So Pretty It Hurts

Barr had begun traveling in.”

“Are you sure she didn’t pick up on who you were? I found her crying in the woods Saturday morning, and she told me she was afraid.”

“Absolutely not. She looked right through me the entire weekend, and it was very clear she had no bloody idea.”

“I appreciate you being straight with me,” I said, after taking a few moments to digest what he’d shared.

“Why are you so concerned, anyway? From all I can tell Devon was a vile human being, and her only real contribution to humanity may have been teaching us how to pair the right boots with a bustier.”

We rounded the back corner of the gardens, and the wind tore through the trees. We were headed back to the front of the conservatory, and the street was in view farther up ahead.

“Like I said, I think she was murdered. I’d like to know who did it.”

He snickered and shook his head.

“Oh, someone forced her not to eat?” he said. “‘Take a bite of that red velvet cake or you’ll never sit in the front row of a Marc Jacobs show again’?”

Because Richard was a dogged reporter, I was sure he probably had checked out the full police report and knew about the Lasix.

“Not that way, no,” I said. “You may be aware that Devon was taking diuretics. That’s a very bad thing for someone with anorexia to do. I’m wondering if one of the houseguests was slipping them to her—putting them into her water perhaps.”

He snickered again but leveled his gaze at me now.

“My, my,” he said. “Quite an accusation. Any ideas who?” In the glow from the lamppost light I saw him narrow his hooded blue eyes even more, and then widen them in surprise. “I hope you’re not suggesting it was Mr. Parkin . . . in the barn . . . with a diuretic?”

I swallowed, glancing out of the corner of my eye toward the far-off street.

“You tell me, Richard,” I said.

He suddenly yanked his hands from his pockets, and I drew my upper body back involuntarily. It took him a second to realize what had happened—that he had startled me—and he chuckled in amusement.

“Trust me, Bailey, I have no intention of offing you in the middle of the Central Park Conservatory. I come from a long line of people who took great care of their gardens.”

He rubbed his ungloved hands briskly back and forth. I couldn’t tell if it was to generate warmth or from pure glee at having made me flinch.

“I’ve told you what you wanted to know,” he added. “And now I’m off to Hanratty’s to warm my bones.”

Hands stuffed back in his coat pockets, he mounted the stairs without looking back at me and turned south on Fifth Avenue. Despite the droll tone he’d just used, I could tell I’d rattled him by having learned about his sister. Was it simply because I’d drudged up painful memories that he ordinarily didn’t share with anyone? Or was it because I was getting closer to the deeper truth—that he’d concocted a fitting scheme to kill the person who’d helped ruin his family?

I jogged up the steps and headed down Fifth Avenue myself. I could see Richard up ahead of me, though before long he crossed over from the park side of the street and headed east from there. I stayed on Fifth, retracing the route I’d taken from the subway. Along the way I kept replaying our conversation, hoping my gut would answer a question for me. Richard had clearly hated Devon. But had he hated her enough to kill her?

Closer to the subway, I passed the Christmas tree stands again, and this time I stopped in front of one of them and breathed in the intoxicating scent of spruce and pine. Christmas was just weeks away, and the only present I’d bought so far was a little cap and scarf for my brother Cameron’s new baby. And even worse, I had no plans for the holidays. My brothers would be with their wives. My mother would be in Mexico. Beau would be in the Caribbean and/or out of my life for good. And I’d be all alone in my apartment. What was I supposed to serve myself? A trifle layered with cat food and old newspapers?

And what was I supposed to do about Beau? I wondered, despondently. We were clearly at a stalemate. If I were going to talk to him, I’d have to be the one to make the first move.

Back home, I nuked a package of frozen mac and cheese and jotted down the conversation with Richard in my composition book. It was ironic. Yesterday he hadn’t been on my radar at all as a suspect, but today he was the one person with a firm motive. Tommy or Cap might have been angry at Devon; Whitney or Tory might have been insanely jealous; Christian—or even Scott— might have been panicky over something Devon had stumbled on. But there was no might have been with Richard. He held Devon responsible for Fiona’s death.

Curious about the dynamic between Devon and Fiona, I went online and searched eating disorder partnerships. There were several articles, including a first-person account. When two women took on the challenge of staying superthin together, they empowered each other. It was as if they were part of a special club with a secret code only they communicated in. One woman wrote poignantly about having gone through this horrible dance with a friend. In the end, she had survived but the friend had died.

After I finished eating, I decided to check in on my mother. It had been over a week since I’d spoken to her, and several weeks since we’d discussed her Christmas trip to Mexico. Part of me was hoping that her plans had fallen through and she now felt desperate to roast me a Christmas turkey.

“How’s the weather there?” she asked. “It’s absolutely freezing here.”

“Yeah, pretty cold.”

“Is your apartment warm enough?”

“Yes, yes. Believe it or not, I upgraded a couple of years ago to a heated one.”

“And your job is good? What are you working on?”

“Not too much.” I’d learned years ago that the best time to tell my mother about any dangers related to my work was after everything was over. “The usual celebrity-train-wreck stuff. How about you, Mom? What’s happening on your end?”

“Things are good. I’ve decided to teach a course next term after all. I won’t be able to travel as much, but it will be nice to be back on campus again.”

“Speaking of travel, are you still planning on going to San Miguel?”

I found myself holding my breath before she answered, which seemed so damn pathetic.

“Oh, yes, everything’s lined up. They have a pool, and I don’t have a suit yet, but I suppose I could wear that black one I wore on the Cape this past summer. Was it too dreadful? I kept expecting people to yell ‘Orca!’ every time I emerged from the water.”

“No, you looked quite smashing in it,” I said as jovially as possible, though my heart was sinking. What the hell was I going to do for the holidays?

“I do feel weird being away from you kids this year,” she said. “But you’ll all have fun. And the less Cameron has on his plate right now, the better.”

“Is he just overwhelmed with the baby?” For a brief moment I couldn’t even remember my new nephew’s name.

“Yes. But your sister-in-law seems even more so, and he’s got that to contend with, too. She has this perpetual whine going these days. I feel awful complaining, but it’s becoming tiresome.”

“What’s she whining about, anyway?”

“How her life is out of her hands now. She says she has no time to do anything for herself. I do feel a little bit sorry for her. Babies change your life so much. Nothing is ever the same after that. How’s Beau, by the way?”

Yikes, she’d ricocheted from babies to Beau in one second. Was she subconsciously linking the two in her mind? Through no real fault of my mother’s, the conversation was starting to depress the hell out of me. I felt suddenly desperate to end it.

“Oh God, Mom, my dishwasher is making a weird noise,” I blurted out. “Like it’s going to blow up or something. Can I call you back later?”

“Shouldn’t you call the super?”

“Yeah, yeah. I better call him. I’ll try you later—or sometime tomorrow.”

I rested my head in my hands for a few seconds and then stood up and began pacing the living room. A weird