Free You Can Trust Me by Sophie McKenzie Page B

and outside the church by the friends and neighbors who had gathered in force to support us. The press was there too. Plenty of people were moved, I suppose, by Kara’s death—and by her youth and her beauty.
    At Kara’s funeral, everyone cried. Girls her own age and their boyfriends, all red-eyed and weeping and clutching each other for comfort. And the parents: her friends’ parents and my parents’ friends. They approached Mum and Dad with horror in their eyes.
    â€œImpossible to take it in.”
    â€œSuch a lovely girl.”
    â€œThe worst nightmare.”
    Dad fielded them all with his customary tact. I’m not sure Mum even heard them. She stood at his side, nodding and murmuring, but her eyes were dead. I knew both my parents were hurting, but back then, full of my own grief and without children of my own, I had no concept of the depth of their pain. I’m not sure I can really imagine it now. Or perhaps I just don’t want to.
    Mum dissolves into a coughing fit, then asks what the weather’s like with us.
    â€œMild,” I say. “A bit sticky, but okay.”
    We both fall silent. It’s funny, you’d think Kara’s death and then Dad’s would have brought us together, but each bereavement just seems to show us more distinctly how separate we are. Kara was Mum’s favorite. Her baby. While I was a classic older sister, forging ahead at school, working hard in all my classes and diligently practicing the piano every night, Kara skipped and dreamed through her childhood. She rarely sat still for more than a few minutes yet had phenomenal focus and an excellent memory. She effortlessly got better grades than I did despite giving the appearance of doing very little work. She was a talented artist too, spending much of her free time on sketches of the actors and pop idols she romanticized and adored.
    Kara and Julia were both stunningly attractive, but apart from their pale skin, they were complete opposites in both looks and personalities. Mum once said that it was as if a butterfly and a tiger had decided to become friends. She liked Julia, though. I think both my parents hoped that Julia’s street smarts would protect naïve, gentle Kara from the big bad world she had entered by leaving home and going to college. I was always closer to Dad, who in his quiet, solid way felt like the backbone of the family, my go-to parent for comfort and advice.
    I say good-bye to Mum and wander restlessly around the house. My mind flickers back to the funeral and the angry face of the blond man.
    A hefty dose of Nembutal, a note, and the coroner’s verdict may stack up on one side of the argument for suicide, but that furious look on Dirty Blond’s face adds up to a powerful counterargument. I think back to Julia’s text.
    PLS CALL. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.
    Suppose she and Dirty Blond had fought that Saturday? My theory about him being married and Julia finding out and dumping him isn’t the only possible scenario. Julia had lots of boyfriends, and despite that rule about never sleeping with married men, she was rarely exclusive. Even the few ex-boyfriends I did meet over the years lasted only three or four months. She’d told me about Dirty Blond only a few weeks ago and didn’t seem inclined to introduce him. Maybe he minded being kept at arm’s length. Plenty of her former lovers had.
    If they’d fought and Julia was heading for an evening in alone, that would explain her text to me and that she’d had a couple of drinks. But what if Dirty Blond had come back later in the evening? Julia would have let him in—that would definitely explain the lack of evidence of forced entry—perhaps hoping another conversation would heal the rift. Julia was five-six and slender. She told me Dirty Blond was tall and muscular, and indeed, the man I saw at the funeral was over six foot. I’d previously wondered why there were no signs of