The High Tide Club

Brooke shook her head. “And when I called him and asked him to meet with Josephine to handle her estate, it must have looked like the perfect opportunity. My God, I’ve been so stupid and so naive.”

“You couldn’t have known he was broke,” Lizzie said. “He fooled everybody.”

“I was such a chump,” Brooke said. “He charmed me, romanced me, convinced me that he was a lonely widower looking for a second chance at love. I wish you’d seen him at the Cloister in black tie and tux. He was in his element. He basically proposed to me Saturday night. He wanted me to give up my practice here, move back to Savannah, and let him ‘take care of’ me and Henry. Oh my God! He even hinted that he’d love to have a child with me!”

“But you didn’t say yes,” Felicia pointed out. “You didn’t sleep with him, right?”

Brooke blushed and looked away. “I was tempted. Gabe made it pretty clear he intended to seduce me that night. But thanks to Farrah and her lowlife boyfriend, I cut the evening short and drove back home.”

“And that’s the only reason you didn’t fall for all his smooth talk?” Lizzie asked.

“No. A couple of times, he let the mask slip. He yelled at the valet parking kid and threatened to have him fired. And then, when I called from my car to tell him I was leaving instead of spending the night at his house, he got in a really nasty dig about me running away. Of course, the next morning he showed up here with flowers and croissants and a lame apology. Still, it was an eye-opener.”

“Never trust a man who hollers at the help,” Felicia said.

“This whole time, he’s been angling to get his hands on Josephine’s money,” Brooke said. “That first time he met with her at Shellhaven? I think Josephine must have told Gabe her secrets. I think she told him that day that Gardiner was my mom’s father, and that’s why he was suddenly, passionately in love with me—he figured if he married me, he could eventually get his mitts on that money.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Lizzie said. “We saw the way he looked at you. Like Dweezil when she sees a can of sardines.”

“Is that supposed to make Brooke feel better about herself?” Felicia asked.

“You know what I mean. It wasn’t only dollar signs he was seeing when he looked at Brooke. There was some real attraction there.”

“I think the attraction was that I was vulnerable. I’ve been so isolated from family and old friends since I moved down here to St. Ann’s.” Brooke gave the women a sad smile. “Okay, maybe vulnerable and isolated is a nice way of saying I was horny. It’s been more than three years since I had a man in my life.”

“Seven years for me, unless you count the drunken one-night stand I had at a wedding two years ago,” Lizzie said. She turned to Felicia. “You?”

“Next question?” Felicia said.

Brooke stared down into her coffee. “You know what else I think? I think Gabe killed Josephine.”

67

Both the women stared at Brooke in disbelief.

“I thought the cops agreed that it was an accident,” Lizzie said. “We all saw her that night. Josephine was groggy from mixing the new pain meds with the wine. She tripped over the dogs, fell, and hit her head on the bathroom floor. Right?”

Felicia chimed in. “Josephine was ninety-nine years old, and she had end-stage cancer. I mean, she would have been dead in a matter of days anyways. Why would Gabe risk murdering her?”

“That’s what I was asking myself all night long,” Brooke said. “And then it came to me. Josephine was ready to sign a will that would have divided her estate between five people—the three of us, plus my mom and Varina. She also planned to leave pretty generous cash bequests to Shug and Louette. And she planned to deed back the property she owned at Oyster Bluff to the original landowners.”

“Which would have all gone into effect if Gabe had gotten that will witnessed,” Felicia said.

“But he didn’t get it witnessed when he easily could have. Which meant that when Josephine died, that will was invalid. She died intestate—so that meant her estate would be left to her closest blood relatives,” Brooke said.

“Meaning your mom,” Lizzie said. “And if you’re right, Gabe Wynant was the only person who knew about that connection. And I’m not disagreeing with you, Brooke, but it’s still so hard for me to think of Gabe as a murderer.”

“Why?” Felicia demanded. “Just because he was an apparently rich, classy-looking white dude?”

“Well, yeah, now that you mention it,” Lizzie said.

“I wouldn’t have believed it either, if I hadn’t seen him try to shoot C. D. at point-blank range. If you’d seen his face…” Brooke shuddered. “He meant to kill C. D. And I’m not sure he wouldn’t have killed me too…”

She left the sentence unfinished, but her friends knew she was still dwelling on the way Brooke’s would-be suitor fell to his death. They sat sipping their coffee until Lizzie spoke up.

“I get that Gabe had the perfect motive to kill Josephine, but so did C. D., if you look at it like that.”

“Huh?” Felicia said.

“We know C. D. is convinced he’s Josephine’s son, but the will she dictated didn’t include him, so he had just as much motive, maybe even more than Gabe, to kill Josephine. Like revenge. Because as far as he’s concerned, she dumped him like a cast-off shoe at an orphanage,” Lizzie said.

“Maybe you’re right,” Felicia conceded. “I mean, what does anybody really know about C. D., besides the fact that he was raised in an orphanage? Don’t you think it’s an awfully big coincidence that he showed up at Talisa, looking for a job, only six months ago?”

“Stop!” Brooke clutched her head with both hands. “I’m already dazed and disoriented. You two aren’t helping matters any.”

“You’re the one who brought up the topic of murder,” Felicia said. “What do you want to do now? Do we just keep our mouths shut about our suspicions?”

Brooke sighed. “Lizzie’s right. We don’t actually know if Josephine’s death was an accident or a homicide. I’m so mixed up right now. Gabe gave me my first job right after law school. He was my mentor and my friend. Something changed in him, and I never saw it. But I keep thinking about what my mom said. ‘The people we think we know the best are the ones with secrets we can’t even fathom.’”

“Who doesn’t have secrets?” Lizzie said. “My grandma Ruth used to say there’s a little felon in the best of us.”

68

October 1941

Millie peered into the steam-clouded bathroom mirror and gingerly touched the bruises on her neck and chest. Blackish-purple handprints bloomed on her breasts. His handprints.

She’d lain awake all night, pondering her situation. Her bruises would fade as they had in the past, but what of her future with a man like Russell Strickland?

Only one solution occurred to her. She found the packet of razor blades in the medicine cabinet, alongside the Pepsodent, the cotton balls, and the Pond’s Cold Cream, all so thoughtfully stocked by the Bettendorfs’ housekeeper in anticipation of any need a guest might encounter. With a fingernail, she slit the paper wrapper and held the shining blade up to the light. One deft swipe across her wrist would surely do the trick, wouldn’t it? But the mess. How inconsiderate. And who would find her? Josephine? Her own mother? Her grandmother? She could only imagine their horror at finding her in a pool of her own blood. She shook her head. No, it was just too ghastly.