Chapter 12

Viv’s blue eyes, the same shape and shade as mine, snapped and sparked with frustration as she leaned over the table and got in Tuesday’s face.

“Do you really think I don’t know that you broke it off with Harrison because you were having an affair with Tyler?” she hissed.

I gasped.

Tuesday went a pasty shade of gray that reminded me of cold oatmeal.

“That is neither here nor there,” she said. Her voice was faint and I would have felt sorry for her if I’d liked her. Luckily, I didn’t.

“I’d say it’s very much there,” I said. “How many people knew you were sleeping with Carson?”

Tuesday looked at me and the loathing she had felt for me before flamed into genuine hatred. “This is none of your business.”

I stood beside Vivian and glared down at her. “Harrison is our partner and friend. It is very much our business, because I am betting that if Win knew about your relationship with Tyler, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it against both of you.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but Tuesday went even paler and I wondered if she would soon be transparent. Either way, it confirmed what I suspected, which was that Win knew about the affair and he had used it as leverage.

“What happened?” Viv asked. “Did he go to Tyler’s wife and tell on you or did he just threaten to do it?”

“Oh, please,” Tuesday snapped. “As if Ava the pill-popping paralytic would even care if her husband stepped out on her.”

We said nothing, just stared at her. She stood and faced us across the table. Her hands were shaking as she pulled on her gloves so I knew she was not nearly as blasé as she pretended to be.

“He did, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Empty threats,” Tuesday said. “Any relationship that may or may not have existed between Tyler and me was over before it started. Good day.”

With a twirl of her coat, she stormed away, leaving Viv and me gaping after her. She disappeared into the crowd and a harried-looking couple with two small children crowded us for our table. Viv and I moved away so they could take it.

Viv glanced at the electronic board that posted arrivals and departures from the station as well as the current time.

“We’d best get back,” she said. “Fee’s been on her own long enough.”

“Should we bring her something?” I asked.

“Let’s get something closer to home,” Viv said.

We worked our way through the crowd to our platform. I kept glancing around for Tuesday, which was ridiculous because the financial district was in a different direction and there was no reason she’d be on our train, unless she was going back to visit Harrison again.

I shook the thought off. She wasn’t going to go back to Harrison’s. I was sure of it, mostly, but a little pinprick of jealousy kept jabbing my insides, making me surly and a little mean.

Viv and I found seats on the train and I turned to her and asked, “So you’re the expert married one; how would you feel if your husband cheated on you?”

She turned and looked at me as if I had three heads, but I wasn’t in the mood to play.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Pretend you’re Ava. How would you feel if your husband picked up with a woman at work?”

Viv’s temper was beginning to heat. I could tell because she always fidgets when she is processing her ire and right now she was twisting the end of her scarf between her hands. I wondered if she was pretending it was my neck.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Obviously, my marriage is different than the Carsons’.”

“Does Aunt Grace know you’re married?” I asked. Viv’s mother, my aunt Grace, lived up north in Yorkshire. She didn’t like London and seldom came to visit, leaving the traveling to Viv. Although they were reasonably close, I couldn’t imagine Viv would have told her parents if she hadn’t told me.

“No, I never told anyone,” she said.

“Except Harrison,” I said.

“I didn’t tell him so much as he found out,” she said. “He’s never known anything more than the fact that it happened. Why are you asking me about this now?”

“Because I’m cranky,” I said.

“Clearly,” she agreed.

“And because I kept thinking you were going to open up and tell me about it yourself when you were ready, but now I am thinking that you’re never going to tell me anything and life is uncertain, look at Winthrop Dashavoy. I’ll bet he didn’t expect his own death to be the premier event at the Carson and Evers bonfire party, and if you don’t tell me about your marriage and something bad happens, I may never know what possessed you to marry, I’m sorry, what’s his name?”

“So all of this”—she paused and gestured at me with her hands—“is because you’re afraid you’re going to die before finding out who I’m married to?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But you’ll be dead,” she said. “What will you care then?”

“You are a cold woman, Vivian Tremont, colder than cold in fact,” I said. “You’re frozen solid.”

A look of hurt flashed across Viv’s face and she turned away from me. Instantly, I was filled with regret for my words, and I wanted to apologize but the part of me that was righteously injured because she hadn’t confided in me about her marriage refused to knuckle under and apologize. I was beginning to think we’d never get past this.

The train rumbled through the dark underground. I glared at the passengers around us, the man on his smartphone, the businesswoman in the power suit, the hipster reading a book, the grandmother with two girls, who reminded me of Viv and Mim and me twenty years ago. I bet they didn’t keep secrets from their best friends. Yes, I was in a full sulk.

I wondered what Mim would make of all this right now. Would she approve of Viv’s secret marriage? Or would she say I was bang out of order, one of her favorite expressions, for pushing Viv so hard for answers?

Given that Mim had been the same creative free spirit as Viv, I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer to my question. Knowing Mim, she’d say to give Viv time and that she’d come around when she was ready, even if it took years.

That line of thinking was fine if you were a patient person. Sadly, I am not. I want what I want when I want it. It’s a flaw that I am working on, but when it came to finding out what was going on with Viv, the sister of my heart, I had even less patience than usual.

Perhaps it would be different if she were deliriously happy and flitting around like a magpie with a diamond, but she wasn’t. She was quiet, withdrawn, aloof, and there was a pervasive sadness about her that wasn’t natural at all for the Viv I had always known and loved.

Maybe it was selfish, but I just wanted my cousin back. I wanted her to be present in our shared business and our life. I didn’t want any secrets between us, but until she told me exactly what was going on in her life, there was a chasm between us as wide as the Thames River and I had no idea how to bridge it.

“Viv—” I began but she interrupted me as the train pulled into High Street Kensington Station.

“Forget it,” she said as she stood and moved to the door.

“Where are you—” I didn’t get a chance to finish.

Viv stepped off the train and I scrambled after her, jumping onto the platform just before the doors shut. We had been on the Circle Line headed back to Notting Hill Gate. This was a stop short of our destination and put us smack in the midst of Kensington.

As Viv pressed through the crowd toward the exit, I followed feeling like a sad little puppy. As we exited onto the street, I caught her elbow and brought her to a stop.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

I expected her to rip me a new one for pressing her about her marriage. Instead she said, “We need to know more about the Carsons.”

I shook my head as if my ears were ringing and I couldn’t have heard her right.

“You’ve lost me,” I said.

“From what Tuesday told us and didn’t tell us, the Carsons seem awfully suspicious to me, especially Ava,” she said. “I just can’t shake the feeling that she’s got some sort of ulterior agenda happening. The way she swept off with Andre and Nick at the party almost as if she was planning to use them as an alibi.”

I stared at Viv. Truly, I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d announced she was giving up millinery to join the circus. Then again, this was Viv of the secret wedding, so actually the circus wouldn’t surprise me at all.

“This is very sleuthy of you,” I said. “Have you been watching too much Grantchester?”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Fee and I did do some binge watching the other night when you were out with Nick and Andre. I think Fee has a crush on the vicar.”

I nodded. I could see that. “So what’s your plan?”

“Don’t have one,” she said. “But it is a shame I lost my yellow cap at their party, isn’t it? And just when Elise Stanford said she wanted to run a segment on winter hats.”

“You did?” I asked. “But I could have sworn . . .”

My voice trailed off as she stared at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Now I get it.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. She turned and began to walk and I fell in beside her. “You were beginning to worry me.”

“In my defense, I thought you were angry with me for pressing you about your personal life,” I said.

“I’m not angry, I’m annoyed, there’s a difference,” she said. “But Harrison is a bigger concern right now. Tuesday was right about one thing, with the hostile history between Winthrop Dashavoy and Harrison dating all the way back to their school days, Harrison makes a very tasty suspect and even the best copper would have a hard time looking away from that.”

I felt my hopes for Harrison’s future fracture and fall into the toes of my shoes. Viv was right. Unless we could find another suspect, Harrison was doomed.