Her Last Breath

by Hilary Davidson

For a moment, in spite of the chattering crowd behind us, it felt like we were alone in that cavernous church. And then the spell was broken as a hand brandishing a gold claddagh ring touched down on the polished wood of the casket. I recognized my father before I saw his face. This was the moment I’d been dreading. My sister, in life, had run interference, keeping my father and me segregated in our respective corners on those rare occasions when we were forced into the same room—at Caro’s own wedding, our mother’s funeral, and Teddy’s christening.

  We stared at each other for a moment. His blue eyes were hard and cold. The air around us was poisoned. Nothing had changed. He opened his mouth to speak, but I turned and stepped away before he had the chance.

  The minor chords of the pipe organ underscored the ugliness of the moment. I stumbled back down the aisle. Was it my imagination, or were people staring? At the wedding, I’d heard someone say, Can you believe Theo married her? There’d been no end of comments about what a lucky girl my sister was. One bejeweled, bouffant-haired guest even said to Caro, You must feel like Cinderella. My impossibly elegant sister couldn’t come up with a better response than a shell-shocked smile. At her funeral, the mood wasn’t any different, even if the lucky girl was now lying in a casket.

  I needed fresh air. There was a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow. My mind tripped over what my mother would’ve thought of the scene. Her eldest daughter dead, her husband and younger daughter at daggers. My mother had always seemed sad when I was growing up—no matter what good thing was on the horizon, there was a dark shadow trailing behind it. If I was honest, she hadn’t been wrong.

  As I exited the church, the guards shot me a curious glance, but the one who’d hassled me was gone. I clattered down the steps. It was a sunny day, for April. I stayed upwind of a forlorn clump of smokers. On the sidewalk stood a creep with a camera, and he pointed the lens at me. I turned away, pulling out my phone. I needed a distraction before I exploded.

  That was the moment I first saw the email. You have a private message from Caroline Crawley.

  My sister had been Caroline Thraxton since her wedding day. The sight of her birth name made the message seem like something out of time, a digital relic of a person who’d vanished four years ago.

  When I clicked on it, the screen turned parchment yellow. Osiris’s Vault keeps all your data safe and secure, read the text at the top of the screen. Caroline Crawley wants you to read this letter.

  There was an image of Osiris, the green-faced Egyptian god who was hacked to bits by his brother and reassembled by his sister. Mythology had been my thing as a kid, and I still loved it. Caro liked to tease me about the tattoo of an ankh—the Egyptian key of life—on my shoulder. Was this a sick joke? I scrolled down.

  Written above a text box were the words Caroline’s message to you. I took a breath.

  Deirdre,

  I keep thinking of Mom, and how you never believe you’re going to end up like one of your parents, until you do.

  If you’re reading this, I’m already dead. No matter what it looks like, my death won’t be an accident. Theo killed his first wife and got away with it. Bring him to justice, no matter what you have to do.

  I love you, Dodo. Always.

  Caro

  CHAPTER 2

  DEIRDRE

  The words on the screen bled and swirled together. I shut my eyes, unsure what trick was being played on me. But when I looked again, Caro’s message was still there. It was my head that was spinning.

  “You’re Caroline’s sister, aren’t you?”

  The woman speaking was about the same age as me, but she wore a pink suit that looked expensive and matronly. She was skinny and coiffed like a weather girl, and she wore so much shiny makeup that her face glittered like a disco ball as the sun peeped out behind a cloud.

  “It’s Deirdre, right? Caroline’s death must be such a terrible shock to your family.” Her pink mouth moved fast.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Abby Morel, from the Globe. I knew your sister.”

  She oozed a sickly-sweet gardenia scent that made my dizziness intense. I wanted to get away from her but felt rooted in place. “Where from?”

  “We used to freelance for some of the same outlets.”

  I weighed the likelihood of that. Caro had been a journalist before she turned to the dark side—that was how she referred to publicity.

  “I know Caroline’s death was a tragedy, but what do you think happened to your sister?”

  “She had an undiagnosed heart condition,” I said, repeating what a cop had told me.

  “That never came up in her life? Nothing about it when you were growing up?”

  “That’s what undiagnosed means.”

  “Could drugs have been involved?”

  I was too shattered to lock horns with her. Instead, I dashed up the steps of the church and sank into a pew at the back. The temperature inside the church had somehow dropped ten degrees, and I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth.

  I couldn’t see straight during the service. My brain shuffled back in time, replaying bits of conversation with my sister. I knew she wasn’t in a happy marriage—the way Caro skittered off the topic whenever I asked about Theo told me everything she wouldn’t say. But the idea her husband wanted her dead—and that he had killed before—seemed screwy. For a split second, I wondered if that shady reporter had a point—maybe Caro had popped a pill that delivered delusions? But that thought lasted for only a minute before guilt struck me with the force of a slap. I was ashamed of my disloyalty to my sister.

  Theo didn’t kill her, I told myself. Caro had a condition no one knew about.

  She’d been out running early in the morning when her heart failed. It could’ve happened to anyone, the cop had told me. Plenty of people didn’t know they had a condition.

  No matter what it looks like, my death won’t be an accident.

  That jolted me, and I gasped so loudly even the priest glared at me. He was going through the motions with the martyred expression of a man used to dealing with heathens. I sat mutely while Caro’s best friend, Jude Lazare, read a passage from the Book of Wisdom. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction. But they are in peace.”

  I tried to dwell on that while Jude continued reading. Caro’s at peace, I told myself. The cop said she died quickly. She wouldn’t have felt pain.

  Bring him to justice, no matter what you have to do.

  I looked for Theo and found the back of his head. He was in the front pew with his family. It was where I should’ve been sitting—would’ve been, if I wasn’t avoiding my father. Theo hadn’t even been in New York when Caro died, I reminded myself. The cops had trouble locating him because he was on a plane. How could he be responsible for any of this?

  When Theo stood to deliver the eulogy, my field of vision darkened to the point where we were the only two people in that cavernous church. I’d always kind of liked my brother-in-law. Caro and I had reconnected after years of silence when she started dating him. The first time she’d mentioned Theo, she’d compared him to Heathcliff, which made me hate him, sight unseen, because I loathed Wuthering Heights. But when I’d met him, I’d liked his seriousness, his inability to make small talk, and his sardonic sense of humor. Most people put their best face forward in public, but he’d been bracingly candid. Caroline told me you left home and lived with your best friend’s family when you were in high school, he said within five minutes of meeting me. I wish I’d done that. My father shipped me off to a boarding school I hated, but I was too cowardly to run away. Like an idiot, I did a lot of drugs instead.

  At that moment, sitting in the church, I wondered if I’d mistaken cold-bloodedness for honesty.

  “Thank you all for coming today.” Theo’s voice was perfectly modulated. He had an accent Caro called mid-At
lantic, which made him sound like he’d been dredged up from the middle of a frigid ocean. The undercurrents hinted at wealth and good breeding, but they wrapped every word in chilly formality. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me. I know Caroline would never have believed how well loved she was by so many people.”

  There was nothing wrong with the words. Theo’s delivery was impeccable. He used no notes. He sounded good—and he looked good, with his wavy black hair and blue eyes, a muscular six one packed into an expensive suit. He wasn’t tearful, but he got a pass on that, since the Crawleys weren’t much for crying either. Cool reserve I understood. There was no hesitancy in his speech, but there was no emotion either. Every word was burnished, like a penny dropped into a fountain.

  The funeral Mass was over in record time because most of the crowd followed the Thraxtons’ lead, sitting woodenly in the pews while a few hardy souls wandered up for a blessing—Communion wasn’t even being offered. Theo had asked me if I wanted to speak at the service, and I was glad I’d refused. I sat in a trance while Theo walked away from Caro’s coffin. I needed to talk with him, but I didn’t know what to say.

  Before I could decide what to do, a tiny voice cried out sharply.

  “Don’t touch me!” I couldn’t see him, but it was Teddy. Theo changed course midstride, racing toward his son. When I got to my feet, Theo was beside Teddy, facing a tall, heavyset man holding a camera.

  “I didn’t lay a hand on him!”

  “You did!” Teddy accused.

  Theo grabbed the photographer’s collar with one hand while he knocked the camera to the floor with the other. It made a cracking sound as it hit the floor, followed by a crunch as Theo stomped on it. “Stay away from my son!” His voice was low, but it carried through the church. He shoved the photographer and then picked Teddy up, turning to leave. The larger man came up behind him, clearly intending to tackle Theo. But his heavy footfalls gave him away, and Theo spun around and punched him in the face. The man dropped like a sack of bricks. Theo was still holding Teddy, and he marched out the side door with him.

  I fled, stumbling my way out of the church in the foolish heels Caro had given me. Outside, I tripped on the flagstones, then caught myself on my hands, cursing. The vultures up front snapped photos, and I knew there would be some gossip sniping online that I was drunk at my sister’s funeral, even though I didn’t drink.

  My mind was traveling in dark directions. I’d never seen Theo get violent. Watching that scene play out was an awful revelation. Caro and I had seen each other a couple of times a month, and we’d been in touch by phone or text every week. I felt like we were close, because she knew all about my problems. From my vantage point, she had very few of her own. It had never occurred to me that Theo was one of them.

  CHAPTER 3

  DEIRDRE

  I hadn’t wanted to attend the fancy luncheon before I got Caro’s message, and I sure as hell wasn’t going after I saw it. When I read it again, I noticed a link at the bottom that said, Click for file access. I did and a web page opened up—with the words There are no files. I was caught in a hell loop. I didn’t know what to do, so I got back on the subway. Elmhurst, my neighborhood in Queens, was fifteen minutes from Manhattan by the express E train. I needed to be alone to think.

  The train was mostly empty, and I flopped into a seat. My heart was racing, and my brain felt like it was spinning out of control. I took deep breaths from my diaphragm. It was funny—no one wanted to take the subway anymore, because they worried about inhaling germs—but there I was, sucking them all in to combat a panic attack. An old lady in a full plastic face shield gave me a death glare until I pulled on a paper mask. Face coverings weren’t mandatory anymore, but some people were ready to fight if you didn’t don a mask in close quarters.

  I got off the train at Roosevelt and hopped on a local for two stops to Grand Avenue–Newtown. On a normal day, I would’ve walked, but on a normal day stilettos would not be tormenting my feet. I picked up a lychee drink at Kung Fu Tea and hobbled home.

  Caro wasn’t snobby about my neighborhood—it was close to where we’d grown up—but she didn’t like me living in a basement. She’d offered to pay for a place in a building that, as she put it, would at least be a legal apartment. I was one of six tenants renting in a single-family home on Fifty-Fifth Avenue. I had a hot pot and minifridge instead of a kitchen, and there was a toilet and sink in my room, so it wasn’t the worst place I’d ever lived. I’d never been easy about asking for help, and Caro’s repeated offers always made me uncomfortable. I have money now, and what’s the point if I can’t do anything good with it? she liked to say. As I walked to the house, it hit me that my sister was the only person in the world who’d tried to make my life easier, and she was gone.

  I held my breath when I unlocked the front door, praying my landlord wouldn’t be home. Saira Mukherjee wasn’t a bad person, but she was nosier about my comings and goings than my mother had ever been. There was a staircase from the basement to the backyard that I invariably used to exit the house away from Saira’s prying eyes, but a tall gate that couldn’t be opened from the street kept me from entering the house that way. She wasn’t around, but I heard footsteps above me. I kicked off my shoes, picked them up, and rushed downstairs to my room. I unlocked the door and quickly shut it behind me.

  My dungeon room—that was how I thought of it—was tiny and devoid of natural light. The walls were an unforgiving shade of green, as if an earlier occupant had decided to imagine life inside an unripe avocado. I wasn’t allowed to paint over it, and I didn’t really care. I didn’t own much, just a futon and a folding table, a bookcase, and a lone chair for phantom guests I never actually had over. I disliked clutter, but the shelves were my secret shame, overflowing with books, photographs, and carvings. I had a bad habit of tossing mail on the bookcase. On top of a volume of Gustave Doré’s drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy, I found what I was looking for: a large manila envelope with my name and address written in black ink in Caro’s distinctive curlicued script.

  I was going to mail it if I didn’t see you, Caroline told me when she’d handed it over.

  What is it?

  Remember when you said you wished you had some family photos? I finally got my act together and made you a few prints. There’s more on the memory card.

  I’d glanced at a few shots when I’d come home that night, noticed one that included my father, and instantly tossed the envelope on my bookcase. Out of sight, out of mind.

  I extracted the envelope and reached for a protein bar before taking a seat on the futon. Inside were new prints of old family photos. On top was one of Caro and me together, hugging in front of a Christmas tree when I was five and she was ten, both of us wearing red velvet dresses with flouncy hems that our mother had sewn for us. The next was one of us with our parents, taken two years later. That was the one I’d seen a couple of weeks back, the one that made me shove the photos back into the envelope. I’d hated it because it was a lie: in that moment, we looked like a happy family, which was something we’d never been. Now that Caro was dead, my heart thudded with longing as I stared at it.

  I drank some of the lychee tea and braced myself. Caro must’ve gotten the photos from our father. The envelope held more than two dozen prints, a collection of four-by-sixes and five-by-sevens, with a pair of larger portraits mixed in. There were a couple of Teddy on his own, and one of Caro with her son playing on a golden beach, but most of the images were much older. She’d included a photo of our parents on their wedding day, standing in front of a Belfast church I couldn’t remember the name of. Our mother looked beautiful, her face gentle and serene. Our father appeared smug, clearly proud of tricking this sweet woman into marrying him. I’d literally chopped him out of the one old photo I had, but I didn’t have it in me to reach for the scissors after a funeral.

  I keep thinking of Mom, and how you never believe you’re going to end up like one of your parents, until you do.

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nbsp; There was a portrait of our mother as a teenager, and one of seven-year-old me in my first gi at the Higashi School of Karate. There were birthdays and Christmases, ending with the one when I was fifteen. After that, there were no photos of me. That was no surprise. For a stretch of almost four years, my mother was the only family member I spoke to—or more accurately, the only one who spoke to me. The surprise was that there was a lone shot of Caro that had to be from those years of radio silence. In it, she stood on a staircase wearing a short dress of pale-pink lace, her arm around a man who was clearly not her husband. He was tall and blond and ruggedly handsome. I would’ve guessed he was Caro’s prom date, except he looked like he was in his thirties. On the back of that print, in my sister’s elegant script, were the words With Ben, at the Clarkson/Northcutt house in High Falls, New York. There was no explanation, and I wondered if Caro had mixed it in by mistake.

  After spreading all the photos on the futon, I realized Theo wasn’t in any of them. It was as if Caro had written her husband out of her life. I knew he was away a lot for work, and Caro never seemed to care. But his absence suddenly felt all wrong.

  If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.

  Caro’s message twisted through my brain like a tornado. From the outside, her life looked charmed. She had married into a wealthy family, joined their business, and had an adorable son. It wasn’t perfect—Caro’s dislike of her sister-in-law was intense—but she loved Theo’s father and stepmother, and I knew they spoiled her. I had no ambition to live on the Upper East Side, but even I was jealous of the town house they’d given Caro and Theo as a wedding present. With its gargoyle sentinels and stained-glass windows, it looked like something out of a gothic fairy tale, equal parts stunning and sinister.

  No matter what it looks like, my death won’t be an accident.

  The last time I’d seen Caro was the Saturday before she died. She’d been distant and distracted, but my sister was always wound up tight when working on a big project. The Thraxton hotel chain had suffered in the pandemic, and a lot was riding on her public-relations campaign to revive the brand. Teddy had been running around, making me laugh, and keeping the conversation from getting too serious.