The Last Time I Saw You

by Liv Constantine

  “Kate. She’s gone. She’s gone, Kate,” he sobbed across the line.

  “Dad, what are you talking about?” Panic spread through her body.

  “Someone broke in. They killed her. Oh my God, this can’t be real. It can’t be true.”

  Kate had barely been able to understand his words, he was crying so hard. “Who broke in? Mother? Mother is dead?”

  “Blood. Blood everywhere.”

  “What happened? Have you called an ambulance?” she asked him, her voice high-pitched, hysteria threatening to overtake her.

  “What am I going to do, Katie? What am I going to do?”

  “Dad, listen to me. Have you called nine-one-one?” But all that came through had been his hacking sobs.

  She had leaped into her car and driven the fifteen miles to her parents’ home in a daze, texting Simon to meet her there ASAP. She could see the red and blue flashing lights from two blocks away. When she neared the house, her SUV was stopped by a police barricade. As she got out of it, she saw Simon’s Porsche pull up behind her. EMTs, police, and crime-scene investigators were going in and out of the house. Her panic swelling, Kate ran from the car and pushed her way through the crowd, but an officer barred her way, standing there with his arms crossed, legs in a wide stance, and an angry scowl on his face. “Sorry, ma’am. This is an active crime scene.”

  “I’m her daughter,” she said, trying to push past him, as Simon rushed to her side. “Please.”

  The officer shook his head and put a hand out in front of her. “Someone will be out to speak to you. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”

  And then they watched and waited together, horrified, as investigators came and went, carrying cameras and bags and boxes, putting up yellow crime-scene tape, and refusing to even look in their direction. It hadn’t taken long for the television crews to arrive, with their cameras focusing on the breathless reporters, mics in hand, detailing every gruesome detail they could glean. Kate wanted to press her hands to her ears when she heard them say the victim’s skull had been bashed in.

  Finally she saw her father being led out of the house. Without thinking, she rushed toward him. Before she’d taken more than a few steps, powerful hands grabbed her and held her in place.

  “Let me go,” she yelled, struggling against the officer restraining her. Tears streamed down her face, and when the police car pulled away, she cried out, “Where are they taking him? Let me go, dammit. Where is my mother? I need to see my mother.”

  He had loosened his hold then, but not his expression. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t allow you inside.”

  “My father should be with her,” Kate cried. Simon had appeared beside her, and she inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. Even though she was still angry at him, his presence was comforting.

  “Where have they taken him? Dr. Michaels, my wife’s father—where have they taken him?” Simon said, putting a protective arm around Kate.

  “To the station for questioning.”

  “Questioning?” Kate asked.

  A woman in uniform approached Kate. “Are you the daughter of Lily Michaels?”

  “Yes. Dr. Kate English.”

  “I’m afraid your mother is deceased. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The officer paused for a moment. “We’ll need you to come to the station to answer a few questions.”

  Sorry for your loss? So perfunctory. Glib, even. Is that how the families of patients saw her when she gave them bad news? She had followed the officer, but all she could think about was her mother lying dead, being photographed and scrutinized by investigators, studied by medical examiners, and finally taken to the morgue for an autopsy. She’d seen her share of autopsies in medical school. They weren’t pretty.

  “Have you eaten anything?” Simon asked, startling her out of her memories as he entered the room.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “What about a little soup? Your father said that Fleur made some homemade chicken rice.”

  Kate ignored him, and he sighed loudly, sitting in the chair next to a flower arrangement from her colleagues at the hospital, fingering the tip of a leaf as he read the card. “Nice of them,” he said. “You really should eat, even a bite of something.”

  “Simon, please. Just stop, will you?” She didn’t want him acting all husbandly and caring after all the tension of the past few months. When the arguments and bad feelings had reached the point where Kate couldn’t concentrate on her work or anything else, she’d gone to Lily. It was just a few weeks ago that they’d sat by the fireplace in her parents’ cozy den, warmed by the flames, Kate in her hospital scrubs and Lily exquisite in white wool pants and cashmere sweater. Lily had looked at Kate intently, her face serious. “What is it, darling? You sounded terribly upset on the phone.”

  “It’s Simon. He’s . . .” She’d stopped, not knowing where to begin. “Mother, do you remember Sabrina?”

  Lily frowned, giving Kate a puzzled look.

  “You remember. Her father was the one who sort of took over when Simon’s father died, became a mentor to Simon? Sabrina was a junior bridesmaid at our wedding.”

  “Ah, yes. I remember. She was just a child.”

  “Yes, she was twelve years old at the time.” Kate leaned forward in the chair. “Do you remember how, the morning of the wedding, as we were all here getting ready, Sabrina went MIA? I went to look for her. She was in one of the guest rooms, sitting on the edge of the bed and crying. I started to go in, but then I saw that her father was with her, so I stood to the side, out of sight. She was terribly upset that Simon was getting married. Told her father that she’d always believed Simon would wait for her to grow up and marry her. She sounded so pitiful.”

  Lily’s eyes widened, but her face remained calm. “I’d forgotten that, but it was years ago. She was young and had a crush.”

  Kate’s face had grown red. “But nothing has changed. I tried to understand and be kind, I really did. Her mother died when she was five, and I thought maybe I could be a good friend, even a confidante.” Kate sighed. “She completely rebuffed my efforts. Oh, she was never rude in front of Simon, but when we were alone, she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. And now, ever since her father died, she’s clingier than ever, calling all the time, wanting more and more of Simon’s time.”

  “Kate, what does that have to do with you, really? As long as Simon isn’t encouraging her, you don’t have anything to be upset about. And the poor girl is an orphan at such a young age.”

  “But that’s just it. He is encouraging her. Whenever she calls with some sort of problem or something that needs fixing, he jumps. And she’s calling more and more often. He’s there a lot. More than he should be.” Kate’s voice was louder. “He says it’s nothing, that I’m overreacting, but I’m not. Now that she’s working with him, they’re together all the time. They have dinners together, she comes riding at the house, she completely ignores me and gushes over him. I’ve reached the point where I just can’t take it anymore. I’ve asked him to move out.”

  “Kate, listen to what you’re saying. You can’t break up your family over something like this.”

  “Well, I can’t put up with this anymore. He never should have hired her, but her father asked Simon to look out for her on his deathbed. She asked Simon for a job right after he died.”

  Her mother gave her a look. “It doesn’t sound like Simon had much choice. Things will settle down. Perhaps she’s just grieving.”

  “Quite honestly, Mother, I’m tired of being the sympathetic, long-suffering wife. It’s ridiculous for me to be treated like that and then have my husband tell me I’m being unfair.”

  Lily rose and began to pace. She walked to where Kate sat and put her hands on Kate’s shoulders, her eyes locked on her daughter’s. “I’m going to talk to Simon. Get this all sorted out.”

  “Mother, no. Please don’t do that.” The last thing she’d wanted was for her mother to call Simon
on the carpet. That would make things worse than they already were. But she’d heard nothing more from her mother on the topic. If Lily had spoken to him, neither she nor Simon had mentioned it.

  Now she looked at Simon as he leaned forward in the chair, his elbows resting on his knees.

  “Please don’t push me away,” he said. “I know we’ve had our problems, but now is the time for us to pull together and support each other.”

  “Support? It’s been a long time since you’ve been there for me. I never should have agreed to let you move back in.”

  “That’s not fair.” Simon frowned. “You need me here, and I want to be with you and Annabelle. And I’d feel much better being here to watch out for you both.”

  She felt a chill go up her arms and pulled the cardigan more tightly around her at the reminder: there was a killer on the loose out there. The last line of the text played over and over in her mind. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you had been buried today. That implied more was to come. Had the killer taken her mother to punish Kate? She thought of the grief-stricken parents of the patients she was unable to save and tried to identify anyone who might have blamed her. Or maybe blamed her father. He’d practiced medicine for over forty years, plenty of time to make some enemies.

  “Kate.” Simon’s voice broke through her musings again. “I’m not leaving you alone. Not with a threat against you.”

  She slowly raised her eyes to his. She couldn’t think straight. But the idea of being alone in this big house was terrifying.

  She nodded. “You can continue to stay in the blue guest suite for now.”

  “I think I should move back into the master bedroom.”

  Kate felt the heat rise from her neck and across her cheeks. Was he using her mother’s death as a way to worm himself back into her affections? “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay, fine. But I don’t understand why we can’t just put the past behind us.”

  “Because nothing is resolved. I can’t trust you.” She stared at him, feeling like her eyes could bore holes into him. “Maybe Blaire was right about you.”

  He spun around, a dark look on his face. “She had no business coming today.”

  “She had every right,” she replied hotly. “She was my best friend.”

  “Have you forgotten she tried to ruin us?”

  “And you’re finishing the job.”

  He pursed his lips and was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke, there was a steely edge to his voice. “How many times do I have to tell you that absolutely nothing is going on? Nothing.”

  She was too exhausted to argue with him. “I’m going upstairs to tuck Annabelle in.”

  Annabelle was on the floor with a puzzle, Hilda in a chair nearby, when Kate walked into Annabelle’s bedroom. What would she have done without Hilda? She was wonderful with Annabelle—loving and patient, and so devoted to Annabelle that Kate had to remind her that just because she lived with them didn’t mean she was on duty all the time. Hilda had been nanny to Selby’s three sons. When Annabelle was born, Selby had suggested that Kate hire her, since Selby’s youngest would be going into first grade and would no longer need a full-time nanny. Kate had been relieved and grateful to have someone she knew and trusted to care for her daughter. They had known Hilda forever, it seemed, and her brother, Randolph, had been Georgina’s driver for years, a reliable and trustworthy employee. It had worked out perfectly.

  Kate knelt next to her daughter. “What a good job you’ve done.”

  Annabelle looked up at Kate with that cherubic face, her blond curls bouncing. “Here, Mommy. You do it,” she said, handing her a puzzle piece.

  “Hmm. Let’s see. Does it go here?” Kate asked, and began to put it in the wrong space.

  “No, no,” she puffed. “It goes here.” She grabbed it and placed it where it belonged.

  “It’s almost bedtime, sweetheart. Would you like to pick a book for Mommy to read with you?” She turned to Hilda. “Why don’t you go ahead to bed? I’ll stay with her.”

  “Thank you, Kate.” Hilda ruffled Annabelle’s hair. “She’s been such a little trooper today, haven’t you, sweetheart? It was a long day.”

  “Yes.” Kate smiled at her. “It’s been a long day for you too. Now get some rest.”

  From the bookshelf, Annabelle pulled out Charlotte’s Web and brought it to Kate. She sat on the bed as Annabelle scrambled under the covers. Kate loved this bedtime ritual with her daughter, but the nights since Lily’s death had been different. She wanted to gather Annabelle to her and protect her from tragic reality.

  As soon as Annabelle fell asleep, Kate gently took her arm from around her daughter and quietly tiptoed out. She peered down the passageway to the last guest room at the end, the room where Simon had been sleeping since the funeral. His door was open, the room dark, but she could see a light shining from beneath his bathroom door and hear the water running.

  She looked away, her thoughts turning to Jake. His parents hadn’t come to the reception, so she’d never had the chance to speak to them—which might have been for the best, given how painful a reminder she must be. She and Jake had grown up in the same neighborhood and had known each other practically all their lives, but it wasn’t until they went to high school at brother-sister schools that the two of them had fallen in love. Kate could still remember their senior year, Jake smiling up at her in the stands from the lacrosse field, and no matter how cold it was on those game days in February or March, she felt all warm and glowing inside. And he never missed one of her track meets, his deep voice cheering her on. They both applied to Yale, and it seemed all but certain that they’d spend the rest of their lives together—until the night everything changed. Over the years she’d relived the night of that party over and over in her mind, imagining it had turned out differently. If only they’d left ten minutes earlier, or if they hadn’t all been drinking. But of course, she couldn’t change the reality. She’d lost him in the space of a few hours. When she’d gone to his house a few days after his funeral, the blinds were drawn. Days’ worth of newspapers were scattered across the front porch, and the mailbox was overflowing. Eventually, his parents and two sisters moved away.

  She continued down the hall to her bedroom to change for bed, though she knew sleep would be elusive. She padded into the bedroom, unzipped her black funeral dress, and threw it on the floor in a heap, knowing she would never be able to wear it again. When she flipped on the bathroom light and looked in the mirror, she saw that her hair was limp and her eyes red and puffy. Moving in for a closer look, she caught something dark out of the corner of her eye and froze. Sweat broke out all over her body, and she began to shake uncontrollably as she backed away in horror. She was going to vomit.

  “Simon! Simon!” she screamed. “Come here. Hurry!”

  In an instant, he was beside her as she continued to stare at the three dead mice, lined up in the sink, their eyes gouged out of their heads. And then she saw the note.

  Three blind mice

  Three blind mice

  See how they run

  See how they run!

  They all ran after a charming life

  He took their eyes with a carving knife

  Did you ever see such a beautiful sight?

  As three dead mice?

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  4

  Blaire had played her reunion with Kate over and over in her mind through the years—what she would say to her, how Kate would beg to be her friend again, and the crushed look she’d get when Blaire told her it was too late. It would be Kate’s turn to feel the pain of betrayal, just the way Blaire had felt when Kate kicked her out of her wedding after their terrible argument that morning. And then she’d elevated Selby from a regular bridesmaid to maid of honor in Blaire’s place. The truth was, Kate had never been far from Blaire’s mind over the years—she’d he
ard news about her through their other friends and seen glimpses of her life in their pictures on Facebook. But since Blaire felt she was the injured party, there had been no way she was going to come crawling back—or so she’d thought. Lily’s murder had changed all that. She’d known that the minute Kate had called. She had to come and pay her respects to Lily. And once she was there, she knew she had to do whatever she could to help them find the killer.

  Now that she’d come back, she saw that not only had she been right about Simon, but that something was very wrong between him and Kate. Blaire had always studied people; it was one of the things that contributed to her success as a writer. The little things told the story—the looks that passed between two people, the choice of a phrase, an unreturned sentiment. From where she’d sat at the funeral luncheon, she’d had a clear view of the two of them, and Blaire had noticed Kate jump like she’d been burned when Simon’s hand reached for hers, snatching it back and putting it in her lap. And then, of course, there had been the brunette in the short skirt.

  She stood by the window and gazed at Baltimore Harbor, the low December sun shimmering on the water in a dazzling geometric puzzle. When she called to make reservations at the Four Seasons, they’d told her they were fully booked, so close to the Christmas holidays. But as soon as she inquired about the presidential suite and gave them her name, the flat voice on the other end of the phone became animated, promptly apologizing and booking her reservation. She’d come a long way from that young girl who didn’t quite fit in.

  Blaire was still in touch with some of her friends from her school days in Maryland. It had been tough at first—they’d all known each other since kindergarten, and Blaire arrived on the scene in eighth grade. Her father had told her that she should be happy that she’d been accepted to such a wonderful school, that it would open up a whole new world for her. Enid, his new wife, told her that she was languishing at her public school, that she would have better opportunities if she went to one of the country’s top prep schools. They tried to make it sound like they were doing it for Blaire, but she knew the truth—that Enid wanted her gone, that she was tired of arguing with Blaire over every little thing. That’s how she found herself going away to Maryland, where she knew absolutely no one, ten hours from her home in New Hampshire. And to add insult to injury, Mayfield insisted she repeat the eighth grade, since she’d missed so much school the year before when she’d had mono. It was ridiculous.