Page 67 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
“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’redifferentlyrelated. Closer than cousins. That’s what you said to her, at the ceremony. You started to say ‘youaremy 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 thathe 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 wasmurdered. 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 theywereCassidy, 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 alsohad 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 ofthe 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 wordsorry.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Well,fuck.