But Blanche is the real star of the show because she’s getting married.

Blanche’s engagement ring is huge, an emerald-cut diamond on a platinum band, and Bea has seen pictures of Blanche’s fiancé on social media. He’s blond and tall, and reminds Bea of the boys she’d met going to parties at Hampden-Sydney, the boys’ college near Randolph-Macon. He looks older than twenty-eight and has probably looked like that since he was a teenager, earlier even. There’s a certain type of boy who seems to be born with a golf club in his hand, and that’s Tripp Ingraham.

“Richard Ingraham the Third,” Blanche tells them, and Bea hides a smile behind her drink because of course Blanche is marrying a “the third,” who’s called Tripp.

The wedding is in the spring, and they’re building a house, a big one, in a new neighborhood called Thornfield Estates.

Bea looks it up.

There’s nothing to it, really. It’s mostly a bunch of drawings of what it will look like one day, all manicured lawns and houses that are ostentatiously huge, but built like older, more modest houses. No white stucco here, just brick and tasteful navy shutters.

Houses start in the seven figures, but Bea is rich now, and why not settle in Birmingham again? Her business can be run from anywhere, and while she likes Atlanta, she hasn’t really made a life there.

But buying a house that big in a neighborhood clearly meant for families feels silly and … obvious.

So she gets a town house in Mountain Brook, then an office in Homewood, and Southern Manors keeps growing even as she helps Blanche with her wedding plans.

“It’s so good to have you back,” Blanche says one night as they sit in Blanche and Tripp’s living room, a bottle of white wine on the coffee table in front of them, their shoes off, bridal magazines all around them. “I’ve missed you.”

Bea knows that she means it, and smiling, she reaches into her purse. “I’m glad you said that.”

The necklace is silver, a little bee dangling from the chain, and Blanche laughs delightedly, clapping her hands. “Omigod,” she says all in a rush. “The cutest!”

This time, Bea puts the necklace on Blanche, and later, when she asks if she can donate Southern Manors’ décor for the reception, Blanche says yes easily, just like Bea had known she would.

It’s good exposure for the company, which already does great business, but that’s not enough for Bea. She wants it to matter here, in Birmingham.

She wants it to matter to Blanche.

And it does, in the end, but not in the way Bea had wanted.

The night of the benefit, of Bea’s biggest triumph, Blanche rides with Bea and her mother in the car on the way over, and when they first get into the ballroom, once they’ve shown Bea’s mother to her table, Blanche looks around at everything Bea has made.

“You know, I never realized how much of this stuff looks like it came straight from my house,” Blanche says.

She’s smiling when she says it, her fingers going to the little bee around her neck, but Bea sees her eyes.

Sees what she’s thinking.

“Does it?” Bea says. “I never noticed.”

PART IX

JANE

29

It must be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, going to Tripp Ingraham’s house. And that’s really saying something for me.

He’s been charged with murder. I am willingly going to an accused murderer’s house.

I say that to myself over and over again as I jog down the street, trying to look like it’s just a regular day, just regular Jane out for her morning run, certainly not about to do something so shit-stupid she might die.

His texts kept me up all night last night, and I can’t explain it, but I need to hear what he says.

Because something in me tells me he’s telling the truth.

Tripp is so many ugly things—a drunk, a lech, a Republican—but murderer still doesn’t fit on him. I’ve known violent men. I’ve been around too many of them, and I learned how to sniff them out early. I had to.

Tripp just … doesn’t smell right.

I hurry up his driveway, praying to god that no one catches a glimpse of me. His bushes are overgrown, dead leaves and flower petals strewn along the walk at the front of the house, and if I’d thought his place seemed dark and sad before, it’s nothing compared to how it feels now.

After ringing the doorbell, I wait for so long that I think he’s not going to answer, and I’m uncomfortably aware that anyone could come by and see me standing there. This neighborhood seemed to have eyes everywhere, and Tripp is not supposed to have visitors, not without it being cleared through the police first.

Like I was going to do that.

Just as I’m about to turn away, the door opens.

Tripp stares at me, wearing a plaid bathrobe tied loosely at the waist and a pair of matching pajama pants. His skin has gone grayish, his eyes nearly swallowed up by the hollows around them. Tripp looked rough before, but now, he looks half-dead, and I almost feel sorry for him.

“You came,” he says, his voice low and flat. “I honestly didn’t think you would. Don’t just stand there. Come in.”

He ushers me inside, and I’m hit with the smell immediately. Old food, garbage that hasn’t been taken out, and booze.

So much booze.

“Sorry I didn’t clean up,” he says, gesturing for me to head into the living room, but I shake my head, folding my arms over my chest.

“Whatever you have to say to me, go ahead and say it here. Say it fast.”

He lowers his gaze back to mine, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly, and there it is again—a shadow version of that Tripp, sure, washed out and barely there, but still.

“Don’t want to spend too much time in the murderer’s lair. I get it.”

I’d tell him not to be a dick, but that’s like telling him not to breathe, so instead, I just glare at him, waiting, and eventually he sighs.

* * *

“You must’ve felt like you won the goddamn lottery when you met Eddie Rochester,” he muses. “Rich, good-looking, charming as hell. But let me tell you something, Jane.”

He leans in close, and I catch the ripe odor of him, the stink of unwashed skin and unbrushed teeth. “He’s poison. His wife was poison, too, so at least they were well-matched in that.”