Not a Happy Family

  ALSO BY SHARI LAPENA

  The Couple Next Door

  A Stranger in the House

  An Unwanted Guest

  Someone We Know

  The End of Her

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by 1742145 Ontario Ltd.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A Pamela Dorman Book/Viking

  ISBN 9781984880550 (hardcover)

  ISBN 9781984880567 (ebook)

  ISBN 9780593299913 (international edition)

  Cover design: Ervin Serrano

  Cover images: (top to bottom, left to right) sky, Sofian Alim / Getty Images; tree, Cyndi Monaghan / Getty Images; home, phototropic / Getty Images; woman (left), Alexey M / Shutterstock; man (center), Yao Yao / Getty Images; woman (right), Getty Images

  Designed by Meighan Cavanaugh, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0

  To the heroes of the pandemic—the scientists, the medical personnel, the frontline workers everywhere—thank you

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Shari Lapena

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

  —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a book and getting it to market—especially within the space of a year—requires a concerted team effort, and I’m extremely fortunate to have the best teams out there! Here we are at book six, and once again I give my heartfelt thanks to all the people who make my books the best they can be, every single time. Thank you to Brian Tart, Pamela Dorman, Jeramie Orton, Ben Petrone, Mary Stone, Bel Banta, Alex Cruz-Jimenez, and the rest of the fantastic team at Viking Penguin in the U.S.; to Larry Finlay, Bill Scott-Kerr, Frankie Gray, Tom Hill, Ella Horne, and the rest of the brilliant team at Transworld in the U.K.; and to Kristin Cochrane, Amy Black, Bhavna Chauhan, Emma Ingram, and the entire team at Doubleday in Canada. Thank you all, with an extra shout-out to my much-appreciated, hardworking editors, Frankie Gray and Jeramie Orton!

  Special thanks, again, to Jane Cavolina for being an exceptional copy editor. I can’t imagine having anyone else copyedit my books.

  Thanks again to my beloved agent, Helen Heller—especially this year, when the pandemic made everything seem so much harder. You always keep me going, and I am grateful. Thanks also to Camilla and Jemma and everyone at the Marsh Agency for representing me worldwide and selling my books into so many markets.

  Thanks again to my adviser on forensic matters, Mike Iles, MSc, of the Forensic Science Program at Trent University, and also to Kate Bendelow, Crime Scene Investigator, in the U.K. I’m very grateful for your help, both of you!

  As always, any mistakes in the manuscript are entirely mine.

  I’d also like to thank all the people in the book world who stepped up to do events virtually when we couldn’t do them in person.

  Thanks always, to my readers. I wouldn’t be here, doing what I love, without you too.

  And finally, thanks to my husband, my kids, and Poppy the cat. Manuel gets a special mention for endlessly solving technical problems over the past year.

  PROLOGUE

  There are many expensive houses here in Brecken Hill, an enclave on the edge of Aylesford, in the Hudson Valley. Situated on the east side of the Hudson River, about a hundred miles north of New York City, it’s like the Hamptons, but slightly less pretentious. There’s old money here, and new. Down the long private drive, past a clump of birches, there it sits: the Merton home, on its vast expanse of lawn, presented like a cake on a platter. A glimpse of a swimming pool to the left. Behind is a ravine, and thick trees on either side of the property guarantee privacy. This is prime real estate.

  It’s so still and undisturbed. A weak sun is out, interrupted by scudding clouds. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon on Easter Monday; elsewhere, children are greedily finishing off their chocolate bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs, gauging what’s left and eyeing how much remains in the baskets of their siblings. But there are no children here. The children have grown up and moved away. Not far, mind you. They were all over just yesterday, for Easter Sunday dinner.

  The place looks deserted. There are no cars in the driveway—they are shut away behind the doors of the four-car garage. There’s a Porsche 911 convertible; Fred Merton likes to drive that one, but only in the summer, when he throws his golf clubs in the trunk. For winter, he prefers the Lexus. His wife, Sheila, has her white Mercedes with the white leather interior. She likes to put on one of her many colorful Hermès scarves, check her lipstick in the rearview mirror, and go out to meet friends. She won’t be doing that anymore.

  A house this grand, this polished—glossy white marble floor beneath an elaborate, tiered chandelier in the entryway, fresh flowers on a side table—you’d think there must be staff for upkeep. But there’s only one cleaning lady, Irena, who comes in twice a week. She works hard for the money. But she�
��s been with them so long—more than thirty years—that she’s almost like family.

  It must have looked perfect, before all this. A trail of blood leads up the pale, carpeted stairs. To the left, in the lovely living room, a large china lamp is lying broken on the Persian rug, its shade askew. A little farther along, beyond the low, glass coffee table, is Sheila Merton in her nightclothes, utterly still. She’s dead, her eyes open, and there are marks on her neck. There’s no blood on her, but the sickening smell of it is everywhere. Something awful has happened here.

  In the large, bright kitchen at the back of the house, Fred Merton’s body lies sprawled on the floor in a dark and viscous pool of blood. Flies buzz quietly around his nose and mouth. He’s been viciously stabbed many, many times, his fleshy throat slit.

  Who would do such a thing?

  1

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EARLIER

  Dan Merton shrugs on a navy blazer over an open-necked, pale-blue dress shirt and a smart pair of dark jeans. He studies himself critically in the full-length mirror in the bedroom.

  Behind him his wife, Lisa, says, “Are you okay?”

  He smiles wanly at her via the mirror. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She turns away. He knows she doesn’t relish the prospect of Easter dinner at his parents’ house any more than he does. He turns around and looks at her—his pretty, brown-eyed girl. They’ve been married four years, and in that time there have been challenges. But she has stood by him, and he knows he’s lucky to have her. She is his first experience of unconditional love. Unless you count the dogs.

  He tamps down a twinge of uneasiness. Their financial troubles are a source of stress, a constant subject of discussion. Lisa always talks him around, though, and makes him believe things will turn out all right—at least while she’s still in the room. It’s when she isn’t there that the doubts creep in, the crippling anxiety.

  Lisa comes from hardy, middle-class stock—that was a strike against her from the outset, but he didn’t care; his parents are snobs, but he is not—so she never had great expectations. When they met, she didn’t even know who he was, because they didn’t travel in the same circles.

  “She’s the only one who will have him,” he overheard his younger sister, Jenna, say to his older sister, Catherine, when they didn’t know he could hear them.

  Perhaps that was true. But his marriage, at least, has been a success—they have all had to admit it. And his family has grown fond of Lisa in spite of themselves and their prejudices.

  “Are you going to try to talk to your father?” Lisa asks now, apprehension on her face.

  He averts his eyes, closing the closet door. “If the opportunity presents itself.”

  He hates asking his father for money. But he really doesn’t see that he has any other choice.

  * * *

  • • •

  catherine merton—she did not take her husband’s surname—looks forward to Easter dinner at her parents’ place every year. And all the other occasions when they gather to celebrate holidays at the lavish house in Brecken Hill. Her mother will get out the special plates and the silver, and there will be a huge bouquet of fresh-cut flowers on the formal dining table, and it will all make Catherine feel elegant and privileged. She is the firstborn, and favorite, child; they all know it. She is the high-functioning one, the only one their parents are actually proud of. A doctor—a dermatologist rather than a cardiac surgeon—but still, a doctor. Dan has been a bit of a disappointment. And Jenna—well, Jenna is Jenna.

  Catherine puts in a pearl earring and wonders what surprise Jenna might have in store for them today. Her little sister lives in a small, rented house on the outskirts of Aylesford and travels into New York City frequently to stay with friends. Her lifestyle is something of a mystery and causes their parents considerable distress. Dan says Jenna is out of control, but Catherine knows better. Jenna uses her lifestyle as a means of control. She has the power to shock and she doesn’t mind using it. Jenna is certainly not well behaved, like Catherine. Not respectable or predictable. No, she is an outlier. When they were kids, she would do anything on a dare. Now, their father is always threatening to cut off Jenna’s allowance, but they all know he won’t do it because she’d move back home and they’d never be able to stand it. The family suspects drugs and promiscuity, but they never ask because they don’t really want to know.

  Catherine looks up from the seat at her mirrored vanity as her husband, Ted, walks into their bedroom. He’s been rather subdued all day—his subtle way of showing his displeasure, although he would never admit it. He doesn’t want to go to Easter dinner at her wealthy parents’. He chafes at their expectation of it, every holiday. He doesn’t like the tension rippling beneath the surface during these meals. “God, how can you stand it?” he always says as soon as they’re in the car heading back down the driveway.

  She defends them. “They’re not that bad,” she always replies, trying to make light of it as they speed away. Now, she gets up and goes over to him and kisses him on the cheek. “Try to make the best of it,” she says.

  “I always do,” he replies.

  No, you don’t, she thinks, turning away.

  * * *

  • • •

  “fuck, i really don’t want to go to this,” Jenna says to Jake, who is sitting in her passenger seat as she drives toward Brecken Hill. He had taken the train in from New York City and she’d picked him up from the Aylesford station. He’s going to stay the night at her place.

  “Then pull over,” Jake says, coaxing, stroking her thigh. “We can waste some time. Smoke a joint. Get you to relax.”

  She glances at him, raises an eyebrow. “You think I need to relax?”

  “You seem a bit uptight.”

  “Fuck you,” she says playfully, with a smile.

  She drives farther until she finds a turnoff she knows and abruptly takes it. Her car bumps along the road until she pulls over and stops under a large tree.

  Jake is already lighting up a joint, sucking in deeply. “We’re going to reek when we get there,” she says, reaching to take it from him. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  “I don’t know why you want to antagonize your parents so much,” Jake says. “They pay your bills.”

  “They can afford it,” she says.

  “My wild child,” he says. He leans forward and kisses her, running his hands under her black leather jacket, up underneath her top, stroking her lightly, obviously feeling the buzz already. “I can’t wait to see what kind of people spawned you.”

  “Oh, you’ll gag. They’re so self-righteous you’d expect a pulpit to appear every time they open their mouths.”

  “They can’t be that bad.”

  She takes another deep drag and hands him the joint. “Mom’s harmless, I guess. Dad’s an asshole. Things would be easier if he wasn’t around.”

  “Parents—they fuck you up,” he says, quoting the poet Philip Larkin, getting it wrong.

  He gets most things wrong, Jenna thinks, looking at Jake through a haze of smoke, melting into the feel of his fingers on her nipple. But he’s entertaining, and decent in bed, and that’s good enough for now. And he’s got the right look. Terribly sexy and rough around the edges. She can’t wait to introduce him to the family.

  2

  Rose Cutter has done something stupid. And the thought of what she’s done, and what she must do now, is always on her mind. She thinks about it late at night, when she should be sleeping. She thinks about it in the office, when she should be working. She thinks about it when she’s trying to numb herself by watching TV.

  The prospect of sitting through Easter dinner with her mother and her aunt Barbara, pretending everything is fine, seems almost more than she can manage. Her mother will see that something is wrong. She notices everything. She’s remarked often enough that Rose looks tired lately, that s
he’s lost weight. Rose always brushes the concern away, tries to deflect the conversation to something else, but it’s getting harder and harder to do. She has actually started to visit her mother less often, but she can’t skip Easter dinner. She studies herself in the mirror. It’s true that her jeans, once snug, seem to hang on her. She decides to compensate by putting on a bulky red sweater over her shirt. It will have to do. She brushes her long brown hair, puts on some lipstick to brighten up her wan face, and attempts a smile. It looks forced, but it’s the best she can do.

  When she arrives at her mom’s house, it begins right away, the motherly concern, the questions. But her mother can’t help her. And she can never know the truth. Rose got herself into this mess all by herself. And she will have to get herself out.

  * * *

  • • •

  ellen cutter takes one look at her daughter and shakes her head. “Look at you,” she says, receiving her daughter’s coat. “You’re so pale. Barbara, doesn’t she look a bit pale to you? And honestly, Rose, you’re getting so thin.”

  Barbara rolls her eyes at her and smiles at Rose. “I think you look great,” she says. “Don’t listen to your mother. She’s such a worrywart.”

  Rose smiles at her aunt and says, “Thank you, Barbara. I don’t think I look that bad, do I?” She turns to look at herself in the hallway mirror and fluffs up her bangs a little.

  Ellen smiles, too, but inwardly she’s dismayed. And her sister sends her a quick glance that confirms she’s noticed the changes in her niece, despite what she just said. Ellen’s not imagining things—Rose does look worn out. She’s lost her sparkle lately. She tries not to worry, but who else is she going to worry about? She’s a widow, and Rose is her only child. Barbara doesn’t have any kids, so there aren’t any nieces or nephews for her to fuss over. Ellen is really rather alone in the world, except for these two, and her friend Audrey. “Well, we’re going to have a lovely dinner,” Ellen says. “Come into the kitchen, I’m just about to baste the turkey.”