CHAPTER
Twelve
Like a predatory bird zeroing in on a mouse in the forest, I swooped down on Cora while she wasn’t paying attention. Only she wasn’t nibbling on an acorn or something, she was smiling politely at a group of people by the side of an older man who, according to the photos I’d googled on the way here, was her husband, Marc Jean-Pierre.
It had taken a few deep breaths on the walk over to push down that fragile, panicked feeling Gabe’s departure had given me. Honestly, at that moment, I’d kind of wanted to fly off into the sunset like an actual predatory bird.You need to do this for the kids, I reminded myself.You just saw with Denise—nobody wants to work with a foundation tainted by death and scandal.And a whisper of the reason I didn’t even want to admit to myself.You need to do this to make sure all your best friends aren’t murderers.
“Hi!” I said brightly, interrupting the conversation and touching Cora’s bare, dewy shoulder. The old men in my new circle looked dour at the interruption. I would’ve expected Cora, as a suspected murderer, to panic at the thought I might be onto her, or at least wrinkle her face with annoyance at her proximity to the person who’d put her (half) sister away for twenty-five years to life. On the contrary, her lips parted in a friendly sort of way, and her eyebrows lifted in a welcoming manner.
These old men must have beenreallyboring.
With that in mind, I chirped, “Fascinating stuff. Cora, can I talk to you for a minute? Girl stuff. You know, tampons. Shoes. Blah, blah, blah.”
These men were of an age where being grossly sexist was still socially acceptable, so any whiff of interest in us two young women withered away. Cora’s face was a blank slate, but after that tableau, she couldn’t say no. And besides, she had to be at least a little interested in what I wanted. I pulled her off to the edge of the crowd, to where the sound of waves lapping at the shore overtook the music, but not too far off the edge, just in case she was feeling at all murderous tonight. Flashed her my most winning smile. “Sorry if I’m being presumptuous, but you looked like you could use a rescue.”
“Sorry if I’m being presumptuous for assuming that you didn’t know the word ‘presumptuous,’?” she deadpanned.
Well, that was kind of mean. But it was far from the meanest thing I’d heard this week. Maybe that was one thing I could be grateful to my mom for. And the press. And also some of my former modeling colleagues, who lived in a permanently hangry state that gave everything they said an extra-vicious edge.
But before I had to figure out what to say back, she cracked a grin, one that rocked me a little bit, because I was so used to seeing it on Opal’s face. When I told her I’d dare go to her favorite restaurant to try the new sashimi she was obsessed with (some kind of tuna that lived only in deep rock pools off the coast of Mombetsu), even though its oysters had once given me a fiery case of food poisoning. When she’d told a particularly clever joke (they usually involved calling Coriander by a different herb, which often fell flat because we actually had other friends named Basil and Parsleigh) and was pleased with herself.
The stabs of sadness and betrayal came less often these days, but they still did come.
Cora went on, “I’m just kidding. You know that, right? Youmade that ‘presumptuous’ joke yourself when we went out for Opal’s twenty-first birthday.”
That entire night—that entire year, truthfully—was kind of a blur, but I nodded anyway, relieved that my suspect wasn’t on the offensive. That wasmyjob. “Was that the last time we saw each other?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t remember. Opal and I were never super close; I was so much older. I think it was right after that I got married and moved out to Cali.”
“Right,” I said, like I hadn’t refreshed my memory with Google on the plane. I drew in a deep breath of salt air, sparing a moment to hope that the breeze would give me glorious beach waves and not frizz. “How old are your kids now?”
She told me all about Sloane (age six), Harrison (age four), and Frances (age two). I was only half listening, because I was busy noting her cheerful manner—so different from her manner at the gala, when she’d barely spoken to me and had pretty much run away without even telling me who she was. “I’d love to have another, but you know, my husband is a bit older.” I wasn’t sure you could characterize fifteen years as “a bit,” but whatever. “And he doesn’t want to be sixty years old with a baby, which, you know, I understand.”
If her husband was anything like the other men his age I knew, the most care he did for his baby was showing off pictures of them to clients. But I nodded sagely, because it wasn’t like Cora was probably doing all that much work either. Those elegantly manicured, ring-covered fingers likely didn’t change very many diapers. That was what nannies were for. “Of course,” I said. “Hey, thank you for attending my gala and supporting my cause.”
“It was the least I could do after… you know.” She winced, the expression an echo of her same one that night. “Look, I should apologize too.”
I held my breath. Was it too much to hope for that she wasgoing to apologize for killing Conrad Phlume and ruining my big night?
Yes. “I was rude the night of your gala. You came over and gave me the same smile you were giving everybody else and introduced yourself like you’d never met me before, and my feelings were hurt. I didn’t want to say anything and make you feel bad on the evening of your first gala, so I just excused myself abruptly. My husband told me later that I’d come off as impolite, and I didn’t mean to, so I’m sorry for that.”
Well. That explained her weird behavior there. “No,I’msorry! And I did recognize you; that’s why I was trying so hard to place where I knew you from. I definitely remember you. It’d been so long since I’d seen you, though, and—”
“I know, I know.” Her wince reminded me of Opal, too, though I hadn’t seen it often on her face. That would’ve required a modicum of self-awareness. “I realized later how petty I was being. Of course you wouldn’t recognize me. It’s how many years and how many kids later? But I didn’t want to bother you with an apology, not after what happened. I figured you had way more pressing issues to worry about.”
“Of course,” I murmured. A burst of laughter from the other side of the crowd arose, followed by the squawk of some seabirds. I wasn’t quite ready to let her off the hook yet, though. She’d said something earlier that had piqued my curiosity. Also, I didn’t want to have to tell Gabe that I’d cleared the entire reason we’d come here in about thirty seconds with a conversation that could’ve been a phone call. “Hey, you said earlier that supporting my cause at the gala was ‘the least you could do.’ What did that mean?”
Cora’s face dropped into such a cartoonishly somber expression that it was almost comical. Also incredible, since most women her age I knew had started on a pretty intense Botox regimen. “After everything my sister did. Pom, I’m so… so…” Those green eyes filled with tears, turning into the sea. “I’m sosorry! She was clearly troubled, and I wasn’t there for her. Maybe if I’d called her more, if I’d done my duty as the older sister… she wouldn’t… she wouldn’t have…”
The tears overflowed, spilling down her cheeks. A true pro, she’d worn waterproof mascara for the beach, which meant her makeup didn’t smear. Still, I tucked an arm around her, more to turn her away from the crowd than for emotional support. Though the reason I was turning her away was because I didn’t think she’d want the crowd to see her crying, so maybe that was a form of emotional support? Either way, I was doing a good deed. “It’s not your fault,” I told her.
She sniffled. The tip of her nose was turning bright red. “It feels like it is. I’m so sorry. Because I wasn’t there for my sister, she took away your grandmother, and I feel like I’ll never stop being sorry. Donating to your cause was the absolute least I could do. I’d do more, I would, but the money is mostly my husband’s family’s, and they already have their own causes…”
I’d gathered from my trusty informant Google that the Jean-Pierre family’s main cause consisted of a museum bearing their name and holding their art collection that served primarily as a tax shelter. But I nodded sympathetically. I imagined it had to be hard to be beholden to your partner for all your money, to feel like you’re the less influential half of a pair. Like Gabe?
But this wasn’t about Gabe. It was about me. “So you were trying to help me?” I said. “I thought you’d be mad at me. For turning Opal in and getting her locked up.”
Cora’s eyes widened. “Mad at you?” She shook her head. A tear flew off her cheek and landed on mine. I had to fight the urge to wipe it off. “No, Pom, of course I’m not mad at you! You didn’t frame her or falsely accuse her of something. She did it; she confessed. She killed someone. It was right that she should go to prison.”
