by Laura Wolfe
Her Best Friend's Lie
A completely gripping psychological thriller
Laura Wolfe
Books by Laura Wolfe
Her Best Friend's Lie
She Lies Alone
Two Widows
AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
She Lies Alone (Available in the UK and the US)
Two Widows (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Two Widows
Hear More from Laura
Books by Laura Wolfe
A Letter from Laura
She Lies Alone
Acknowledgments
*
For my truest friends
Prologue
We could have avoided the whole thing. That was the worst part. Only a minor change here or there would have done the trick—a few minutes more spent researching before booking the trip or a different decision made last week or twenty years ago. Instead, every choice had led to this terrifying place. A breath heaved from my lungs. My soaking shoes tumbled over each other as I scurried across the uneven ground, searching for a hiding place. The night was silent and black around me, the air so filled with terror that even the stars hid behind the clouds. Never ignore your instincts. That’s what I always told my clients, but I hadn’t followed my own advice. I’d been pushing away the tightness in my chest and pangs in my gut for days. Now my body’s animalistic instincts consumed me, muscles contracting, and fear exploding through every cell. I could barely see where my next footstep would land, but my legs stretched forward, again and again. Sturdy tree trunks materialized from the shadows like strangers waiting to capture me. I kept running.
A twig snapped through the darkness, and my feet stopped, my throat constricting. The faces of the dead flashed in my mind. Even the release of breath might give me away.
My thoughts spun toward alternate realities as I darted into the cover of the trees. Why hadn’t I made up an excuse to stay home with my family? It would have been easy enough to lie. Or I could have insisted on hosting the get-together at my house in the safety of suburbia. Or, twenty-two years earlier, the people at campus housing could have placed the incoming freshmen in different dorms and different hallways than the ones they’d chosen for us. Then I would have made another group of friends, friends who would have insisted on meeting at a less remote location and who steered clear of reckless decisions. They might have been friends who, when we hugged, could have detected the sour odor of festering secrets.
Chapter One
Five years had passed since we’d seen each other. My insides hummed along with my car as I eased my foot against the brake. The drive from my house in Brookfield to Charlotte’s address in Hartland was less than thirty minutes—a straight shot west on the highway through Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The quick trip made it difficult to ignore our recent lack of effort to get together. My arms felt heavy as I approached the driveway. I let my car idle in front of the modest ranch-style house where Charlotte lived with her second husband, Reed, and her teenage son, Oliver. An open garage door revealed a blue-and-white cooler, two large suitcases, and several reusable grocery bags waiting behind Charlotte’s red minivan. A silver hatchback filled the other half of the garage.
I took a breath, turning up the driveway and parking under a rusty basketball hoop and next to a gleaming blue Tesla. Kaitlyn had beaten me here, even though her drive was twice as far. We would stop at the airport later to pick up Sam and Jenna. Nerves held me in place as I leaned my weight into the upholstered seat. People always said old friends could pick up where they left off, but I wasn’t sure that was true. Five years was a long time.
A door slammed. Kaitlyn emerged from the garage, the sun catching her blue-green eyes. She flashed her Hollywood smile, wavy tendrils of auburn hair reaching past her shoulders. She was still breathtaking with her lithe frame and carved features. A fashionable linen pantsuit skimmed her curves, and she wore lipstick the shade of ripe berries. It had always been a struggle not to feel frumpy in Kaitlyn’s presence.
Charlotte followed a step behind, her head barely reaching Kaitlyn’s shoulders. Her billowy sundress fluttered in the wind, and she pulled her jean jacket closed. I did a double take. Charlotte’s cheeks were the same rosy pink I remembered, but her face was rounder and her hips wider. She’d grown her dark hair to just below her shoulders, and her brown eyes held their familiar girl-next-door charm. She waved and bounded into the air.
I abandoned my nerves and jumped from my car, hugging Kaitlyn first, then Charlotte.
“Yay, Megan! You’re here.” Charlotte pulled away and smiled at me.
I wondered what changes they noticed in me. I’d made an effort to cover the gray hairs poking up from my light brown roots, but my hand instinctively moved to cover the paunch in my gut that had formed after Wyatt had been born, becoming even more pronounced when I’d stopped training for marathons two years ago.
“Can you believe we’re forty?” I lowered my hand.
Charlotte closed her eyes and tipped her face toward the sky. “No. How the hell did that happen?”
“In my head, I’m still twenty-five,” Kaitlyn said.
Charlotte fluttered her eyelashes at Kaitlyn. “How have you not aged? You probably still get carded.”
“Bitch,” I said.
We laughed. I’d been silly to feel nervous. Despite the long absence, we’d slipped back into our friendship easily, like rediscovering a favorite pair of shoes in the corner of the closet.
My group of college friends and I turned forty this year, and we deserved a weekend away to celebrate. At least that’s what Jenna had claimed in the barrage of texts that began three months ago: Happy Birthday to us! Girls’ weekend. No excuses! No husbands or kids allowed! Jenna, a New York City attorney and always the organizer, was the one who sent the initial message urging us to plan an exotic getaway.
Charlotte and Kaitlyn had immediately responded with sentiments like Count me in! and Yes! I’ll be there! Even Sam, who lived in Denver and ran a multimillion-dollar corporation, quickly joined the fun. I didn’t share their unbridled excitement. The talk of planning a trip stressed me out, my jaw tightening and my finger flicking across the emails the same way I’d bat away a pesky fly. I’d hoped the planning would fizzle out like it had when Jenna had made a similar push two years ago. But my friends were two steps ahead of me; an Excel spreadsheet soon followed with each of our names above the top row and three months of weekend dates across the side. I couldn’t write no for all of the dates; that would be too obvious. I was trapped. Anxiety had gripped my chest at the mention of faraway destinations—a luxury spa in Tucson or an all-inclusive eco-resort in Costa Rica. I worried about my kids, eight-year-old Marnie and five-year-old Wyatt. Four nights was a long time to be away. My husband, Andrew, was perfectly capable of caring for them, of course, but he’d have to waste two vacation days for my tr
ip to work. Either that or I’d have to get my mother-in-law involved. They were both options I preferred to avoid.
How about something closer to home? I’d suggested, hoping Kaitlyn would offer to host again, but she hadn’t.
Now I hovered in Kaitlyn’s shadow on Charlotte’s driveway, thinking back to how our unlikely crew had become friends in the first place. By accident or fate, the five of us had met freshman year at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I’d chosen the private Jesuit school over several others, even though I wasn’t Catholic. Marquette was only forty minutes from my parents’ house, had an excellent academic reputation, and was about the right size—not as big as a state school, but large enough to keep my anonymity if I desired. Out of nearly 2,500 incoming first-year students in 1997, Campus Housing had placed me, Sam, Charlotte, Kaitlyn, and Jenna in the same corridor in the utilitarian 1950s dormitory. That was twenty-two years ago. Even though we didn’t see each other often anymore, we had forged our loyalties. We’d shared too much to abandon each other, no matter how much time had passed.
Kaitlyn smoothed back a lock of her windblown hair. “So much planning, but we made it work!”
“I can’t believe it,” I said, and I really couldn’t. The weeks of back-and-forth texts from my friends scrolled through my mind as I opened the trunk of my car to unload my suitcase.
Megan, you coming? It won’t be the same without you.
Of course she’s coming! Look at the spreadsheet. The weekend of 17 Sept works for everyone! Jenna had responded. I’d shaken my head when I read it. Twenty years later, Jenna was still talking over me.
The messages had continued to pop on my phone, poking and prodding. My friends laid the guilt on thick. Despite my hesitation to commit, the plans rolled forward. I’d cut back my hours as a therapist at the family clinic. Turning forty was kind of a big deal, and I’d been feeling lost both at home and work lately—a possible midlife crisis. When I’d mentioned the plans to Andrew and asked if I should join in on the four-day girls’ weekend, he’d only shrugged and said, “Sure. Why not?”
That was when I realized a weekend away with old friends was exactly what I needed to excavate a forgotten piece of myself, to remember my identity before marriage and kids. Taking a few nights for myself wasn’t such a sacrifice, so I officially committed. Now, the weekend had finally arrived.
Charlotte and Kaitlyn helped me load my things into the back of the minivan, including a case of wine I’d picked up at the liquor store a few days before.
Charlotte widened her eyes at the box and chuckled. “Jeez, Megan! Do you think you packed enough wine?”
“There was a discount if you bought twelve bottles.”
“You did the right thing,” Kaitlyn said, crinkling her button nose. “Now, we don’t have to worry about running out, even with Jenna around.”
We laughed at Kaitlyn’s dig at Jenna, who was the partier of the group. I locked my car.
Reed stepped into the shadowy garage wearing gray athletic shorts and a black Nike T-shirt. He smiled at us, his biceps straining against his shirt. “Hey guys. It’s been a while.”
I stood taller, noticing how he and Charlotte didn’t quite match each other. “Hi Reed. Nice to see you.”
“Likewise.” The stubble on his face became visible as he lowered his chin.
Charlotte gave her husband a playful shove. “He’s counting the seconds until I leave so he can go for a run, watch TV all day, and make whatever he wants for dinner.”
“I’m debating between pancakes and greasy carry-out.”
Kaitlyn chuckled in Reed’s direction. “You and Derek would get along well.”
“We eat pancakes and greasy carry-out at our house almost every day,” I said.
Reed smiled and leaned against the minivan. “How’s the fam, Megan?”
“Everyone’s good. Thanks.”
“Are you still living in Brookfield?”
“Yep. I work there too. The clinic is still in the same building. It’s a short commute.”
Charlotte nodded. “Reed works over in that direction now.”
“We’re about ten minutes down the road, just past Elm Grove.”
“Really?” I motioned toward him and Charlotte. “The three of us should meet for lunch sometime.”
“That would be fun,” Charlotte said.
“We all need to make more of an effort,” Kaitlyn said. “I mean, it only took me an hour to get here, and you guys are all so close.”
Charlotte did a little hop. “Yes. We need to set a regular date, like the third Saturday of every month we’ll meet at someone’s house for dinner. Or we can find a restaurant that’s halfway.”
“Let’s include husbands and kids too,” Kaitlyn said. “Wouldn’t it be fun if our kids were friends?”
“Oliver is a little too old,” Reed said.
“He can babysit,” I said, only half-joking.
Kaitlyn smiled. “Perfect!”
We agreed on striving for more regular meetups and exchanged a few niceties as Reed tightened the laces on his running shoes. He wished us safe travels and promised Charlotte he’d hold down the home front. “Love you,” he said, wrapping his sturdy arms around his wife and kissing her. A pang shot through me. I thought of my departure from Andrew less than an hour earlier. He had only glanced up from his phone call, pointed at my handwritten list of instructions, and mouthed, “Have fun.” I’d nodded and given him a thumbs up, not making any effort to kiss him goodbye either—something I’d later regret.
Chapter Two
We buckled ourselves into the minivan with Kaitlyn riding shotgun and me in the back.
“I can’t believe this is finally happening!” Charlotte said as she started the ignition.
Kaitlyn looked over her shoulder. “We did it. Yay!”
It had taken weeks for everyone to complete the spreadsheet, work out a date, and agree on a location. We decided to stay in Wisconsin. That way, only Sam and Jenna had to book flights. I remembered the vacation rental listing of the quaint cottage on a private lake that had caught everyone’s eyes: Secluded Cabin on Crooked Lake Sleeps Six. The cabin we’d rented for the weekend was almost a five-hour drive from Milwaukee, but it wasn’t too far from a small airport. Charlotte had plenty of room in her minivan and had offered to drive us. We would make one pit stop to pick up Jenna and Sam, who had coordinated their flights from New York and Denver into the remote airfield.
The drive was long in miles, but with all our talking, it passed quickly. The suburban houses transformed into endless farmland and, eventually, dense forest. We stopped once for gas and two more times for bathroom and snack breaks as we took turns updating each other on our lives—husbands, kids, careers, and in Kaitlyn’s case, charity work. We reminisced about Jenna’s failed attempt to get the group together two years ago. The plan had evaporated as soon as a couple of us had conflicts with the proposed dates.
Our last girls’ weekend had been a little more than five years earlier. Kaitlyn had hosted at her posh house in the upscale Madison suburb of Shorewood Hills. I’d gasped when I’d first laid eyes on her sprawling brick colonial, which looked like someone had plucked it from the pages of House Beautiful magazine. Not that my spacious home in Brookfield was anything to complain about, but Kaitlyn and Derek’s house surpassed another level of luxury with an infinity-edge swimming pool, golf course view, wine cellar, and movie theatre. Derek’s finance career had skyrocketed faster than Kaitlyn’s, and she’d decided to stay home after their second daughter was born. Derek had taken their girls to stay with his parents that weekend. Still, traces of their daughters appeared everywhere—stuffed animals neatly stacked against a wall, tiny chairs sitting beside the regular chairs, and Tupperware containers filled with cookies. I remembered feeling guilty about displacing them.
Kaitlyn had given us a tour of the property, pointing out all the renovations she and Derek had done. The rest of us had smiled and nodded and said all the right things as we
admired the many upgrades, but there’d been an undercurrent of tension as we paraded around the patio, the afternoon sun searing our skin. My sandals had clicked against the natural stone slabs surrounding the pristine swimming pool as Kaitlyn led us around the edge. I glimpsed defeat (or was it jealousy?) flickering behind the eyes of my friends, their jaw muscles twitching, almost as if they wouldn’t mind if Kaitlyn slipped and fell into the water. Or maybe I’d only been projecting my feelings onto the others. Kaitlyn had one-upped us all, not that she would ever say that. She was too kind. I’d dropped my gaze, letting it drift across the chlorinated water; it stopped near my toes, where stray leaves and a handful of dead bugs floated in the corner.
There had been more uncomfortable moments as daylight dwindled. I’d been pregnant with Wyatt then, so I hadn’t been able to drink alcohol like everyone else as we gathered around a massive table positioned beneath a wisteria-covered pergola. Jenna sat with arms crossed, throwing back glass after glass of wine as she gazed out at the fairway and described the grueling hours she worked at the law firm. She’d been going through a difficult period. Her dad had recently passed away, only weeks before her latest boyfriend had dumped her. Jenna’s face contorted as she critiqued the form of the occasional golfers passing at dusk. The rest of us gabbed about our babies and toddlers, told birthing stories, and complained about our husbands. Jokes were made, many of them by Jenna and most in bad taste. That was Jenna in a nutshell—loud, dramatic, intense, funny. Memories were dug up. Past tensions surfaced, leading to gaping silences, tightened jaws, and sideways glances. Because of my training as a therapist—and without the haze of alcohol—I’d probably noticed the defensive body language and backhanded compliments more than the others. My eyes kept traveling back to Kaitlyn’s shimmery pool, landing on the pile of debris floating in the corner.
