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Kelly Dupree went on. “Things were amicable between Jenny’s parents, but her dad never fully got over the divorce. And then there was the business going down the tubes. And his best friend, his business partner, taking off and leaving Billy holding the bag.”
Alexia cast her mind back to Edward Manning’s file on Billy. She dimly remembered something about a business partner—was the name Bates? But she hadn’t realized he and Billy had been close friends.
“Jen used to say it was like her dad was cursed. And we were all like ‘no, no, that’s crazy.’ But it did sort of seem that way, you know?”
Alexia knew.
“The irony was, toward the end Billy became totally obsessed with Jenny’s safety. Like, she was here, worrying about him, and Billy was on the other side of the world, obsessing about something happening to her. We all thought he was crazy, to be perfectly honest with you. But maybe he knew something we didn’t.”
“ ‘We all’?”
“Me. Luca. Jenny’s friends. Her mom.”
“So Jenny’s mother didn’t believe her daughter was in any danger?”
“No. None of us did. Why would she be? We thought Billy was just rambling. Maybe he was. But it does seem kind of odd that Billy gets knifed to death in London and then a year later some psycho does this to Jenny, don’t you think? Like, maybe someone out there really really doesn’t like that family.”
Family.
For some reason, the word struck a chord with Alexia. She and Teddy had been a family once. Back in the mists of time, when Michael and Roxie were children, untouched by tragedy, blissfully unaware of the misery the future held for all of them. It occurred to her that in some ways, her own experiences mirrored Billy’s. The sense of being cursed, of having somehow brought calamity down on themselves and their families. Both she and Billy had lost their marriages, both lost their children. Billy’s business had failed; Alexia’s career had collapsed. When Kelly Dupree spoke about someone holding a grudge against the Hamlin family, Alexia thought, That’s how I feel. As if my family are all puppets, and some sadistic, malevolent puppeteer is up their pulling the strings, picking us off one by one.
Of course, she knew it was nonsense. Teddy had killed Billy. And Teddy knew nothing about Jennifer’s death. So there was no connection. Just like there was no connection between Roxie’s suicide attempt and Michael’s accident, or between
Teddy’s imprisonment and her own ruined political career. It’s human nature to try and tie these things together. To find a pattern, to believe there must be a purpose behind the misery. It’s what Summer Meyer had been trying to do with Michael’s accident. And now I’m doing the same, with Jenny Hamlin’s murder. But the truth is there is no reason, no connection, no mysterious person pulling the strings.
It was almost seven by the time Alexia left the Starbucks. Kelly Dupree had given her addresses for Jennifer Hamlin’s fiancé, Luca, and for her mother, Sally, but it was too late to pay either of them a visit tonight. Alexia would eat, sleep, and see what more she could find out in the morning.
Back at her hotel, a town-house boutique in the East Village, Alexia collapsed onto her bed, suddenly exhausted. After the slow pace of life on the Vineyard, just being in New York tired her. The lights, the noise, the relentless energy of the city. I’m too old for this. Maybe Lucy was right. I should have stayed at the Gables and let sleeping dogs lie.
Nothing she’d heard today encouraged her to believe that she was going to succeed where Chief Harry Dublowski and his men had failed. She wasn’t going to find Jennifer Hamlin’s killer. Suddenly the whole enterprise seemed pointless. What the hell am I doing, raking around in another family’s grief? As if I don’t have enough grief of my own.
She checked her messages. Since their bonding session at Michael’s bedside, Summer Meyer had taken to texting Alexia regularly from London, just to check in, or send pictures of a sleeping Michael. But today there was nothing. Summer’s mother, Lucy, had called twice, but left no message. It was odd, Alexia reflected, the degree to which the Meyers had filled the void left by her own crumbling family. Lucy, Arnie, and Summer were all she had now. Alexia thanked God for them.
She considered calling Summer herself, just to make sure everything was okay. But before she could figure out what time it was in England, exhaustion overtook her. The phone slipped from her hand and she sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Sally Hamlin patted down the earth around the newly planted hydrangeas and surveyed her front yard with satisfaction. Spring had fully sprung in Tuckahoe, the quiet Westchester suburb Sally had retired to three years ago, and the scent of summer already hung tantalizingly in the air. Back in Queens, Sally had never had a yard and had always wanted one. Now she derived deep, intense pleasure from her little rectangular patch of grass and flower beds. The simple satisfaction of planting something, tending it, and watching it grow filled her with contentment and peace, and gave a much-needed sense of control and order to her world. After so much loss, so much horror, Sally had learned to take pleasure in the small, predictable joys of life.
Sally saw the woman approaching from a block away. Tall and elegantly dressed, with a purposeful walk and an erect, almost regal bearing, this was no local Tuckahoe housewife out for a Sunday-morning stroll. The woman slowed as she approached Sally’s fence, obviously looking for something.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a Mrs. Sally Hamlin.”
It was the British accent that gave it away. Sally knew at once who the glamorous stranger must be. Brushing the soil off her pants, she stood up and proffered her hand.
“You found her. I’m Sally Hamlin. You’d better come in, Mrs. De Vere.”
The house was as neat as a pin. Alexia took off her jacket and hung it carefully on the back of a kitchen chair while Sally made them coffee. Pictures of Jennifer were everywhere, on the refrigerator, the bookshelves, even perched on top of the television set in the living room. There were none of Billy.
Sally sat down, and Alexia immediately noticed the deep grooves etched around her eyes. She was an attractive woman, perhaps a decade younger than Alexia herself, with carefully dyed chestnut-brown hair and a trim, girlish figure. But grief had taken its toll on Sally Hamlin’s face.
“You’ve come about Billy, I suppose,” Sally said. “I heard he’d been bothering you and your family in England, before he died. I’m sorry about that.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, believe me.”
“He used to talk about you all the time. Alexia De Vere this, Alexia De Vere that. He was convinced he knew you. That the two of you were friends. I think he had you confused with an old girlfriend or something. But he was so ill.”
Alexia thought, So she doesn’t know the truth. She doesn’t know my past. Billy protected me right to the end. Protected both of us.
