Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Cassidy!” Kate declared, sweeping the champagne glass behind her back. “I thought you were moving Aunt Rebecca.”
“We are,” Cassidy said flatly. “What are you doing?”
“I… am…” Kate had told Jake that she wasn’t good at spur-of-the-moment confrontations, and she’d meant it. She looked around the room desperately, hoping something would jump out as a reasonable excuse for why she was lurking around the bridal suite, pawing through other people’s things. But unless her excuse was that she was a perv for expensive fabrics and other people’s underwear, she had nothing. So, she decided to turn the tables, holding up the champagne glass in the thick plastic bag.
“What are you doing with this ?” she demanded, matching Cassidy’s stance.
Cassidy gasped. “That’s not yours! Give it back.”
She hurried into the room and Kate moved to the far side where the bathroom door stood open, a narrow band of light barely illuminating the room. There was something in the bag with the champagne glass rattling against it, distracting Kate’s attention. She frowned, raising the bag closer so she could see it. It was some kind of long tube—maybe the poison? But no, there was something in it. It looked like a cotton swab, the long, skinny kind they kept in a doctor’s office. And there was a sticker on the side of the tube with a logo.
“Family Ties?” she read aloud. “Isn’t that one of those find-your-ancestors kind of deals? Like you’re twenty-three percent Scottish or whatever? Why do you have one of these?”
“That’s none of your business,” Cassidy growled, lurching for Kate and missing the bag. “Give it back!”
Kate tracked around the room, keeping her eye on the exit door, trying to keep a piece of furniture between her and Cassidy at all times. She had to hop over several suitcases and piles of clothes in the way, making her balance less steady. “Wait, are you… Were you doing a DNA test for… for Kennedy? Do you think Kennedy isn’t a Hempstead?”
Maybe that was why Rebecca had slapped her, for suggesting that the heir apparent wasn’t so apparent anymore. But Cassidy pulled up short, looking confused.
“That’s stupid. Of course Kennedy is a Hempstead. Just look at her jawline.”
“Then why…” Kate looked down at the bag, trying to fit the pieces together. If Cassidy knew Kennedy was a Hempstead, why would she secretly test Kennedy’s DNA?
Kate gasped, clasping the test to her chest as Cassidy once again made a move toward her. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re not trying to prove Kennedy isn’t a Hempstead, you’re trying to prove you are .”
“Of course I am,” Cassidy said, scowling at her. “Everybody already knows that.”
But Kate shook her head, the pieces finally coming together. “But you’re the wrong kind of Hempstead. You’re on the broken branch of the family tree, the relatives that got cut out of the inheritance after the family split. Unless… unless you’re not?”
Cassidy went so still Kate could barely see her in the dimness. She was still between Kate and the exit, and Kate wasn’t feeling very confident about her ability to sprint in heels, so she kept talking, kept distracting Cassidy as she tried to edge closer to the door.
“That’s why you need the DNA test, not to prove Kennedy is a Hempstead, but to prove you’re related. Except you’re already related, so how? Unless you’re trying to prove you’re differently related. Closer than cousins. That’s what you said to her, at the ceremony. You started to say ‘you are my sister’ but you stopped yourself. But that’s what you are, isn’t it? And that’s the bomb your father dropped. Not that he was cutting you off, but that he wasn’t your father . Her father is your father, too, isn’t he? Except he died when Kennedy was young, so you couldn’t get a paternity test. The closest match you could make would be a sibling.”
“I just had to be sure,” Cassidy said, sounding desperate. She dodged to the right as Kate tried to make a break for the door. “I know how it looks, but it’s not what you think!”
“Why now?” Kate asked, trying to scout out an alternate escape. She could try to shout for help, but she was so close to the truth. She just needed Cassidy to say it. “Why did your dad tell you now? After all this time?”
“Because my mom died earlier this year,” Cassidy said, sounding utterly distraught. “He’d been keeping the secret for her, all my life. My dad couldn’t have children. Biologically, I mean. And my mom had wanted them so badly, so they’d… they’d made an arrangement with Uncle… with Gordon. For him to donate his… you know. He’d gone to school with my mother, at Princeton, so it wasn’t as weird as you would think. They’d even dated a bit, I think. But then he met Ken’s mom, and it was over between them. But my mother never got over it. She’d wanted to be a Hempstead so badly, on the right side of the family. So, when she had the chance to do the same for her daughter, I guess… I guess she took it. They never spoke of it. Not even to tell me. Until now.”
“But that makes you… next in line after Kennedy,” Kate said, frowning. “Now that Rebecca is gone, if something happened to Kennedy—”
“No!” Cassidy said, practically shouting as she lurched for Kate. This time, though, she didn’t aim for the test. She grabbed Kate by the arms, her grip tight as her eyes loomed close in the darkness. “That’s not it.”
“And all that debt?” Kate pressed, her gaze flickering toward the door. “What happens to you if you default?”
“I’m working on it,” Cassidy said, not convincing either one of them. “I meant what I said. I came here to support Kennedy. My… my sister.”
She sounded so sad and small as she said it, and in those two words Kate could imagine a very lonely childhood. She’d been an only child, too, but she’d had her mother, and her grandparents, and an active extracurricular life. She’d never been alone, but she’d often been lonely. It was hard when your dreams were so odd, and so specific, like being a published author. She imagined Cassidy might have felt the same way about her culinary dreams.
“You can’t say anything,” Cassidy said, giving Kate a little shake. “Not to Ken, not to anybody else.”
“Cassidy, your aunt was murdered . And Kennedy almost died.”
“And I told you that wasn’t me!” Cassidy said, shaking harder.
“I didn’t say it was!” Kate cried. “But someone also tried to smother Kennedy with a pillow in her sleep.”
“What?” Cassidy cried, looking truly surprised. “When? How?”
“In her room, after we found her in the wine cave. She thought it was a dream.”
“Oh my god,” Cassidy said, rubbing one hand across her mouth and smearing her lipstick like the Joker on a bender. “That explains it!”
“Explains what?”
“I heard her thrashing around last night, and I thought maybe she was going to be sick. We all slept in here, you know, to keep an eye on her after. And when I went in, she was sitting straight up in bed, squeezing all the feathers out of her pillow. She said she’d had a nightmare. I didn’t think anything of it after what she’d been through. But how could someone get in her room without me seeing them leave?”
They wouldn’t, Kate thought, if they were Cassidy, but she did seem genuine in her shock. Still, Kate couldn’t ignore the facts. If Cassidy was right, and Kennedy’s father really was her father, then she stood to inherit everything if Rebecca and Kennedy were out of the way. She’d also had plenty of access to Kennedy’s food and drink, since she’d sat right beside her through the entire rehearsal dinner. And she was about to default on a massive amount of debt.
“What were you arguing with Rebecca about in the garden?” Kate pressed. “I saw her slap you.”
“That was you?” Cassidy said, once again surprised. “I tried to reason with Auntie R, tell her the truth, make her understand. But she said my father was only doing it to weasel his way into the will, and she wouldn’t allow it. I told her I would get a DNA test, and she slapped me and said that proved more than anything I wasn’t a real Hempstead, not from the worthy branches of the family. I wouldn’t disgrace our name by putting us in some national database. She threatened to get a court order to stop me, to have me expelled entirely. That’s why I had to do the test in secret, so she couldn’t stop me.”
“Kennedy deserves to know the truth.”
“Not yet,” Cassidy said, frantic. Her grip was so hard on Kate’s arms that Kate was positive they would leave bruises. “You’re going to ruin everything. I can’t let you do that.”
Okay, here was definitely where Kate should scream, confession be damned. She opened her mouth and sucked in a breath, but Cassidy slammed her into the wall again, knocking the breath out of her. She bent forward, wheezing, as Cassidy reached over her head and pulled something down. Probably an old rusty sword, or maybe a heavy stuffed badger, something she could bludgeon Kate to death with. Kate was prepared to fight any manner of weaponry to protect herself, but instead she felt the wall dropping away behind her, tumbling her into an empty space.
“What?” was all she could manage, staring up at Cassidy as the wall that had opened behind her started to close up again, like two massive jaws coming together. “No, Cassidy, no!”
“I’m sorry, Kate, but you gave me no choice!” Cassidy whispered as the wall clicked shut. Cassidy said something from the other side of the wall, but it was so muffled Kate couldn’t make out the words.
“Cassidy!” she screamed, lurching to her knees, the rough grain of the wood floor tearing up her skin. She banged her fist against the wall, panic gripping her chest. “Cassidy, don’t leave me in here!”
Cassidy’s voice was nothing more than a faint murmur from the other side, and while Kate couldn’t make out any words, she imagined one of them took the shape of the word sorry .