Page 32 of Murder on the Upper East Side

Gemma jammed her spoon into the ice cream and folded her arms across her chest.

‘Amazing. Tell me everything.’ Oliver leaned in. The LED lights above switched colours, turning Oliver’s curly blond hair, and the white quartzite below, Barbie pink.

‘It was so cringe. He was trying to get her to go to one of the hotel rooms upstairs, and she shut him down, hard.’

Oliver grinned. ‘I’m sure he took that in his stride.’

‘Yeah, not so much. He said something about already having his pick of “Prescott pussy”. It was beyond gross. He makes Bash look like a saint.’

Silently, Gemma slid off her barstool and walked across the kitchen to the sub-zero, dual-zone wine fridge set into a black oak cabinet. A moment later she was back, holding a bottle of pink champagne.

She plunked the sleek, matte white bottle on the island, then produced three tulip glasses from a vertical cabinet drawer. ‘The night is young. Let’s drink, bitches.’

They were the first words Gemma Phipps had spoken since Hannah mentioned the name Edward Beaumont.

11Friday, 12 June 2026

11:02pm

Hannah was still sitting in the dining room, mulling over her chat with Gemma, when a silver-rimmed china plate appeared before her.

‘Little gem and watercress dressed in a Meyer lemon chardonnay vinaigrette,’ the server murmured. He wore a single-breasted jacket with a small bronze daylily pinned to the lapel. ‘They were already plated, and, well, Mr Beaumont asked us to bring them out.’

Hannah looked at him blankly. Mr Beaumont had been dead for two years now, since a freak helicopter crash over Lake Como. In the time since his death, Edward had stepped down as CFO of Beaumont Capital to trade stocks at a behemoth downtown firm, and Bash, who had been previously kept at arm’s length from the family business, had assumed a place at the helm.

‘But not dressed!’ the server added, misinterpreting her stare. ‘The kitchen has only just dressed the saladsnow, prior to starting service.’ Pink filled his cheeks. Then, noticing the spent votive, he swiftly plucked it from the glass bowl in the centre of the table, produced a new one from his pocket and lit it.

Hannah’s eyes dropped to her plate. ‘Oh, of course. Looks delicious.’

The server had meant Edward, she realised, or possibly Bash.Mr Beaumont.She’d only met the boys’ father once, during the Après-Thanksgiving Supper she’d attended here a decade ago. He had struck her as cold and uncharitable, not unlike his older son, who he’d so clearly favoured. She wondered idly what had caused Edward to leave the family business so swiftly after his father’s death, and what had motivated Bash to take it over, when Richard had previously shut him out. It must have been a pain point; surely, he could have chosen to sell instead, reaping a vast fortune and fucking off to Bellagio or Cap d’Antibes, which frankly seemed more Bash’s style. Running a multi-million-dollar corporation was hard work.

As the server continued his rounds, more guests drifted into the dining room. Some searched for place cards, but the meticulously arranged seating chart went largely ignored.

‘This seat taken?’

Hannah looked up from her untouched salad. Theo Fitzgerald stood before her, flashing his almost too-white smile. A thin sheen of sweat broke out across the back of her neck. Behind him, through the archway, Hannah spotted Oliver descending the stairsfrom the second floor and sliding into an open seat at the bar, beside Gemma.

Hannah did her best to ignore the slight churn in her stomach. When she spoke, her voice was level. ‘All yours. Although I can’t imagine Elle and Bash would approve of you taking your meals with a killer.’

Theo pulled out a chair and sat. ‘I know you didn’t do it.’

She pierced a leaf of baby gem lettuce with the antique silver fork at her place. With a deliberate screech, she dragged it through the goat cheese mousse piped around the rim of the plate. ‘What makes you so sure?’

Theo flinched, then lifted his own fork. ‘She was murdered at aPrescott galawith over seventy alumni and school officials in attendance. Whoever killed Madison had a bone to pick going all the way back to high school, and they wanted everyone here to know it. You and Madison had your moments, especially that thing after prom…’ He trailed off, and for a moment, both he and Hannah were lost to the not especially rosy glow of memory.

Theo cleared his throat. ‘But that was a decade ago, and unless I’m an extraordinarily bad judge of character, you never especially cared about ascending the Prescott ladder.’

‘I did not,’ she agreed. ‘But the killer did. Or at least, they cared about knocking Madison from the top rung.’

Theo flinched again.

‘I’m sorry. That was crass. Madison was your friend, and—’

‘It’s okay,’ he cut in. ‘Well, it’s obviously not okay. What I mean is, we hadn’t been particularly close in years.’

Hannah nodded. Theo seemed genuinely remorseful. She wanted to cross him off her suspect list, but there was a lot about Theo she hadn’t known in high school, and while he’d always seemed to be forthcoming, in fact he’d been a very good liar when it came to the whole thing with Elle. That she still found him incredibly handsome and at least outwardly kind was inconvenient, but she couldn’t let that get in the way of her investigation.

Just then, a sommelier appeared at their table. It was a bit surreal, how everyone was carrying on as if this were a normal dinner party. But it was after eleven, and murder or no murder, people were hungry – and thirsty.