Diana nodded sadly. “I know.” She reached across the table and took Jen’s hands in hers. “We should cherish each day. We never know how many we have left. I want you to be happy, Jen. Everyone makes mistakes, but you’re not a bad person. You just fell in love with the wrong guy.”
“As Kerri would say”—Jen stared at her wine—“that seems to be my MO.”
Diana managed a feeble smile. “Just break it off, and start over. Kerri and I will be there for you.”
Jen closed her eyes and drew in a long deep breath. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I should do.” She looked to her friend and pasted on a broad smile. “Enough about me. What’s happening in your world?”
Diana rolled her eyes. “Certain mothers are driving me nuts about who’ll take Amelia’s place on the dance-competition team.”
“Already? She hasn’t even left for college yet. People can be so selfish.”
The waiter arrived with their salads. Diana thanked him, and he moved on to the next table. “I’m still struggling a little with the idea that she’ll be leaving in a few short weeks.” She sighed, blinked rapidly in an attempt to hold back the tears shining in her eyes. “All this time, I was certain she would be going off to Juilliard and becoming a star.”
Jen didn’t have to say, The way you didn’t. Diana had been an incredible dancer. She had been accepted by Juilliard; then she’d found out she was pregnant with Amelia, and everything had changed. She and Robby had married, and that was that. Jen always wondered how Diana had turned off her dream so easily. Maybe motherhood was enough to change everything.
“She’s going to be amazing as an attorney,” Jen assured her friend. “It’s not the future you had mapped out for her, but it’ll be fantastic anyway.”
Diana nodded. “I know. I know. Between Robby, the twins, and the studio, I’ll be too busy to even notice she’s gone.”
The wobble in her voice as she said the last warned that she wasn’t anywhere near convinced that would happen.
“We’re a mess,” Jen confessed. “You and your worries about Amelia and me and my affair”—she lowered her voice—“with a married man. Kerri with her hateful ex.”
“We are,” Diana agreed as she picked at her salad. “But you’ve given him more than enough time.”
“Way too much.” Jen nudged the arugula with her fork. “Starting over is just so hard.”
“Let’s have a girls’ night,” Diana suggested. “You, me, and Kerri. I’ll be your wingwoman. There are plenty of guys out there. We just have to find them.”
“That would be fun.” Jen hoped her face looked more enthusiastic than her voice sounded. At this point she really didn’t want to talk about Theo anymore. “Amelia seems really happy with her internship. I have to say”—she poked at her salad with her fork—“that was a serious coup, girl. There are people who would kill to get their seniors into an internship at a firm like York, Hammond & Goldman. They select what? Like two seniors each year out of the thousands graduating in Birmingham?”
Diana put up a hand and waved it back and forth. “I can’t take credit for that choice. The firm was already considering Amelia. Her academic record is excellent. She’s done all the right things, volunteering in the community, joining all those clubs at school. Not to mention she’s listed as one of the top competition dancers in the country for her age group. The internship was her coup, not mine. My friendship with Lewis had nothing to do with it.”
“All true.” Jen gave a knowing wink. “But I still think that man has a thing for you.” She wondered if Diana understood that relationships—even mere friendship—with men like Lewis York and Theo Thompson was playing with fire. Jen had learned that the hard way. Maybe she should be warning Diana.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Diana argued despite the telltale blush that spread across her cheeks. “I gave his daughter private dance lessons all those years. I was never anything more than just another teacher, like her violin teacher and her cotillion coach. His wife had passed away, and he needed my help.” She shrugged. “You know the mothers are always the ones who ensure their daughters attend those kinds of classes. The poor man had no idea what to do.”
“And he never married again.” Jen sighed. “Too bad he isn’t my type.”
Maybe then she wouldn’t have wasted all this time on Theo damned Thompson. Unfortunately for her, Jen had never been afraid of playing with fire. Sometimes she really wished she had been.
From there Diana talked about all she was getting done around the house now that the studio was closed for the summer and her ten-year-old twins were at baseball camp. Jen smiled and nodded at the appropriate times, but her mind wouldn’t let go of the other thing Diana had told her. Ben Abbott had been murdered.
Jen swallowed at the bile rising in her throat even as she shoved a forkful of salad into her mouth. The last time she and Theo had been together, she’d heard what he’d said in that hushed phone conversation.
Abbott is going to cost me this election and a hell of a lot more. How the hell are we going to stop him?
Jen repressed the shudder that rose inside her. Had to be coincidence. Maybe it was a different Abbott. Theo wouldn’t murder anyone . . .
The little voice she had failed her entire life to listen to screamed at her now to talk to Kerri . . . but what if she was mistaken? Then she would have spilled to Kerri about the affair for no good reason. As much as Jen knew Kerri loved her, after going through what she had with her ex, she wouldn’t understand about Theo.
No. Jen couldn’t talk to her.
She forced a smile at something else Diana said.
Really, the mere concept was ridiculous. Theo would never be involved with murder.
He wasn’t a killer, just a cheater.
6
4:55 p.m.
Abbott Crime Scene
Botanical Place, Mountain Brook
Kerri stood on the rear deck of the Abbott home and stared at the french doors that led to the master bedroom. The security-system cameras had been turned off for weeks. The entire system had been deactivated that morning. Not a single sign of forced entry. If not for the sporadic ransacking and the blood, the home would appear as if nothing untoward had happened inside.
Except a man and his mother-in-law had been murdered. And the pregnant wife was still missing. Maybe injured. Possibly dead.
If the wife was dead, there was a reason her body had not been left with the others.
Perhaps she had gotten up early, deactivated the alarm to go outside for a walk in the gardens, and encountered the killer. Maybe she’d gone for a run and returned home to find the killer. Jenkins had said the wife liked staying in shape. Early-morning runs were a matter of routine.
Was taking her—or her body—some sort of proof the job was done or for some sort of blackmail?
A hostage for money or something else of value? She had no surviving family. Abbott’s parents were still alive and lived right here in Birmingham. They had been informed about the tragic news. A more in-depth interview was scheduled for tomorrow morning. As of yet, they had not been contacted regarding a ransom, or Kerri would surely know. She felt confident Daniel Abbott was far too savvy a businessman to allow his emotions to rule him and attempt negotiating a hostage situation on his own.