Big Summer(62)

“And I’ll have another one of these,” Great-Aunt Lathrop said, gulping down the last of her drink and passing her glass, empty except for a red-tinged stalk of celery, over to me. My heart was beating even harder; my thoughts racing frantically, caroming around my head. I needed to find out what the will said, and if I was the high school chum who’d gotten lucky. I needed to find out who Mr. Cavanaugh’s by-blows were, and if Drue had known any of them.

“Right away,” I said.

“And here’s a tip,” Aunt replied. She hiccupped and said, “Make sure you get paid in cash.”

I nodded and hurried away, knees wobbly and heart pounding, to drop off the dirty dishes and score a Bloody Mary. Say the Cavanaughs were broke, I thought. Say Drue was marrying Stuart for money or, more likely, the money they could earn together by treating their wedding and their honeymoon and possibly even their entire lives as a branding opportunity. Who would want her dead? Stuart? Corina Bailey? Some other big-name bridal influencer, angry at being edged out of the action?

In the kitchen, I found a giant coffee urn. I filled the coffee cup, found a fresh pitcher of cream, and carried them to the bar.

“I need a Bloody Mary,” I told the bartender.

“Popular choice this morning,” he said as he stirred and poured.

I carried the drinks back to the Lathrop ladies and took a look around. Drue’s grad-school friend Lainey had donned her “Drue & Stuart”–monogrammed hoodie, which struck me as in not very good taste. She was sitting at the dining room table, typing on her laptop. Natalie, Drue’s assistant, was curled on her side underneath a blanket, seemingly asleep on the love seat. Pregnant Cousin Pat had pulled a chair into the corner and was hunched over her phone. “No,” I heard her say as I drifted close enough to listen. “None of us can leave until the police talk to everyone.”

I opened one of the sliding doors and stepped onto the deck. It was windier than it looked from inside. The air was fresh and cool, scented with salt and pine. A stiff breeze churned the waves to lacy froth. I breathed in and turned, preparing to head back and resume my eavesdropping when a familiar voice called my name.

“Hey, Daphne?” I turned and saw Arden Lowe, the not-groom’s sister, in yoga pants and a tank top that revealed wiry arms and jutting clavicles. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Arden led me through the living room, down a flight of stairs, and out to the pool on the other side of the house, where there was barely even a whisper of breeze. The water’s surface was pristine, without so much as a leaf or a pine needle to mar its surface. The attached hot tub—I swallowed hard at the sight of it—was bubbling away pointlessly, wisps of steam swirling around its surface. The air smelled like chlorine and chemicals. I took a seat at a chair that was one of four set up around an umbrella-covered table. Arden perched on the table’s edge.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “This must be just awful for you.” Arden had her brother’s compact, made-for-TV build, as if she’d started off normal, then been condensed to seven-eighths of her original size. The large nose that looked perfect on her brother’s face was a little too big for hers, and her ponytail revealed slightly protuberant ears.

“I’m okay.” I smoothed my blouse. “I mean, I think I’m still in shock.” In shock at Drue’s death, in shock at everything I’d learned since finding her body.

“It must have been awful,” Arden said again.

I looked at the hot tub, as if its bubbling had suddenly gotten interesting, and weighed the risks and the potential payoff of telling her what Nick had told me. Finally, I decided to go for it. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, and, if you haven’t, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But there’s a rumor going around about your brother.”

Arden didn’t look entirely surprised. She tilted her chin up, lips thinned, eyes narrowed. “What rumor is that?”

“People saw him on the beach last night. With another woman.”

If I was expecting shock, whispered pleas for my silence or heated denials, I’d have been disappointed. “He was with Corina,” Arden said calmly. “They’re friends, Daphne. Friends talk.”

“Someone saw them doing more than talking.”

“Who did you hear this from?” Arden’s voice had gotten higher.

I shrugged. She narrowed her eyes.

“But it’s secondhand?”

I nodded.

“Well. There you go.” She shook her head, flipping her ponytail from one shoulder to the other. “It’s just gossip. Nasty gossip. You probably don’t know this, but Corina just broke up with someone back in LA. Stuart was probably consoling her. If people saw anything, that’s probably what they saw.”

“Okay,” I said.

Arden looked at me for a long, silent moment. “Shit,” she finally said. She pulled out a chair, sat, put her elbows on the table, and cradled her head in her hands. “I told Stuart not to go through with this,” she said. “I told him Drue was bad news.” She looked up at me, as if she was waiting to be challenged. “Sorry. I know you were her friend.”

“We were close, years ago. In high school. But we haven’t spent a lot of time together since then.”

“Because, let me guess. She did something awful to you.” I pressed my lips together, not wanting to speak ill of the dead. Arden had no such compunctions. “I knew what she was the first time I met her. She was so fake with me.” Her nose crinkled. “Like she’d googled ‘how to make your boyfriend’s little sister like you’ five minutes before we met.” She sighed, smoothing her hair. “She was gorgeous. I’ll give her that. And Stuart was just head over heels in love. He thought he could ride the tiger.”