The Last Time I Saw You. Liv Constantine

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 you forgotten she tried to ruin us?”

      “And you’re finishing the job.”

      He pursed his lips and was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke, there was a steely edge to his voice. “How many times do I have to tell you that absolutely nothing is going on? Nothing.”

      She was too exhausted to argue with him. “I’m going upstairs to tuck Annabelle in.”

      Annabelle was on the floor with a puzzle, Hilda in a chair nearby, when Kate walked into Annabelle’s bedroom. What would she have done without Hilda? She was wonderful with Annabelle—loving and patient, and so devoted to Annabelle that Kate had to remind her that just because she lived with them didn’t mean she was on duty all the time. Hilda had been nanny to Selby’s three sons. When Annabelle was born, Selby had suggested that Kate hire her, since Selby’s youngest would be going into first grade and would no longer need a full-time nanny. Kate had been relieved and grateful to have someone she knew and trusted to care for her daughter. They had known Hilda forever, it seemed, and her brother, Randolph, had been Georgina’s driver for years, a reliable and trustworthy employee. It had worked out perfectly.

      Kate knelt next to her daughter. “What a good job you’ve done.”

      Annabelle looked up at Kate with that cherubic face, her blond curls bouncing. “Here, Mommy. You do it,” she said, handing her a puzzle piece.

      “Hmm. Let’s see. Does it go here?” Kate asked, and began to put it in the wrong space.

      “No, no,” she puffed. “It goes here.” She grabbed it and placed it where it belonged.

      “It’s almost bedtime, sweetheart. Would you like to pick a book for Mommy to read with you?” She turned to Hilda. “Why don’t you go ahead to bed? I’ll stay with her.”

      “Thank you, Kate.” Hilda ruffled Annabelle’s hair. “She’s been such a little trouper today, haven’t you, sweetheart? It was a long day.”

      “Yes.” Kate smiled at her. “It’s been a long day for you too. Now get some rest.”

      From the bookshelf, Annabelle pulled out Charlotte’s Web and brought it to Kate. She sat on the bed as Annabelle scrambled under the covers. Kate loved this bedtime ritual with her daughter, but the nights since Lily’s death had been different. She wanted to gather Annabelle to her and protect her from tragic reality.

      As soon as Annabelle fell asleep, Kate gently took her arm from around her daughter and quietly tiptoed out. She peered down the passageway to the last guest room at the end, the room Simon would occupy. His door was open, the room dark, but she could see a light shining from beneath his bathroom door and hear the water running.

      She looked away, her thoughts turning to Jake. His parents hadn’t come to the reception, so she’d never had the chance to speak to them—which might have been for the best, given how painful a reminder she must be. She and Jake had grown up in the same neighborhood and had known each other practically all their lives, but it wasn’t until they went to high school at brother-sister schools that the two of them had fallen in love. Kate could still remember their senior year, Jake smiling up at her in the stands from the lacrosse field, and no matter how cold it was on those game days in February or March, she felt all warm and glowing inside. And he never missed one of her track meets, his deep voice cheering her on. They both applied to Yale, and it seemed all but certain that they’d spend the rest of their lives together—until the night everything changed. Through the years she’d relived the night of that party over and over in her mind, imagining it had turned out differently. If only they’d left ten minutes earlier, or if they hadn’t been drinking. But of course, she couldn’t change the reality. She’d lost him in the space of a few hours. When she’d gone to his house a few days after his funeral, the blinds were drawn. Days’ worth of newspapers were scattered across the front porch, and the mailbox was overflowing. Eventually, his parents and two sisters moved away.

      She continued down the hall to her bedroom to change for bed, though she knew sleep would be elusive. She padded into the bedroom, unzipped her black funeral dress, and threw it on the floor in a heap, knowing she would never be able to wear it again. When she flipped on the bathroom light and looked in the mirror, she saw that her hair was limp and her eyes red and puffy. Moving in for a closer look, she caught something dark out of the corner of her eye and froze. Sweat broke out all over her body, and she began to