Chapter Ten : Old Friends, New Lies

The café Sylvia picked was small, tucked away on a side street far from anywhere the Kane family or their circle typically frequented. Jennifer noticed that immediately, filing it away as one more piece of information. Sylvia didn't want to be seen with her. That told Jennifer plenty on its own.

She arrived ten minutes early, choosing a table near the back with a clear view of the door, an instinct she hadn't consciously decided on until she was already sitting in it. Carter's voice echoed faintly in her head. Don't underestimate how convincing she can be, even when you already know she's lying.

She'd spent the morning going over exactly how she wanted this conversation to go, rehearsing her own composure the way she imagined Carter rehearsed his boardroom negotiations, every response calculated in advance so nothing Sylvia said could catch her off guard. It was strange, she thought, how quickly she'd absorbed that particular skill from him, the ability to walk into a room armored rather than exposed.

Sylvia arrived exactly on time, looking smaller somehow than Jennifer remembered, dressed down in a way that felt deliberately humble, no designer labels, hair pulled back simply instead of styled. Every detail calculated to look like someone who'd been humbled by consequence.

"Jen." Sylvia's voice wavered as she slid into the seat across from her, eyes already glassy. "Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure you would."

"I almost didn't," Jennifer said evenly, refusing to soften just because Sylvia's chin trembled the way it always had whenever she wanted sympathy she hadn't earned.

"I don't blame you." Sylvia wrapped both hands around her coffee cup, not drinking, just holding it like something to anchor herself to. "What I did was unforgivable. I know that. I've known that every single day since it happened."

Jennifer said nothing, letting the silence stretch, watching Sylvia fill it with exactly the kind of performance she'd expected.

"I keep thinking about what I said that night," Sylvia continued, voice cracking with practiced precision. "The things Gerald and I said about you. I hate myself for it, Jen. I really do. You didn't deserve any of that."

"No," Jennifer agreed simply. "I didn't."

Something flickered across Sylvia's face, surprise perhaps, at the lack of emotional collapse she'd clearly been expecting. She recovered quickly, reaching across the table like she meant to take Jennifer's hand before thinking better of it.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sylvia said. "I know that's too much. I just, I needed you to know I'm sorry. And there's something else too. Something I think you deserve to know."

Jennifer kept her expression carefully neutral, though her pulse ticked upward. "What is it?"

Sylvia glanced around the café, lowering her voice like the words themselves were dangerous. "It's about Margaret. Gerald's mother."

"What about her?"

"She reached out to me," Sylvia said. "A few days ago. Wanted to have lunch." She hesitated, chewing her bottom lip in a gesture Jennifer remembered from years of shared secrets, back when she'd trusted every version of that expression completely. "She wants me to get close to you again. To find out what you and Carter are planning against the family."

Jennifer's stomach tightened, even though this was almost exactly what Carter had predicted. Hearing it confirmed out loud still landed like a blow.

"And you're telling me this because?"

"Because I owe you," Sylvia said, eyes welling with tears that looked, infuriatingly, almost real. "Because I've spent weeks feeling sick about what I did to you, and I'm not going to make it worse by spying on you for that woman. I'd rather you know the truth than let her use me against you again."

It was, Jennifer had to admit, a good performance. Vulnerable without being desperate, honest in exactly the measured amount that made the honesty itself feel like the manipulation.

"That's very noble of you," Jennifer said carefully. "Considering Margaret's the kind of woman who could make your future considerably more comfortable, if you played along."

Something flickered across Sylvia's face, quick and involuntary, there and gone before she smoothed it back into practiced remorse. But Jennifer had seen it. A flash of calculation, immediately buried.

"I don't care about that," Sylvia said. "Not after everything."

"Of course not," Jennifer said, keeping her voice light, easy, giving Sylvia nothing to push against. "So tell me. What exactly does Margaret want to know?"

"Everything," Sylvia said. "What Carter's planning. Why he really took you in. Whether you two are, well." She trailed off delicately, letting the implication hang in the air between them.

"Whether we're what?"

"Sleeping together," Sylvia said bluntly, watching Jennifer's face carefully for a reaction. "Margaret seems very interested in that particular detail."

Jennifer kept her expression perfectly still, refusing to give Sylvia the satisfaction of a blush or a stammer. "I'm sure she is."

"Are you?" Sylvia's eyes narrowed slightly, genuine curiosity slipping through the performance for just a moment. "Sleeping with him, I mean."

"That's not really any of your business," Jennifer said. "Or Margaret's."

Sylvia's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "That's not a no."

"It's also not a yes," Jennifer said. "It's none of your business, exactly like I said."

They sat in silence for a moment, the tension between them thick enough to taste, years of friendship curdled into something wary and calculating on both sides now, whether Sylvia wanted to admit that to herself or not. Jennifer studied the woman across from her, searching for some trace of the girl she'd once trusted completely, the one who'd stayed up all night helping her study for exams, who'd shown up at her door with soup during every flu season for years. She couldn't find her anymore. Whether that version of Sylvia had ever really existed, or had simply been another performance all along, Jennifer honestly couldn't say.

"I should go," Jennifer said finally, gathering her bag. "Thank you for the warning about Margaret. I mean that."

"Jen, wait." Sylvia's hand shot out, catching her wrist before she could stand fully. Something urgent flashed across her face, the performance slipping for just a second into something that looked almost like real fear. "There's something else. Something I probably shouldn't tell you, but I think you need to hear it before Thursday's gala."

Jennifer's pulse spiked. "What?"

Sylvia glanced around the café again, leaning in close, her voice dropping to barely more than a whisper.

"Margaret isn't just trying to figure out what Carter's planning," she said. "There was something else in the way she talked about your mother. Just, the way her whole face changed the second your mom's name came up. Like she knew something she really didn't want to say out loud."

Jennifer's stomach turned over slowly. "What do you mean? What did she actually say?"

"That's the thing," Sylvia said, frustration creeping into her voice. "She didn't say anything specific. She just, stopped herself. Mid-sentence. Like she'd almost said too much and caught herself right before it came out." She shook her head. "It was strange, Jen. I've known Margaret Kane my whole adult life, and I've never once seen her look rattled like that. Not until your mother's name came up."

Jennifer's mind raced, grasping for something concrete in Sylvia's account and finding only shadows. A reaction. A flinch. Nothing she could hold onto, and yet somehow it felt heavier than an outright confession would have.

"That's it?" she pressed. "She didn't say what she knew? Nothing about how my mother died?"

"No," Sylvia admitted. "I probably shouldn't have even brought it up without more to go on. I just, I couldn't shake the way she looked. Guilty, almost. Or scared. I couldn't tell which."

Before Jennifer could press further, Sylvia's phone buzzed violently against the table between them. She glanced down at the screen, and every trace of color drained from her face.

"I have to go," Sylvia said, voice suddenly shaking, scrambling up from her seat so fast she nearly knocked over her coffee. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget I said anything."

"Sylvia, wait—"

But Sylvia was already moving, weaving quickly through the café toward the door, throwing one final glance back over her shoulder, an expression on her face that looked less like guilt now and more like genuine, unmistakable fear.

Jennifer sat frozen at the table, Sylvia's words echoing on a loop inside her skull.

She made sure it never became a problem.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled out her phone, fingers hovering over Carter's contact, unsure even how to begin explaining what she'd just heard, unsure if she even wanted to know the rest of what that sentence meant.

Jennifer sat frozen at the table, Sylvia's words echoing on a loop inside her skull.

Guilty, almost. Or scared. I couldn't tell which.

It wasn't proof of anything. A flinch, a stopped sentence, secondhand and vague enough that Jennifer could have talked herself out of caring, if not for the cold certainty settling low in her stomach that told her it mattered anyway.

She called Carter before she'd fully decided to, thumb moving on instinct. He answered on the second ring.

"Jennifer." His voice sharpened instantly at whatever he heard in her silence. "What happened?"

"I need you to come get me," she said, hating how unsteady her own voice sounded. "Now. Please."

"I'm five minutes away." A pause, brief and taut. "What did she tell you?"

"Not over the phone," she said. "I need to see your face when I tell you this."

The line went quiet, and when Carter spoke again, his voice had dropped into something low and careful, a tone she hadn't heard from him before.

"I'm on my way."

Jennifer ended the call and sat perfectly still, turning Sylvia's fractured account over in her mind, searching for a shape in it she couldn't quite find.

She didn't know yet what Margaret's reaction actually meant. She didn't know if it was nothing, or something far darker hiding behind a decade of careful composure.

But she knew, with a certainty that settled cold and unshakable in her chest, that she needed to find out. And that whatever answer waited for her at the end of that search, her life was never going to look the same again once she found it.