“When I got pregnant, years and years ago, I thought Alec would marry me then. Oh, he preached against family ties, but I thought a baby would change everything. Do you know what he did? He told me he would never, ever see me again if I had the child. He forced me to have an abortion.”

I was moving slowly, but getting closer to the door. Suddenly, Sarah grabbed my hair and jerked my head upwards. My eyes teared up at the pain.

“Not that way, Lily.” She pulled me towards the hallway. “Did you know that Alec refused to come west for my mother’s funeral? Mother died in September, and he left me to deal with it alone. He couldn’t leave Claudia, he said. Then he actually thought he could get rid of me. He offered me a financial settlement, ‘as if we’d been married,’ he said. As if! What was I if not his wife?” Her voice was sharp and clipped. She was angry, but more than that she was aggrieved at losing what was rightfully hers. “He was so stupid, he actually believed me when I agreed. I offered to make a special farewell dinner, and he complimented me for being so mature. Mature, he said. He was throwing me over for a child.”

“You poisoned him,” I whispered.

“I did. Viagra is such a marvelous drug, hard to detect when you break the pills down to powder.” Her eyes were glassy. “I went back to California, but I was miserable. I knew I’d never be happy unless I got rid of the little bitch who stole Alec from me. Your little sister ruined my life.”

“That’s why you moved here.”

“Yes, exactly. I had my revenge planned just perfectly. I was going to have some fun playing with Claudia’s drug-addled brain, you know. I was going to be the good mommy she never had before I killed her. Instead, I found this snobby bitch who was obsessed with exercise and shopping. Everything Alec had written down in his files about her was wrong. If she hadn’t been wearing his grandmother’s diamond I would have sworn she was the wrong woman.” Sarah shook her head. “I made a terrible mistake on New Year’s Day. I thought I was being so clever, mentioning her mother’s suicide to the police so there would be no investigation. But when it turned out it wasn’t Claudia Moore who died, it just made everything more suspicious.”

“What happened on New Year’s Eve?” I asked.