“Of course. I had to come. For Lily—” Blaire paused briefly before adding, “And for you.”

“Is your husband here?” Kate asked.

“No, he couldn’t make it. He’s traveling for the new book, but he understood that I needed to be here.”

Kate shook her head. “I’m so glad you are. Mother would be too. She hated that we never made up.” She fingered the tissue in her hands. “I think about that fight a lot. The horrible things we said.” The memories came flooding back, filling her with regret.

“I never should have questioned your decision to marry Simon. It was wrong,” Blaire said.

“We were so young . . . so foolish to let it rip our friendship apart.”

“You don’t know how many times I thought of calling you, to talk it out, but I was afraid you would hang up on me,” Blaire said.

Kate looked down at the tissue in her hands, now shredded into pieces. “I thought about calling you too, but the longer I waited, the harder it was. I can’t believe it’s taken my mother’s murder to finally do it. But she would be so glad to see us together.” Lily had been terribly upset about their fight. She’d broached it with Kate over the years, always trying to get her to reach out to Blaire with an olive branch. Now Kate regretted her stubborn resistance. She raised her eyes. “I can’t believe that I’ll never see her again. It was so brutal, her death. It makes me sick to think about it.”

Blaire leaned in closer. “It’s horrible,” she said, and Kate sensed a gentle questioning tone in her voice.

“I’m not sure how much you’ve heard—I’ve been avoiding the papers,” Kate said. “But Dad came home Friday night and found her.” Her voice quavered, and she choked back sobs before going on.

Blaire was shaking her head, quiet as Kate continued.

“She was in the living room . . . lying on the floor, her head . . . someone hit her head.” Kate swallowed.

“Do they think it was a break-in?” Blaire asked.

“Apparently a window was smashed, but there were no other signs of forced entry.”

“Do the police have any idea who did this?”

“No. They didn’t find a weapon. They searched everywhere. They talked to neighbors, but nobody heard or saw anything unusual. But you know how secluded their house is—their closest neighbor is a quarter mile away. The coroner said she died sometime between five and eight.” Kate twisted her hands together. “I can’t bear to think that while my mother was being murdered, I was here just going about my business.”

“You couldn’t have known, Kate.”