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  “Love it. And I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” I said, giving him a final hug.

  I drove straight from his house to the police station. I asked if I could leave something for Detective Jennifer Guidry. To my surprise, the clerk made a phone call, and Guidry appeared a few moments later.

  I handed her the Redweld file that Adam had hidden in my desk. “I found these when I was cleaning out our home office. They’re about the Gentry Group and Adam’s law firm. I thought you could get them to your FBI contact.”

  Olivia had told me that we probably never would have known about Adam cooperating with the FBI if it hadn’t been for Guidry. She opened the file and began flipping through the pages.

  “I still don’t know who killed Adam. But there’s enough there to put Bill Braddock away in prison for years. And, oh, you should make sure the FBI knows that Bill keeps files at his house in Amagansett. He works there all the time.”

  41

  Four Months Later

  “You guys sure you want to sell this place?” Ethan was standing in the backyard with his hands on his hips, gazing out at the two acres of woods behind my parents’ old house. “This lot is pretty sick. You could, like, camp back there.”

  “Tried it once,” I said. “Got a spider bite the size of a softball.”

  “Can I take that Razor trike down the hill again?” Ethan had been delighted to find a neon-yellow adult-size tricycle in Nicky’s garage, apparently a birthday gift she’d reclaimed from a boyfriend who cheated on her three years earlier.

  “Knock yourself out,” she said. “That thing’s going to Goodwill when we leave.”

  “No way, man. I’m going to find a way to jam it in my suitcase.”

  We watched him pedal away like a giant five-year-old. “I can’t remember the last time I saw him this happy,” I said.

  “Um . . . that day he wasn’t convicted of murder?” Nicky said. “That was definitely a high point.”

  “He seems okay, right? It’s not just me?” He was doing well at the public school, both with his grades and friends. His therapist had even cut him back to once-a-week visits. The FBI’s discovery of the knife that had killed Adam, followed by Bill Braddock’s invocation of his right to counsel, had probably helped. Ethan now believed that his father had died trying to reclaim his white hat, not because of anything to do with our family. Public opinion had shifted, too. Even if Bill was never convicted, my son wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life under a cloud of suspicion.

  “Not just you,” Nicky confirmed. “He’s good. Really good.”

  We headed back inside to continue packing up the things she wanted to take to New York.

  “I’ve got to say, I can’t even believe this is the same house, Nicky. You’ve done a great job.”

  My parents’ old house was barely recognizable. She’d pulled up the carpet and refinished the floors herself. Peeled the wallpaper a room at a time. Painted the dark-brown kitchen cabinets light gray. She told me she had welded the funky fireplace cover herself. It was light and modern and artsy.

  “Thanks. I thought I’d be sadder about saying goodbye, but I’m ready.” The house was going on the market next week, and the realtor said she thought she might have already found a buyer. Nicky had offered to split the proceeds with me, since I had given her my half of the house when our mother died, but I assured her the house had been all hers for a long time now. She was going to move to New York, at least until Ethan went to college. I promised to keep helping her with the rent on her apartment, but she had gotten a job at the David Yurman store in SoHo. She was hoping to parlay the position into actually designing the jewelry instead of selling it, but either way, I was proud of her for finding work in New York on her own.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text from Olivia Randall. I knew she had been trying to find out once and for all what the Suffolk County DA was going to do about the knife the FBI found at Bill Braddock’s house while executing a search warrant related to the Gentry investigation. The crime lab had confirmed that it was the weapon that killed Adam, but so far, Bill had only been charged by the federal government for crimes he had committed through the law firm. It turned out that the bribes the Gentry Group was paying around the globe were just one part of the massive corruption that Bill was overseeing on behalf of his clients.

  I could see from a glance that Olivia’s message was long:

  I’m sorry to text, but I’m in trial this week. I finally got Nunzio on the phone, and he hasn’t changed his mind. Having already lost one trial, they don’t think that the murder weapon itself is sufficient to prove the case without other evidence to connect the knife to Braddock. But I do have some good news. My contact in the US Attorney’s Office says Braddock has taken a deal to serve four years. The government agreed that he didn’t have to turn himself in to start serving the time until the Tuesday after Labor Day, but at least he will be serving real prison time. I hope this gives you some peace. I’ll call you when my trial’s done, but please reach out if you need anything else before then. Best, Olivia

  Nunzio’s decision was exactly what I expected. I knew from Adam how hard it was to charge a second suspect after the prosecution had already pulled out all the stops against someone else. Without charges to defend himself against, Bill was standing on his right to silence, not sharing any thoughts he might have about how an old Buck knife ended up beneath his guest towels.

  Bill always said that of all the places he’d traveled—Venice, Kyoto, Iceland, Belize, the South of France—no place was as beautiful as the East End on Long Island. He had agreed to plead guilty but wanted to spend the summer in Amagansett. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Bill had said the last time I saw him. Any kind of federal sentence would be a death sentence. Hypothetically, if I thought that was going to happen, it would be lights out. I’ve had a good run. I had a feeling I knew how Bill was planning to spend Labor Day.

  I typed a reply: Are they charging Jake also? When I looked at his name on the screen, he didn’t even feel real anymore. I deleted the message and sent a Thanks instead.

  Nicky waved a hand in my face, trying to get my attention.

  “Sorry.”

  She held up a blue-green vase shaped like a bird. “Keep or toss?”

  “A little bohemian for my taste,” I said.

  “You’re right. Keep!”

  She was smiling, one eye on me, as she swaddled it in one of her white, waffle-textured dish towels. It was the same kind of towel she had used to wrap up Dad’s old Buck knife.

  “Why did you keep that knife?”

  She continued wrapping the knickknacks from the mantel, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t remember how many times I pulled over on the way back to Cleveland, looking for a place to dump it. Every time I started to get out of the car, I got terrified that someone would see me. So I just kept driving.”

  “You could’ve gotten rid of it afterward.”

  “Maybe in the back of my mind, I thought I might need it—as a last resort. I even considered trying to plant it on Jake toward the end of the trial, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I could see how much you cared about him.”

  I was having a hard time believing her. She had never even asked me where Jake lived, which would have been innocuous enough.

  “Or maybe it was your ‘Send Chloe to the clink’ card in case I gave you too much trouble?”

  “Wow, you never were good at being funny. Don’t quit your day job, sis.” As our eyes met, her expression turned serious. So did her tone. “You have to know by now that I would never do anything to hurt you, right? The only reason I ever went to see Adam was to protect you and Ethan.”

  “I know. And you’re right, I’m not funny.” When the box was full, I found the nearest roll of packing tape, sealed it shut, and wrote nicky’s hippie shit on the side in all caps with a Sharpie.

  Of course, I’d never really know when precisely Nicky made the decision to kill Adam, or what she had
planned to do once he was dead. All I knew was that she had changed since the night I chose Adam over her. I had, too.

  And we were both continuing to change, but now we would be doing it together.

  Author’s Note

  I know readers often want to learn more about the originating idea behind a novel. Believe it or not, I sometimes have a hard time recalling the inchoate conception of a book by the time it is finished. That’s not the case with The Better Sister, which, following The Ex and The Wife, completes what I see as a thematic trilogy of novels that explore the complexity of female relationships and the diverse roles that women play in contemporary society.

  As we juggle busy lives, we often show different faces to our spouses, exes, children, parents, siblings, and coworkers, all while trying to know and be true to ourselves. The Better Sister, specifically, is about sometimes conflicting connections between adult siblings. I hope it might also provoke some thoughts about the often gendered nature of threats, abuse, and violence in our culture. Mostly, I hope you enjoy it (and that my own beloved sisters, Andree and Pamala, know that it’s not about us!).

  Acknowledgments

  Like any of my books, this one was assisted and improved along the way by a village of friends, former students, colleagues, and nieces and nephews who generously lent their respective areas of expertise: Bennett Capers, Kaitlyn Flynn, Joanna Grossman, Damon Katz, Michael Koryta, Lucas Miller, Isaac Samuels, Michael Siebecker, David Smith, Jonathan Streeter, Emma Walsh, and Jack Walsh.

  I am so fortunate to be surrounded by smart, hardworking publishing professionals: my editor, Jennifer Barth, to whom this book is dedicated (thirteen books and counting!), Amy Baker, Marissa Benedetto, Jonathan Burnham, Heather Drucker, Caitlin Hurst, Doug Jones, Jennifer Murphy, Kate O’Callaghan, Sarah Ried, Mary Sasso, Virginia Stanley, Leah Wasielewski, and Lydia Weaver at HarperCollins; Angus Cargill, Lauren Nicoll, and Sophie Portas at Faber & Faber; Giulia De Biase at Edizioni Piemme; Philip Spitzer, Anne-Lise Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, and Kim Lombardini at the Spitzer Agency; Jody Hotchkiss and Sean Daily at Hotchkiss & Associates; and Jimmy Iacobelli, who nailed yet another book jacket.

  As always, I want to thank you—the reader—for bringing the story to life with your own imagination. A special shout-out to the dedicated “kitchen cabinet” who stay in touch online and in real life.

  And, finally, thank you to my incredible world of friends and family, especially my remarkable husband, Sean. I got lucky, babe, when I found you.

  About the Author

  Alafair Burke is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen novels, including The Wife and The Ex, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel. She also coauthors the bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan and East Hampton.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Alafair Burke

  Long Gone

  If You Were Here

  The Ex

  The Wife

  The Ellie Hatcher Series

  Dead Connection

  Angel’s Tip

  212

  Never Tell

  All Day and a Night

  The Samantha Kincaid Series

  Judgment Calls

  Missing Justice

  Close Case

  The Under Suspicion Series (with Mary Higgins Clark)

  The Cinderella Murder

  All Dressed in White

  The Sleeping Beauty Killer

  Every Breath You Take

  You Don’t Own Me

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  the better sister. Copyright © 2019 by Alafair Burke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  first edition

  Photograph by Skylines/Shutterstock, Inc.

  Cover design by James Iacobelli

  Cover photographs © Peter Dazeley/Getty Images (bride); © unterwegs/Shutterstock (bubbles); © Nattanee.P/Shutterstock (pool)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Burke, Alafair, author.

  Title: The better sister : a novel / Alafair Burke.

  Description: New York, NY : Harper, [2019]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018051071 (print) | LCCN 2018057887 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062853356 (E-book) | ISBN 9780062853370 (hardback) | ISBN 9780062887955 (large print)

  Subjects: LCSH: Sisters—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction. | Family secrets. | Domestic fiction. | Man-woman relationships—Fiction. | False arrest. | Criminal defense lawyers. | New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Crime.

  Classification: LCC PS3602.U755 (ebook) | LCC PS3602.U755 B48 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051071

  Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-285335-6

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285337-0

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