Margot Hunt: Best Friends Forever

How well do you really know your best friend?

Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they’re very different women—the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite—they’re each other’s rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat’s financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion.

Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up. Like why Kat has suddenly gone dark: no calls, no texts and no chance her wealthy family will let Alice see her. Why investigators are looking so hard in Alice’s direction. Who stands to get hurt next. And who is the cool liar—the masterful manipulator behind it all.

MARGOT HUNT is the pseudonym of a bestselling writer of twelve previous novels. Her work has been praised by Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Kirkus Reviews. Best Friends Forever is her first psychological thriller.

www.MargotHunt.com

Best Friends Forever

Margot Hunt

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Whitney Gaskell 2018

Whitney Gaskell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9781474074506

Praise for Best Friends Forever

Best Friends Forever is a clever thriller that asks how far we’ll go to protect our friends. Margot Hunt will keep you guessing until the final, satisfying twist.”

—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Ex

“Margot Hunt’s richly drawn women wrap their hands around your throat and don’t let go. A suspenseful page-turner that kept me puzzling over who did it until the last few pages. Fantastic!”

—Cate Holahan, author of The Widower’s Wife, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016

“Friends or husbands? Who do women tell more truth? Give more allegiance? Margot Hunt shocks and astounds as she explores these tugs of loyalty in Best Friends Forever, a psychological thriller that kept me off balance even after turning the last page.”

—Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of The Widow of Wall Street

“[Best Friends Forever] constantly pushes forward, asking readers to question every conclusion and warning them to never completely trust anyone.... The characters are well-drawn, speaking easily for themselves and standing out as unique people who feel real.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Friends have drifted in and out of my life over the years.

This book is dedicated to those special few that stuck around.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Imagine you’re shipwrecked on an island inhabited by only Knights and Knaves. Knights always tell the truth. Knaves always lie. There is no way to distinguish between the two just by looking at them. The only way to separate the liars from the truth-tellers is by asking them questions.

For example, suppose you encounter two islanders. Let’s call them A and B. You ask A, “Are you a Knight or a Knave?”

A responds by saying, “At least one of us is a Knave.”

B is silent.

Who is a Knight and who is a Knave?

The answer is easy. A cannot be a Knave, because if so, his statement would be truthful, and Knaves always lie. Therefore A must be a Knight, and telling the truth. Which would mean B is a Knave.

In real life, of course, there are no such things as Knights, those absolute keepers of the truth.

Everyone lies about something.

1

It was a perfectly normal school morning in the Campbell household—disorganized, chaotic and at least one of my children was running around half-naked—right up until the moment the police arrived at our front door to question me in connection with the death of Howard Grant.

Before the doorbell rang—before everything changed—my most pressing concern was not to overcook the eggs I was scrambling for our breakfast.

I had learned through practice and error that the key to perfectly scrambled eggs was to keep the heat low. As I slowly stirred the eggs with a flat whisk, a flash of movement outside caught my eye. I turned to glance out the kitchen window, which overlooked our side yard and the street beyond. Our next-door neighbor Judy Ward was walking her fat dachshund, Rocket, down the sidewalk. Judy was carrying a green plastic bag of dog poop in one hand and Rocket’s leash in the other. The dog was panting so heavily, he looked like he was about to keel over.

“Mom, where’re my shorts?” Liam yelled from his room, which was located on the other side of our one-story house. When I didn’t answer, he shouted again. “Mom! I can’t find my uniform shorts!”

I drew in a deep breath and counted to five to stop myself from yelling back that if my son needed something, he should walk across the house and ask me politely. Sure enough, the thud-thud-thud of large thirteen-year-old feet stampeded across our ceramic tile floor. Liam appeared in the kitchen, wearing only a navy polo shirt with his school logo on it and white cotton briefs. Liam had my husband’s unruly dark curls and lopsided smile, but his wide, pale blue eyes and long, straight nose came from me. He was getting so tall, officially a teenager, but still child enough to run around in his underwear. I loved him so, this wild boy of mine.

“I can’t find any clean shorts,” Liam said. He balanced on one leg like a crane and began to hop in place.

“Why are you hopping?”

“Because I can,” Liam said carelessly. “Have you seen my shorts?”