had this plan for my life. And everything had always gone according to my plan.” Until that summer, she added to herself. “Will wasn’t part of the plan. So Dixon and I got back together and I went to Hong Kong for work.” Acid filled Corinne’s throat, thinking of the secret she still couldn’t say aloud. Of what happened next. “Poppy told him I was leaving. I was too busy to do it myself,” she lied.

  Aster was staring at her. “I have something crazy to tell you guys too. It’s about my boss, Elizabeth. Steven Barnett’s wife. She told me something . . . odd. Something about Poppy.” She smoothed her dress. “Elizabeth said she saw Poppy standing over Steven’s body the night of the party. She said Poppy killed him.”

  A jolt went through Corinne. “What? That’s insane.”

  “Ridiculous,” Rowan agreed.

  “Well, Elizabeth seemed sure of it. And when I asked her what her motive was, Elizabeth made a reference to some sort of secret in the family. Something she thought Poppy was keeping. She said not to tell anyone, but I mean, you should know.”

  Natasha coughed loudly.

  Rowan wrinkled her nose. “Steven drowned. There was no secret. And Poppy’s not a murderer.”

  “Seriously,” Corinne said shakily.

  Poppy killing someone? It would be like finding out Edith drowned puppies in the bathtub. It simply wasn’t something a Saybrook would do. But then she thought about that summer, and the year she’d stayed away from her family. The baby she’d had in secret and given away. The night she’d spent with Will. A Saybrook wouldn’t do any of those things, either.

  “Maybe it was an accident,” Aster suggested. But then she frowned. “Poppy would have said something to the police, though.”

  Natasha tapped her foot. “What if Poppy did kill Steven? What if his murder had to do with Poppy’s death?”

  Aster cocked her head. “How?”

  “Well . . .” Natasha thought for a moment. “What if someone close to Steven saw it happen? And what if that person wanted revenge?”

  “Like who?” Rowan asked.

  Everyone stared at each other blankly. Natasha stood up. “I don’t know, but this seems like a really important piece of information. We need to tell someone.”

  Corinne shook her head, remaining seated. “It probably isn’t true. For all we know, Elizabeth killed Steven.”

  “She said she didn’t,” Aster piped up, but then her eyes slid to the right. “But she did say she was happy Steven was dead.”

  “See? There you go,” Corinne said, a story unfurling in her mind “What if Elizabeth just told you that, expecting you’d go to the cops with the story? Remember, Poppy took Steven’s job—­deep down, she could still be bitter. Maybe she blames Poppy for Steven’s death—­if he’d been promoted instead of her, perhaps he wouldn’t have drunk so much that night and fallen off the boat. But she tells you Poppy actually killed him in hopes of tarnishing her reputation. The cops would leak it to the media, our whole family would be embarrassed, and Poppy would be a disgrace.”

  Aster tilted her head. “Could you imagine the field day the press would have with this? Poppy, a secret murderer all these years.”

  “I’m with Aster,” Corinne said. “We’re not dragging Poppy’s name through the mud.”

  “But what if this is a serious lead?” Natasha cried. “What if Steven did know a secret that Poppy needed to keep quiet?”

  Rowan narrowed her eyes. “You seem awfully sure about this theory. Is there something you haven’t told us?”

  Natasha glanced away fast. “Why would I know anything?”

  Aster stood too, and placed her hands on her hips. “If you’re keeping something from us, Natasha, now is the time to tell.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Natasha growled impatiently. “It’s just that everyone is so Pollyannaish about Poppy. She wasn’t perfect. She was human. Look at what James said—­she was cheating. Maybe she was lying about other things too.”

  Corinne bristled. Natasha was only there because of Poppy. “What did you have against her?” she asked. “She was so nice to you, although I don’t really know why.”

  Natasha straightened her spine. “I’m just trying to get you ­people to take off your blinders. You’re all like sheep. You go where you’re supposed to go. You think what you’re supposed to think. But you know what? Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

  Rowan slapped her arms to her sides. “What the hell happened, Natasha? Why do you hate us so much? We used to be so close, and as far as I can see, none of us did anything to you. So maybe you can enlighten me, because I’m pretty confused right now.”

  Natasha blinked. Her mouth hung open for a long beat. Then she lowered her eyes.

  “There isn’t anything, is there?” Aster demanded. “Did you cut yourself off for attention? Was this was just your way of getting more press for yourself? You never could stand being out of the limelight.”

  A fierce look flashed in Natasha’s eyes. All at once, Corinne couldn’t handle it anymore. “We’re ending this conversation right now!” she said loudly.

  Aster and Rowan stopped and stared at her. “We are?”

  “Yes,” Corinne said shakily, feeling tears come to her eyes. With Will, with all these horrible confessions . . . it was just too much. “And we’re not saying anything to anyone,” she added. “Not until we know something real.”

  Natasha sighed. “All right,” she mumbled, trudging back to the center of the room and yanking her wineglass from the coffee table. “But I think you’re making a big mistake.”

  Outside, seagulls screeched. Corinne tried to think of a way to change the subject, but what was there to talk about now? They’d already said too much. All at once, she couldn’t believe what she’d admitted to them. She couldn’t believe they knew about Will now. In two weeks, they would stand behind her at the altar, and they would know she was a fake. I can’t believe she’s going through with this, they’d think. Poor Dixon. Already she could feel their judging eyes on her back. She stood and gathered all the empty wineglasses. “You know what? I don’t think this is the right weekend for a bachelorette party at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Aster asked.

  “I mean I want to leave.” Corinne marched to the kitchen and dropped the wineglasses in the sink. Then she walked into the foyer and picked up the old worn monogrammed tote she always brought to Meriweather. “I think we should all leave.”

  “Corinne.” Aster followed her to the door. “We just got here.”

  But Corinne was resolute. “We’re going,” she said, grabbing the keys and opening the door. “This is not how I want to celebrate my wedding.”

  She stepped out on the porch, sucking in the warm, humid air. A storm was rolling in, and the trees cut dark shapes against the cloudy sky. Branches scraped across the bricks, as high-­pitched as wails. For a split second, Corinne thought she saw a shadow.

 
But then the door opened again, and her sister, Rowan, and Natasha walked onto the porch too. By the time Corinne glanced to that section of trees again, the branches had gone still. Or maybe they’d never been moving at all.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  14

  Aster hefted her bag on her shoulder and followed her sister down the freshly combed gravel path. Corinne walked with purpose toward the Navigator that had been waiting for them at the airport. “Corinne, please,” Aster called out. “We should stay. We can still have a good time.”

  Corinne turned to look at her with red-­rimmed, downturned eyes. “I just want to go,” she said, her voice small.

  Aster felt like Alice when she’d stepped through the looking glass and the world was suddenly upside down and backward. Poppy might be a killer, Rowan was sleeping with Poppy’s husband, and perfect Corinne had cheated on Dixon. Aster couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been for her to admit aloud. Not long ago, she would’ve felt satisfied that Corinne had finally cracked. Now she just felt bad for her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were not enough.

  “It’s not your fault.” Corinne paused to straighten out her roller bag, which she was pulling behind her.

  “No. I’m sorry about . . . me. I haven’t been there for you very much.”

  Corinne stopped and looked at Aster, a surprised smile on her face. She opened her mouth a few times, but no words came out. “Thank you,” she finally said. “But I still want to get out of here.”

  “Okay,” Aster said. “But the minute we get back to the city, we’re getting disco fries.” When they were little, Mason used to sometimes take the two girls for the greasy diner fries, smothered in gravy and four kinds of cheese.

  “As long as we can get them delivered.”

  “Done.” Aster reached for her sister’s hand, and Corinne squeezed in response, managing a feeble smile. They turned for the car, walking in step. Just as Corinne hit the unlock button, Natasha caught up to them. “I can drive,” she offered to Corinne. “Please. You just sit in the back and rest.”