“Absolutely not,” Jennifer said. “They have to mix it up with regular people, to make them seem legit.”
Sam leaned closer to the wall so she could see faces in the photos. Right away, she recognized Crispin Adams at the helm of a big sailboat. There he was again, wearing black tie and holding a martini glass right here in the garden at Enchanted Petals. Lincoln and Maeve were also dressed in formal clothes, sitting with Suzanne; Sam’s stomach dropped at the sight of them.
“Maeve really did lie,” Sam said quietly, staring. “She told us she’d never met Suzanne before she hired her to do the calligraphy for Kate and Conor’s wedding.”
“They’ve known each other since childhood,” Jennifer said. “They were always at the hospital.”
“As patients?”
“Not all three of them. Lincoln was there because his family still owns this property. The Adamses would come to picnics and things like that. Lincoln would play with us kids, the ones who lived here. Some of the girls had crushes on him. And for a while, his father was interested in Belinda.”
“Was Maeve in the hospital?” Sam asked.
“She was here,” Jennifer said. “Best friends with Suzanne. We called them the ‘BPD twins.’”
“Why?”
“They both have BPD—borderline personality disorder.”
“What is that?” Sam asked.
“It’s nasty,” Jennifer said. “Fear of abandonment, extreme emotions, intense anger, doing anything to keep people from leaving them.”
Sam thought of Belinda—the scene she had caused at the rehearsal dinner, stealing Kate’s wedding dress, smashing the painting: the lengths she had gone to, to keep Conor from marrying Kate.
“Maybe Suzanne inherited BPD from Belinda,” Sam said.
“How would that happen?” Jennifer asked, frowning.
“Because they’re mother and daughter ...” Sam began, but she gasped and forgot everything she was about to say. Sam stared at a photo of smiling people sitting on the Ocean House verandah: Mike and Anne Reid, Nola and Edward Aldrich, Leo Kennedy, and a woman Sam didn’t recognize.
“Oh my god,” Sam said.
“What’s wrong?” Jennifer asked.
“It’s impossible,” Sam said. “They can’t be involved ... Why is their picture here?”
“I told you—a lot of these people are just donors or board members. Which photo?”
Sam’s hand was shaking as she pointed at the photo of Uncle Mike and Aunt Anne, and the four others.
Jennifer laughed. “Oh, interesting.”
“Why? Do you know them?”
“Of course,” Jennifer said. “I’m always a server at the dinners for the board and the donors. That’s Mr. and Mrs. Reid, Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich, Darla Vandeveer, and good old Leo.”
“You know Leo Kennedy?” Sam asked.
Jennifer nodded. “Oh yes. He’s not just a donor. He’s a regular here. Pure 1740. Look at him, playing up to everyone with my therapist.”
“Your therapist?”
“Yes, the one I told you about,” Jennifer said. “The trainer, who teaches the girls to become Belles. Belles for 1740. That’s her.”
Sam stared at Darla Vandeveer, the only person in the photo whom she hadn’t met; she tried to see evil in her face, but she couldn’t. She saw an attractive woman with a big smile, who looked very happy to be at the Ocean House. And she tried to imagine how the people she cared about—the Old Detectives who were helping to find Belinda’s murderer—had come to trust Leo Kennedy and Darla Vandeveer.
Jennifer had a walkie-talkie on her belt. It had been crackling now and then, since she and Sam had made their escape from Maynard-King, but now it squawked with a transmission so loud, they both jumped.
