“Oh my God,” Gabrielle said again.

This was not an overdose. Nothing like. An overdose of roofies meant sleepiness. Unconsciousness. Maybe nausea, but not like this. Not these violent shudders and seizures, this eruption of bloody foam. Google would have mentioned this.

Which meant he was allergic? But I didn’t believe that. My heart was telling me a darker truth.

Whatever I had given him, it wasn’t roofies.

The mother had lied. Her daughter had never intended to get Spence alone. Maybe she wasn’t even here. Or maybe she was, either in a cocktail dress moving with the crowd, or all in black standing on one of the bridges that looked down on the gardens, or hidden on a quiet, shady path, like me. Watching. Making sure.

On the grass Spence went suddenly still. So very still.

Dr. Charles was seeking a pulse now, and then he was barking more orders. He was facing away, so his words were lost to me, but he and the other man rolled Spence onto his back. Dr. Charles started chest compressions, and I saw Spence’s blood-streaked face. His eyes stared up at the paper lanterns, blank and unblinking, as shiny as sea glass.

Panicked conversation swelled, the crowd edging forward, pushed from behind. Several people had their phones out. Calling 911, I hoped. I hoped not filming.

“Back up!” I heard a man yell in a high, frightened tone. “Please back up and give him room!”

“Is he breathing?” a woman called out. “Is he . . . is he . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

But Gabrielle could. “Is he dead?”

Watching the doctor’s desperate chest compressions shaking Spencer’s big body, watching his slack and unresponsive face, I knew the answer.

And I had handed him the pills. Whatever they’d been. Even now, tucked safe in my purse, I had the silver flask, monogrammed with my husband’s initials, sloshing with whiskey I’d dosed with the same toxin.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I heard someone saying, and it was me. Everything the mother had told me was a lie, and what did this mean for Robert?

I found myself backing away, tugging Marshall and Gabrielle both with me. His gaze on mine was searching.

Gabrielle, concerned, said, “Bree?”

I shook my head. I had no control over my twisting features. The invisible Visa in my purse was gone and, with it, Betsy’s bold and breezy smile. I’d killed Spencer. The woman who’d orchestrated it still had my baby.

“Bree?” Marshall echoed.

I let them both go. I was fumbling in my purse now. I pulled out the phone she’d left for me.

Nothing. No text, no missed calls.

I scrabbled farther, until my fingers found the cash I’d tucked into the bottom.