Maybe she’s better off never uncovering the truth.

What does it even matter now? Mom is gone. Nothing is going to bring her back. The worst has happened; it’s in the past.

“Beck? Beck! Are you in there?” Teddy’s wife, Sue, is knocking on her bedroom door.

She hurriedly wipes tears from her eyes. “Yes, I’m in here.”

Sue opens the door. Roundly pregnant, with Beck’s sleepy-looking nephew Jordan on her hip, she asks, “Are you okay?”

Then, catching a look at Beck’s face, Sue shakes her head and answers her own question. “Of course you’re not okay. Sorry.”

“No, I’m okay. I am. Well . . .”

“You are but you’re not. No one is. I’m sorry to bother you. The minister’s wife is stuck in the powder room without toilet paper, and I can’t find any under the sink in the hall bathroom, so—”

“Are you serious?”

“No, there were just some cleaning supplies, and—”

“No, I mean about Mrs. Alpert stuck without toilet paper?” Beck finds herself grinning through her tears.

“Totally serious. She was calling through the door for help and Jordan heard her. She said there are no tissues in there or anything, so . . .”

“She can’t wipe her keister,” Jordan reports solemnly.

That does it. Beck bursts out laughing. Sue joins in, and so, after a moment, does Jordan.

Beck laughs until her sides ache—a good kind of ache—then heads back downstairs with Sue and Jordan, the e-mail account forgotten for the time being.

Lying on the bed in her hotel room, head propped against the pillows and laptop open on her lap, Kay tries to focus on the screen. She’d been hoping to catch up on some blogs, but her energy is zapped from the drive, the funeral, the anxiety over meeting Landry and Elena . . .

And now a meeting with the detective investigating Meredith’s murder?

It’s all too much. I can’t handle this. I can’t.

She’d give anything if she could throw her belongings back into the seldom-used, slightly musty-smelling suitcase she pulled last night from her mother’s attic; if she could just walk out of this hotel and go home and hide, make it all go away.

But she can’t leave Landry and Elena. They’re her friends—her family—and they need her, just as Meredith needed her. As long as the three of them stick together, everything will be okay.

A tone from her laptop’s speaker indicates that a new e-mail has arrived in her in-box.

She opens it and finds that it’s from Elena—a note to Jaycee, with both Kay and Landry on the cc list.

I’m here in Cincinnati with Landry and Kay. Meredith’s funeral was moving and very much a tearjerker, as I’m sure you would guess. The rest of us need each other now more than ever. We’ve already made plans to get together again for a girls’ weekend at Landry’s house in Alabama next weekend. Is there any way you can join us? Details to follow. I just wanted you to know that we’re thinking of you and wish you were here with us.

Kay nods with approval, glad Elena thought to include Jaycee and extend the invitation despite wrestling with some pretty serious problems of her own. Remembering what she shared about her stalker—Tony—Kay feels worried all over again, and she knows Landry does as well.

I really don’t need this kind of stress in my life. It’s dangerous . . . breast cancer patients who have daily stress have much shorter survival times . . .

What if something happens to Elena now?

What if, one by one . . .

No.

Nothing is going to happen to anyone else. It can’t.

They’re my friends. My family.

At last, after all these years, she finally knows where—and to whom—she belongs. She only prays that cruel fate won’t rip them from her life as it did Meredith.

“They’re late.” Sitting beside Crystal in the hotel lobby, Frank lifts his wrist and taps his Timex.

“One minute late.”

“Late is late.”

Crystal shrugs, considering the possibilities.

That the bloggers might have lied about where they’re staying doesn’t rank very high on the list. Nor does the prospect that they skipped town.

Either of those scenarios would mean that there’s some kind of conspiracy involved here, and Crystal doesn’t buy that for a second.

Far more likely: they lost track of time, or they dozed off, or they’re reluctant to sit down and discuss their friend’s murder . . .

Perhaps all of the above.

“They’ll be here soon, I’m sure,” she tells him.

He shrugs and continues tapping his foot. Patience is not Frank’s strong suit.

Glad the lobby is almost deserted, Crystal keeps an eye on the grouchy-looking, pockmarked teenage boy parked at the computer kiosk, who is oblivious to their presence, and on the desk clerk, who is not. She’s been casting curious glances their way ever since they arrived and arranged with the on-duty manager to conduct their questioning in a conference room down the hall.

They didn’t mention that it involves a homicide. But maybe the desk clerk has put two and two together. It’s a small town, after all; the guests might have asked her for directions to the funeral home earlier.

Or maybe the desk clerk is just being vigilant, as she should in her position.

Hell, if everyone were a little more vigilant—or nosy, as it were—her own job would be much easier.

Hearing the elevator bell ring at last, Crystal and Frank look over expectantly. The doors slide open and Landry Wells—aka BamaBelle—steps out.

Standing to greet her, Crystal notes that she’s changed out of her black dress, now wearing a pair of trim off-white linen pants with a sea-foam-colored summer cardigan. Her blond hair is caught in a neat ponytail and she’s got on a fresh coat of pink lipstick that matches her manicure and pedicure polish.

How is it that certain women—often, southern women—always manage to look so pulled together, even under duress?

Crystal—who rarely looks in a mirror after she leaves the bathroom in the morning and would never think to reapply lipstick in the middle of the day—is not one of those women.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Landry walks quickly toward them, heeled sandals tapping on the tile floor. “I had to call home and check on my husband and kids and it took longer than I thought.”

“Do you know where the others are?” Crystal asks.

“They should be here any second. We all went to our rooms when we got back.”

“Okay. Why don’t you and I go have a quiet talk in the conference room while Detective Schneider waits here for your friends?”

“Sure.”

Crystal escorts Landry down the hall behind the front desk as the clerk pretends not to watch them over the open romance novel in her hands.

With a view of the side parking lot and part of the pool’s chain-link fence, the conference room is a no-frills rectangle that contains little more than a long table with eight chairs and a blue plastic water bottle cooler.

Crystal closes the door behind them. “Have a seat, Ms. Wells. Or do you go by Mrs.?”

“Either, but you can call me Landry.” She perches on the chair nearest the door, giving off the expectant, anxious vibe of a mom sitting in the Little League stands as her child comes up at bat, or in the audience as her kid takes a turn in a spelling bee.

She doesn’t belong here, in the middle of a murder investigation, Crystal finds herself thinking as she takes the adjacent seat at the head of the table. She should be back at home, with her family.

“All right, Landry. Let’s get started.” Crystal sets her bag on the floor, taking out her laptop and a notebook and pen, but leaving the recording equipment inside.

No need to make Landry Wells needlessly skittish. She always records witnesses she has a hunch might later become suspects, but she’s certain that won’t happen in this case. Her Internet search on Landry’s name had resulted—among other things—in a photograph from an Alabama newspaper’s society page. Snapped Saturday night at a charity ball, it depicted an elegantly dressed Landry accompanied by her husband and another couple identified as the husband’s law partner and his wife.