Friends and Liars: A Novel - Softcover

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Kit Frick is a MacDowell Fellow and an International Thriller Writers Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. She is the author of the adult suspense novels The Split and Friends and Liars, the young adult thrillers Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion, and the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs. Her books have been optioned for film and television and translated into nine languages. Kit loves a good mystery but has only ever killed her characters. Honest. Visit Kit online at KitFrick.com and on Instagram @KitFrick.

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Chapter One: Harper

ONE HARPER FIVE WEEKS EARLIER

Oliver’s pre-K was a short six-block walk from Harper and Benjamin’s Park Slope apartment, a minor miracle in the Brooklyn public school rat race. By the time mother and son scaled the brownstone’s front steps and walked in the door, Oliver’s face coated in a fine layer of animal cracker dust and Harper’s misty with sweat from the brutal blast of May heat, Benjamin had closed his laptop, pulled lamb burgers from the freezer, filled Oliver’s Daniel Tiger cup with two-thirds water and one-third apple juice, and brought up the mail.

Harper gratefully accepted a glass of iced tea and leaned in for a kiss, a familiar thought humming—How did I get so lucky?

Most days, she could barely keep it together—full-time copywriter for an ad agency, mom to a spirited four-year-old—but Benjamin made working and parenting look like a breeze. He swept their son onto the footstool by the sink and mopped one cheek with a damp cloth while showering the other with kisses until Oliver squealed with glee.

Harper leaned against the counter and allowed herself a moment to breathe, to appreciate everything she had. Ben was tall, wiry, and knee-bucklingly handsome if you were into that bashful scholar type, which she was. Her eyes shifted to their son. Oliver’s genetic draw included her dark brown hair, out-turned feet, and wide-set eyes, features that never failed to make her heart skip a beat when mirrored back to her in her son.

“Something fun arrived for you.” With his chin, Benjamin gestured toward the round wicker tray on their tiny kitchen table where he’d deposited a stack of mail. Harper had bought the tray at Brooklyn Flea, envisioning a charming touch that would keep the apartment less cluttered, yet on days when she grabbed the mail, she invariably left it scattered on the coffee table or piled beside the toaster. She used to be more organized.

On top of the day’s neat stack sat a large, hand-addressed cream envelope. “Looks fun, in any case,” Ben said. “Wedding invitation?”

Placing her iced tea on the counter, Harper walked to the table. Ms. Harper Gates and family. It did look like a wedding invitation, and at twenty-seven, they’d entered that phase—their peers were getting married in droves. They had been the exception, tying the knot two weeks after graduation. Harper had been in her second trimester then, evidence of Oliver’s pending arrival just starting to show, and they hadn’t wanted to wait. But with Clare’s death still fresh, Harper hadn’t been able to imagine throwing any kind of party, and so the timing three months into lockdown had been a relief. They’d had a private ceremony in the living room of their new apartment—the only room not still stuffed with moving boxes—and on their second anniversary, they’d invited twenty friends and family, mostly on Benjamin’s side, to a dinner reception in the garden at Frankies Spuntino.

Harper plucked the envelope from the table. Who knew her well enough to invite her to their wedding, yet not so well as to include Ben and Oliver by name? When she flipped over the envelope, the return address was stamped in pretty blue ink on the back. Her breath caught, a fist taking hold of her insides. The Monroes.

Clare’s family.

Hurriedly, she ran the tip of her finger beneath the seal, breaking it open and slicing her skin in the process. A bead of bright red blood appeared above her nail bed, then splashed down onto the card. She stuck her finger in her mouth.

The paper, so thick it felt like cloth in her hand, drank up the droplet before she could reach for a napkin. A pea-sized stain formed above the salutation.

Dear Ms. Harper Gates and family:

Your presence is requested the week of Monday, June 2–Sunday, June 8, at Palazzo Mella to join in a celebration of the life of Clare Annabelle Monroe. Travel and accommodations at our family vacation home on Lake Como will be provided. Ms. Janet Clowe will be in touch with you directly to arrange your trip.

We hope you and yours can join us to honor Clare’s memory.

Most sincerely, The Monroe Family

June 8. It would have been Clare’s twenty-seventh birthday. The invitation dropped from Harper’s fingers and glided to the table.

“What is it, Mommy?”

Finger still in her mouth, she turned to her son, who was settling into his seat with his Daniel Tiger cup.

“Who’s getting hitched?” Ben asked. From the junk drawer by the sink, he produced a Band-Aid.

Harper smiled gratefully, then shook her head. “No one. It’s not that. It’s…” She was not in the habit of lying to her husband, but in that moment, it wasn’t devotion to the altar of the truth keeping her honest. She was simply not clever enough. If she could have concocted a convincing story on the spot, torn up the card, and flushed the pieces, she’d have done it in a heartbeat.

“Harper?” Benjamin touched his wife’s shoulder. “You’re doing that thing again. Where did you go?”

“What? Nowhere.”

He dropped his hand and pressed both palms to the table. His shoulders tensed. Benjamin was frustrated, but he wasn’t going to let it show in front of Oliver. “You know you can tell me anything,” he said gently. “No secrets, remember?”

“Of course not.” It wasn’t the first time Ben had accused her of keeping secrets. If they were alone, he’d be a lot more direct about it. They’d argue, Ben keeping his cool but clearly hurt. Then Harper would feel awful because she was keeping something hidden. Only one secret, but it was something she never wanted to take out and examine—and anyway, the window for laying it all bare had closed a long time ago.

Harper’s mind traveled then to the Monroes’ vacation home on Lake Como, to a real window offering a grand view of the lake from the room where she’d stayed. Through it, night falling on the dark, deep water below, the fireworks just starting. She could still feel the hot shame in her belly, how she’d been freezing. In shock.

In her mind’s eye, Harper extended a trembling hand toward the curtain rod and grabbed hold, blotting out the view.

“Harper?”

She sighed and thrust the invitation toward her husband. “The Monroes want us to come to Italy. It’s a bit morbid, don’t you think?”

He scanned the card. “Because she died there?”

“Who died?” Oliver asked, eyes wide.

“Mommy’s friend Clare.” Benjamin dropped to his knees, meeting Oliver at eye level. “It was a long time ago, before you were born. And now, Clare’s family is throwing a party to remember her.”

Oliver’s lips curled into an exaggerated frown. “I don’t think I’d want to go to a dead girl’s party.” He placed his half-empty cup on the table. “Can I go play in the green pavilion now?”

Harper nodded. The “green pavilion” referred to an electric green tablecloth from which Benjamin had constructed a semi-permanent blanket fort in a corner of Oliver’s bedroom. Marjorie Platypus lived there, as did Rupert Squirrel and Oliver’s entire...