The Last to Know by Wendy Corsi Staub Page A

someone she feels comfortable discussing, even now.
    Even if not another living soul knows what happened.
    “I’ve got to get her home and change her into dry clothes,” Tasha tells Rachel and Karen, wiping the juice spatters from her daughter’s pink overalls with napkins.
    “She’s not that wet,” Rachel points out. “It’ll dry fast.”
    “I know, but . . . I’ve got a lot to do at home,” Tasha tells her, standing. “I was about to tackle a mountain of laundry when you called.”
    “Oh, laundry,” Rachel says, wrinkling her nose. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here and gossip with us?”
    Not about Fletch Gallagher, Tasha thinks grimly as she reaches for her jacket.
    M argaret Armstrong sets a steaming cup of tea on the desk in front of her brother-in-law, taking care to make sure the saucer is carefully positioned on the blotter so as not to mar the antique cherry finish.
    Owen barely looks up at her and doesn’t even glance at the tea, mumbling only, “Thanks.”
    His head rests heavily in his hand; his gaze is fixed bleakly on a framed photograph on the desk.
    Margaret can see only its easel back but she knows the picture must be of Jane. Owen’s large study is filled with photos of her sister, some formal studio shots, others candid snapshots, and a few of her with Schuyler.
    On the wall over the fireplace behind the desk is an oil painting in an ornate gilt frame: Jane and Owen together on their wedding day. Jane, elegantly simple in Mother’s silk gown that has faded to a mellow ivory. Owen, dashing in his morning coat, beaming at his bride. She’s looking up at him, too, but, Margaret notices for the first time, she doesn’t radiate bliss the way her new husband does.
    That’s Jane , she thinks to herself with a familiar flicker of anger, averting her eyes from the painting. Oblivious to the fact that she’s landed one of the most eligible men on the East Coast—and that he’s wildly in love with her.
    Her sister has always taken Owen’s devotion for granted, from the moment she first met him at the country club pool on that long ago Fourth of July weekend.
    Jane was only thirteen then. Margaret, at eighteen, had been assigned to keep an eye on her younger sister while Mother was on the golf course and Daddy was in the bar.
    Keeping an eye on Jane meant watching her frolic in a skimpy turquoise bikini that she filled out so remarkably that every teenaged boy—and most of the men—at the pool that day were in awe of her.
    While her sister flirted—shyly at first, and then with maddening aplomb—Margaret sat in the shade at a poolside umbrella table, her own modest black one-piece concealed under a terry cover-up that hid her pale skin and knobby, angular figure. She pretended to be engrossed in the novel she’d brought along: Dostoevsky.
    But she was mostly watching Jane, wondering how it was that her kid sister was able to attain so effortlessly everything that had always eluded Margaret’s grasp.
    Then, as if to punctuate Margaret’s covetous thoughts, he showed up, a gloriously masculine, broad-shouldered young blond man silhouetted against the bright blue summer sky as he bounced lightly on the edge of the high board.
    Margaret found herself staring up at him, wondering why he was lingering, why it was taking him so long to leap over the edge. Was he leery? She didn’t sense apprehension in his sanguine bouncing. No, she realized . . . he was waiting for something. He was gazing pointedly down into the water below, where Jane, surrounded by a crowd of male admirers, was treading water, her wet golden hair streaming back to reveal that flawless sun-kissed face.
    He was waiting for Jane.
    Finally, as though sensing the eyes intently focused on her from above, she glanced up at the man on the diving board.
    And he, realizing he had her attention, executed a perfect somersault dive into the water below.
    When he surfaced, he swam directly over to Jane.
    Margaret watched as he