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
