Now, Brianna chose her words carefully as she handed a cup to Selma. “Yes, I saw Caldwell in prison. I hoped to have his case dismissed, or at least appealed.”

“Because you think he’s innocent, right? And that means the killer is still out there. What if he’s out there and somehow he knew my girls were turning twenty-one and targeted them and . . . oh, God! He couldn’t have found them, right?” Her eyes hardened as she stared at Brianna for reaffirmation.

“It’s unlikely that the killer would have come here,” Brianna said, though the words seemed a lie. She went to the fridge and pulled out a half-empty carton of milk. “Come on, now. You were going to start at the beginning.”

“Yes, right.” Selma rubbed her eyes, as if lost for a few seconds. “As I said, it’s their birthday, you know, the big one and”—she cleared her throat—“I was hoping to celebrate with them this weekend, but they had other plans. They were going to meet up with friends, go out on Bourbon Street, and didn’t want their mother tagging along. I get that, and told them we could do the family thing later. Dinner and drinks out another night, you know. They seemed cool with that. Of course, I have no idea if they were going to see their father . . .” She pulled a face at the mention of Carson Denning, her ex-husband, then stared into her untouched drink. “I’m not in that exclusive circle.” There was a bite to her words.

The Denning divorce had been far from amicable. Though it had been five years since Carson and Selma’s initial split, Selma wouldn’t or couldn’t get over it. The scars, she said, just ran far too deep. Carson’s betrayal had been devastating; no coming back from that. Brianna understood; she knew all about heartache.

Sighing, Selma glanced out the window over the kitchen sink and focused on a middle distance. Brianna doubted that her friend noticed the morning light streaming through the branches of the magnolia tree, or the birds flitting near the fountain. No, Selma’s gaze was turned inward to her own private hell. Although Selma had spent years trying to heal from the broken relationship, she hadn’t been particularly successful. Since Carson’s remarriage to his girlfriend of a year had occurred less than a month after the divorce was final, Selma had been left reeling. The fact that Carson’s girlfriend had been Selma’s niece had amplified Selma’s pain and feeling of betrayal. Though Selma had been in therapy ever since the breakup, she was far from moving on. Every family event seemed to send her into a new level of emotional hell.

And now this.

“What happened?” Brianna asked again.

“I wish I knew.”