Aster quietly recounted exactly what she had seen all those years ago—and then what she’d found in Mason’s e-mail. Rowan stared at Aster, not quite comprehending. Corinne’s face grew paler and paler. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Aster said, peeking guiltily at Corinne. “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to ruin your image of our family.”
Corinne tucked her chin into her chest. “Does Mom know?”
Aster lowered her gaze. “I couldn’t bear to tell her.”
A few pigeons landed near a piece of discarded soft pretzel and began to fight over it. Corinne sniffled, then took a deep breath. “Despite all that, I’m not sure Dad did it,” she said faintly after Aster had finished. “I think it was Will.”
Aster squinted at her. “The guy you . . .” She trailed off. “Why?”
Now it was Corinne’s turn to look tormented. “I didn’t tell you everything about my time with Will all those years ago.” She swallowed hard, and then explained the real reason she’d disappeared mysteriously for so many months that following year. When she uttered the words pregnancy and hiding out, Rowan felt her brain might burst. And then when she explained that she’d put the baby up for adoption, Rowan’s heart broke. Corinne had a child, a daughter.
Corinne rushed on. “I think Poppy told Will the truth about what happened . . . and Will was furious,” Corinne explained. “You know Poppy—she probably framed it like she made the decision to send me away, to save my reputation. Maybe he blamed her.”
Tears ran down Corinne’s cheeks. She glanced at Aster, who stood on the sidewalk, looking equally stunned. Corinne let out a sniff, her hands wrapped tightly around her waist. Rowan walked over to Corinne and gently hugged her shoulders.
“I hate that you went through that alone.” Her throat tightened as she thought of her younger cousin hiding herself away for so many months, telling no one her secret for years. The weight of it must have been unbearable.
After a moment, Aster ran to her sister and hugged her too. “You’ll be all right,” she said gently. “I promise.”
When they broke apart, Rowan looked at them. “I was going to tell Foley that James did it.”
Corinne wiped away her tears. “But James was at your house when it happened.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Rowan said, explaining that the doorman had seen him leaving while she was in the coffee line. “I’ve never asked James where he was. So I really have no idea.”
And she certainly wasn’t asking him now, either. Ever since the incident in her office earlier today, she’d been on high alert, half expecting him to grab her when she got off the elevator at Saybrook’s or be waiting for her when she went home. Which was why she hadn’t gone home.
She placed her hands on her hips and watched the traffic. A guy pedaling a rickshaw trundled up the avenue. Two overwhelmed-looking tourists sat in the back. Then Aster turned and faced the building. “Let’s go. Maybe Foley is already onto one of these guys as it is.”
They hurried up the steps. After quickly sending their purses through the metal detector and holding their arms out for the scanners, the three of them boarded the elevator to Foley’s floor. The office still hummed with activity despite the late hour—phones ringing, people rushing back and forth, a printer spitting out papers into a large, organized stack.
The security guard looked surprised to see three Saybrooks in the lobby. She made a call to Foley’s office and then announced, “She’s still here. She’ll see you now.”
Everyone marched down a long gray hall and into an office where Foley sat behind a cluttered desk, squinting at something on a computer screen. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, her eyes looked tired, and her lipstick was slightly smudged. When she saw the three of them, she stood. “Come on in,” she said hurriedly, gesturing them inside.
The three women filed in and sat down on a tweed couch. The room was decorated with flowers and quirky art prints. A pair of pink-painted deer antlers hung from a high wall. The generic metal blinds, so standard in other offices, had been swapped out for wood ones, as if they were in a Mexican hacienda.
Finally Aster cleared her throat. “We each have thoughts on who killed Poppy.”
Foley folded her hands on her desk. “Is this more about Steven Barnett?”
They shook their heads and, one by one, told her their theories. As Rowan listened to her cousins speak, her hands trembled. Their suspects seemed as plausible as James was. It was hard to believe that three separate people might have wanted to kill Poppy. And she found herself frustrated with Poppy once again for the secrets she’d kept. For never coming to them with anything. She was supposed to be Rowan’s best friend.
Foley’s brow was knotted by the time they finished. “Do you think this has anything to do with the person who hit us in Meriweather?” Aster asked, turning to her cousins.