“Sorry, I thought I replied,” Scotty said.
“Who’s Jed Hilliard?” Kate asked.
Scotty blushed and looked away.
“Both you and Lulu knew, didn’t you?”
“Beth would have told you eventually,” Scotty said. “She was afraid you wouldn’t approve.”
“Of course I would have,” Kate said. “Anything that made her happy.” But their last conversation at Witchfire, the defensive tone in Beth’s voice, echoed in her mind:You think I want to have an affair.
“Is he here now?”
“No,” Scotty said. “He hasn’t been back once since she died.”
It felt like a blow. Kate had thought if she could meet him today, ask him about Beth and the drawing, she might find some peace. She’d wanted to hear that he’d loved Beth and she’d loved him, that life had become happier for her. “Were they together?”
“Not like that! They were just good friends,” Scotty said, but Kate wasn’t sure she could believe her.
“Was he Matthew’s father?”
“Oh, come on, Kate! Why would you even ask that?”
“Do you know where he lives?” Kate asked.
“For a long time, he was a handyman at the Academy, and they gave him a room in the attic. Then he was living here in New London—on State Street, in that building they’re converting into artists’ studios.”
“Is he there now?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know,” Scotty said. “If he was, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be showing up for food.”
“She met him at the Academy? When he was working there?” Kate asked.
Scotty bit her lip. Her eyelids fluttered in a way that brought a sinking to Kate’s heart. She could read sorrow in her old friend’s eyes.
“No,” Scotty said. “He never even knew Black Hall until Beth brought him there.”
“Then how?”
“She met him at the prison, when she was visiting your father. He was there at the same time.”
“Working there?” Kate asked, her stomach churning to think of her father being connected in any way. “Volunteering?”
“An inmate,” Scotty said.
Kate let that sink in. “What did he do?”
“He got caught selling marijuana. She said your father would talk to him. They had art in common.”
Kate couldn’t speak. Beth had stayed in touch with their father all along, and even though Kate half knew she had visited him, Beth had understood that Kate hadn’t wanted to hear anything about him. She had cut him out of her life the day she’d learned the part he’d played in those twenty-two hours. Beth had regularly gone to the prison, and she’d met a man there, and now she was dead. Kate felt sick. Her sister had had a secret life, and it had involved her father and another convict.
Maybe Pete wasn’t the killer after all.
“Thanks, Scotty,” she said.
“Kate ...”
Kate gave her old friend a quick hug, then walked out of the room. The spicy, pungent scent of basil from Beth’s garden hung in the air. She smelled it when she walked out onto the street, into the bright sun, and all the way home to her loft, and her eyes burned with tears as she thought of all the things her sister had never told her.
