The Invitation

  I’m glad Rachel was what she was. I’m glad she was bold and brazen, right to the end. Of course I’m not thrilled to learn where her money came from, or that she knew it and added to it without, apparently, the slightest pang of conscience. But she never played by the rules. I suppose that’s why she thought it was fine to drop that bombshell on Tasha, and then just walk away. I shouldn’t forgive her for that. But my fury evaporated as soon as I saw her corpse.

  At least she did the right thing in one way – by keeping enough documentation in New York and Nassau to show Tom’s fingerprints everywhere. Only Rachel could have had the chutzpah to decide to unmask her blackmailer in front of his family and friends, as I’m certain she was about to do. And only Tom had the nerve to beat her to it.

  We all had our dark secrets on that island, and our reasons to want to shut each other, and Rachel, up. But Tom, my once-beloved husband, was the only one with everything to lose if he didn’t silence her permanently. His career, reputation, family, marriage. All of it was on the line.

  Corruption. I should have known, when he first said that word, when he said that’s what they were suspending him for. There was a whiff of sulphur in the air right then. I was just relieved it wasn’t a woman. But corruption touches everything, every part of your soul. And it was a woman, all along. It was Rachel.

  All that time I spent defending my marriage, preserving it because my parents hadn’t managed to save theirs, I didn’t once stop to wonder whether it was worth my efforts.

  In my circle, other women always say to the wife who’s discovered her husband’s little peccadillos, ‘It’s his loss. You’re better off.’

  In this case, it’s more than true. My girls and I will truly be a force, now. And, bizarrely, Rachel’s little heir, in Nessie’s belly, might well be the one to keep a roof over all our heads. Even after adjustments for all that wartime pilfering and current laundering, there should still be some money sloshing around in the Cadogan bank, shouldn’t there?

  Please let it be so, Rachel. I want to be able to thank you for that, at least.

  Epilogue

  Vicky

  Central London, 6th March

  I’m bang on time as I bound up the steps to our rendezvous. The girl with the iPad frowns at the seating plan and of course I do my usual, bypass her and saunter over. For a second, a flash of blonde hair mesmerises me. My heart stops. No. Not another invitation I’m going to regret accepting. It can’t be, can it? But thank Christ, it’s a lass half our age, at a different table. And she’s not a patch on our Rachel.

  I slip into the seat opposite Gita and we take a long look at each other. She is amazing, as ever. But is that a thread of silver winking out from that sheaf of black hair? I know she’ll be scrutinising me in turn. And my smile will echo that touch of wariness I see behind her eyes. She’s already ordered all the little snacks – olives, bread and those saucers of oil and spices. I tear off a hunk of bread, stuff a bit in, and push my shoulders down. Relax.

  ‘So. How are you?’ We say it at exactly the same time, and laugh. God, we’ve been through so much. Where to start? Well, in the obvious place. ‘Have you seen Tom?’

  Gita looks down. ‘Yes. I’ve taken the girls along. Just once. I’m not sure I’ll go again. It’s hard … on us all.’

  ‘Do you know what’s going to happen? What he’s going to plead?’

  ‘I think insanity is his best bet,’ she says. ‘God, isn’t that an awful thing to say? About my own husband.’ She looks down and fiddles with the bread.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known,’ I say.

  ‘I could. I just didn’t want to. I wish … I wish he’d died on that island,’ she blurts. Her bottom lip goes. If only I could be the sort of person who reaches across the table easily, to pat her hand. And then, I decide I can be. I touch her soft skin, smoothing the indentations where Tom’s rings used to be. I do what I can to make the marks go away.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, I wish he’d died too,’ I say, to get her to crack a smile. It works, but she still looks sad. ‘On the bright side, you now have the book deal.’

  She can’t help pepping up a bit at this. Rachel was always catnip to the papers, and an inside track on her troubled story is going to be a sure-fire best seller. ‘True. Anyway, how about you?’ she says.

  I raise my glass of sparking water, and toast her ironically. ‘Well, as you can see, I’m loving my new regime. It’s so easy. Not!’ There’s little that makes you crave a drink like the death of a friend, the revelation of a scandal you’ve been hiding for years about your child, and supporting a single mother with a jailbird husband. But I’m not about to throw away the painstaking progress I’ve made. I definitely can’t go back to that rehab therapy room where I had to share my innermost secrets with a group of strangers. I was surrounded by addicts and junkies, but you could still have heard a pin drop when I told my sorry tale.

  ‘You’ve done so well,’ Gita says.

  ‘One day at a time,’ I intone. ‘Anyway, the news on Raf was good at least.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ says Gita, and we clink our San Pellegrino glasses. I’m having a slice of lemon in mine, for the thrills. ‘It’s a shame he and Tasha didn’t make it anyway.’

  ‘I’m not sure you really mean that,’ I say. I was relieved when Raf turned out to be Bob’s after all – and of course I kicked myself for having shied away from the truth for so long. If I’d bitten the bullet earlier, I could have saved myself from so much guilt and doubt. And maybe Tasha and Raf would still be going out. But they’re both so young. And, if the past few months have shown us anything, it’s that relationships started in the dark do not prosper.

  Both of us shift in our seats and I change the subject. ‘Are you a bit clearer on all the money laundering stuff now?’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ says Gita. ‘But you’re miles better on the financials than I am.’

  ‘It’s my bread and butter, I suppose.’ I shrug. ‘And simple, really. Although organisations like Rachel’s do their best to make it as complicated as possible, so you can’t follow the trail. I always think it’s more like tumble-drying than laundering. The money gets bounced from place to place, taking out all those inconvenient little wrinkles, until it’s impossible to work out where it originally came from. And it’s easier to do now that you can ping it around the globe electronically. Put simply, buying artwork for millions is a great way to churn your dirty money.’

  ‘I don’t get why Rachel ever got into it, though. She was rich from the start, it’s not like she needed it.’

  I sigh. ‘If her grandfather hadn’t got involved in dealing stolen pictures during the war, then the Cadogans would never have had to do business with the kind of people who need their money washed in the first place. But shifting paintings across Europe in the middle of it all, under the radar, must have been an expensive business. A lot of palms to grease. And people like that want their payback. I don’t think they’re keen on companies deciding to take the moral high ground later and go straight.’

  ‘So it wasn’t really Rachel’s fault?’

  ‘I hate to burst that bubble, but you knew Rachel as well as anyone. Better. She was well aware of what she was up to. By her generation, it was a tradition.’

  Gita looks down at her menu. ‘But she might well have wanted to get out of it all,’ she says in a small voice.

  ‘She might,’ I say obligingly. But we both know Rachel didn’t get out. She carried right on with the family business. And it meant enough to her that she was willing to throw Tom under the bus, when he tried to lean on her. But I can’t think about him anymore, all that energy and rage bound up in a prison cell. Though I’ve spent two decades hating him, and I still can’t believe the lengths he went to, I don’t want to dwell on him there.

  ‘Talking of Rachel … how’s Nessie?’

  ‘About to pop any minute. I can forgive Rachel a lot, but not that. Messing with my own daughter
s. Telling Tasha, you know, and then Nessie. It’s beyond me how she thought she could get away with it.’

  ‘She was ruthless,’ I nod. ‘Do you know what Nessie is planning?’

  ‘For the baby? Not yet. You heard she’s staying with Jane and Geoff? She needed a bit of space. Well, we all did. I had to get my head around the whole idea. Let things calm down a little.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried Jane will kidnap the baby?’

  Gita laughs. ‘Just wait until she finds out what it’s really like, having a newborn around. Not quite like those well-behaved mice. I feel bad, though. I had her wrong all those years. I really thought she hated kids.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you regret sending her all those pictures?’ I look Gita in the eye and she has to giggle.

  ‘I know it was awful but it kept me sane. When the kids were so small and it was hard to keep things on track.’

  ‘Have you thought about letting Jane and Geoff adopt the baby?’ It would be such a neat ending. For all of us.

  ‘It’s not my baby.’ Gita shrugs. ‘I have to accept I can’t smooth this out, however much I might want to. It’s up to Nessie. Of course I’m going to support her, whatever decision she finally makes. But technically, it isn’t even my grandchild. It’s Rachel’s. Ross Tregowan is refusing to get a DNA test. We might have to force him. Another battle on our hands.’

  ‘Will the baby be Rachel’s heir?’

  ‘Heir to what? To all the crimes Rachel committed? To the awful things she provoked others into doing? It seems like a poisoned chalice to me.’

  I nod. Though I notice Gita isn’t saying no. There must still be chunks of Rachel’s fortune that are pure as the driven snow. And that’s another generation of school fees to find, after all. Another child that Gita will yearn to bring up in a picture-perfect way, even if she’s just playing granny this time.

  But, despite everything on her plate, I do sense the glimmerings of a new contentment from Gita. ‘And how’s work?’ I ask her.

  She smiles. With the book coming out, with her status as the late Rachel Tregowan’s best friend verified beyond all doubt, and with her position at the newspaper iron-clad as never before, I can see that the past months have actually given her a stability she never had when Tom was roaming free. ‘All good,’ she says. ‘Let’s have a toast.’

  I raise my glass.

  ‘Absent friends?’ Gita says, and for a moment, as the spring sunlight bounces off our glasses, it’s almost as though Rachel is with us again, with all her wicked, effervescent charm.

  She was my rival. Almost my nemesis. A troublemaker, par excellence. But always forgiven, and now forever in my heart. I miss her madly. I think Gita does too.

  We clink.

  ‘To our friend. To Rachel.’

  Excerpt from Yes! Magazine, November Issue

  One year to the day after Lady Tregowan’s death, it is rumoured that two of her closest friends performed their own ceremony, against the wishes of the Tregowan family, and scattered her ashes on the causeway to her beloved Cornish island, Mount Tregowan. No invitations were issued.

  Gripped by The Invitation? Don’t miss The Perfect Widow, another unputdownable novel from A.M. Castle. Available now!

  Click here if you’re in the US

  Click here if you’re in the UK

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Whisper Island …

  Watch Me

  The backbone of every triumph is built on two simple words: Watch me.

  Like when my parents said I’d never make it to graduation, I whispered those words: Watch me.

  And from that day forward, I never got in trouble at school. Never made another bad mark in class. Not because I believed them, but because I wanted to prove them wrong.

  I’ll prove so many people wrong.

  Watch me.

  When college after college rejected me, and a school counselor suggested that I might consider a different track, I shouted the words “Watch me!” to an empty hall of lockers and doors.

  There are many more examples.

  But all that matters is NOW.

  Six of us are going to the island. Only one of us will make it back.

  That one of us will be ME.

  From the back of my mind came a familiar, snarky voice: If you do this, you’ll never leave that island. You’ll never make it home again.

  But that voice was wrong, and I hadn’t had a “home” in years.

  As I stared in the mirror, eyes like two gaping holes staring back at me, I didn’t say the words this time.

  I didn’t need to.

  They were seared in my brain, writing themselves, like the unseen stylus of an Etch’n’Sketch engraving the words, deep and thick, across my cerebrum.

  They rattled like a mantra, growing louder and louder, until they beat like a metal drum.

  My lips moved silently in the mirror.

  Watch me. Watch me. Watch me.

  HOW IT STARTED

  Chapter 1

  Riley

  Some might say we went too far.

  After all, our plan was born in the span of one drunken weekend. Settled over shots of tequila.

  But if you had to credit one person—or blame them—then I guess that one person was me. Ultimately, I was the one obsessed with puzzles.

  I didn’t want to hang out with them in the first place; just the mere junction of words like “group” and “project” gave my introverted ass an ulcer. I avoided people in college, determined to get the work done and get back to my lonely apartment.

  But then there was Scarlett. Everything changed after Scarlett.

  She was my bridge to the others, extrovert to my introvert. Follower of all things art and art-drama related, Scarlett had followed the same track as me since freshman year. We shared the same three courses on Tuesdays and an early Foundation studio lesson on Thursdays.

  If not for her annoying charm and persistence, our friendship probably never would have gained traction. In fact, I know it wouldn’t have, because there’s no way I would have initiated one in the first place.

  I’d always been a loner, having fewer friends than I could count on one hand.

  When I went to college, I never expected that I’d make a friend, much less more than one of them. Certainly not friends as glamorous as Scarlett, Sammy, and Mia.

  “Riley, right? With an i or a y?” asked the girl with the bright red hair and million-dollar smile. Her hair was twisted into galactic spirals around her freckled face. She wore fake lashes and blood-red lipstick that was often smudged on her straight white teeth. She had a nice smile; the sort of smile you see in toothpaste commercials.

  “Riley with an i,” I stammered, watching curiously as she plopped down in the seat beside me. Before I could get a word in edgewise, she launched into a noisy monologue about two influencers in the art world who were up in arms on Twitter.

  When the girl named Scarlett—of course I knew her name before she told me; it was impossible not to know a person that loud—was done talking, she drew in a deep breath then asked: “So, whose side are you on? ’Cause this shit is important to me when choosing friends.” She winked and smiled, something playful but serious behind that cutesy facade. Still, I got the sense that she meant it. I had no clue who these influencers were, and I didn’t mess around on Twitter.

  Scarlett had a big dimple on her left cheek which reminded me of my first, and only, friend in school. Her name was Sierra—“like the desert, not the singer”—and she’d treated me terribly. Just the thought of that bitch made me clench my jaw.

  I cleared my throat, considering the five-minute soap opera Scarlett had dropped on my lap just then. There was obviously a correct answer here, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  It was a dispute over plagiarism—one artist claiming another’s work too closely resembled their own. Nothing new in the art world.

  But both artists were clearly respected and well-known, according to Scarlett. I should know about this,
but I didn’t.

  “Truthfully? I’d have to see both pieces to make a fair judgment,” I said and shrugged.

  When you don’t know the answer, just tell the truth. That’s an adage I’ve always lived by, and it usually works out. Not always, but often.

  Scarlett’s eyes widened. “Excuse me? You haven’t actually seen The Donovans yet? Where the hell have you been, Rye?”

  I wasn’t a big fan of nicknames. But I found, coming from her, “Rye” sounded kind of … endearing. Sierra never would have called me “Rye”, that’s for damn sure.

  “I’m not much on social media,” I admitted. Another painful truth-bomb. “I used to have an online journal, but I kept it mostly private …”

  Scarlett stared at me, bug-eyed and silent, like she was seeing me for the first time, an exotic animal at the boring old petting zoo.

  “Wow. Just … wow. You don’t know what you’re missing. The drama on social media alone is worth it, but the connections, Rye … the connections are everything in this business. It’s important to know who’s who … what’s trending … well, don’t worry. I’ll show you the pics after class so you can see what I’m talking about. I need to know whose side you’re on and then I’ll know if we can be friends.” There it was again: the wink-y smile, making me instantly feel at ease. There was something about her I liked, even though we were nothing alike.

  “Okay, sure,” I said, laughing awkwardly. I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed, always out of the loop and in the dark about all things current on the art scene. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the speech about “connections”. Nowadays, my classmates were already building their online presence, some going so far as to sell digital services or be commissioned to do pieces already. But, for me, it was less about connecting and pursuing fame, and more about stroking a compulsion. I’d lived with obsession for decades.

  I didn’t do art because I wanted to; I did it because I had to.