I closed my eyes for a moment, and Mirelle’s face appeared, as if conjured from the back of my mind. There had been a time when I’d thought about nothing except her death, but I’d finally realized I had to keep moving forward, in spite of what I’d done. I could still do good in the world. I could spend the rest of my life making up for my mistakes. I am full of hidden horrors, whispered a voice, and I shuddered. There had been so much blood when Mirelle died . . .

“It was a terrible time for you, Theo,” Ursula went on. “But it was an awful time for all of us. We thought we were going to lose you. Your father was terrified. You were like a wraith, so close to death . . .”

“Can we not talk about that?” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Ursula said. “I know it’s hard for you. Of course you feel guilty. But that woman was the devil. She deserved what she got.” Ursula drained her glass and cocked her head at what was left in the bottle. After a nanosecond’s hesitation, she refilled her glass. “I loved Caroline,” she said quietly. Her pale-blue eyes were watery. That was a side effect of too much wine, but I knew she was sincere. “My loyalty is to you, and your father, of course, but I tried to help Caroline in my own way.”

“Of course you did, Ursula.”

“It would have been better if she’d married into a different family,” she said. “Marriage to a Thraxton is sheer misery.”

I took that as a comment on my father, but it could just as easily have applied to me. “Did you tell Caroline that?”

“I believe the words passed my lips.”

Even my stepmother, who’d raised me as her own child, thought I was a monster. I couldn’t blame her. She knew everything about me and what I’d done.

“There is only one person I can think of who hates you enough to open up the Pandora’s box of your past,” Ursula added. “She would laugh to see your marriage crumble.”

I understood what she meant immediately. There were any number of people who wouldn’t mind watching my life fall apart, but only one who would actively try to destroy it.

CHAPTER 11

THEO

I walked Ursula home, even though it was only across the street. Then I went back to morosely contemplating photographs on the wall of my bedroom. Had there ever been any photographs of Mirelle and me together? In this digital age, when people chronicled every mediocre meal, it seemed impossible that there weren’t any. But we’d met at a particularly dark period in my life, and I’d only spiraled further down afterward. I’d started using drugs like ketamine and midazolam when I was a teenager to block whispered words and violent images from my mind. Adding heroin to that mix had dragged me into hell.

I am full of hidden horrors, whispered the worst of the voices.

I picked up my phone. It was after ten o’clock, but Dr. Haven kept unusual hours. She answered on the third ring.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late. This is Theo Archer”—my best attempt at an alias was using my mother’s maiden name—“but I was really hoping to make an appointment with you.”

“We can talk right now if you’re in crisis,” she said. “Are you okay, Theo?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. The truth was, I never felt like I had any privacy in a building owned by my family. The town house had been a wedding gift to us, but my father’s name was still on the ownership papers. He wasn’t the relative I was worried about at that moment; that honor went to my sister, who had always been ready to stab me through the heart. When Ursula said there was only one person who hated me enough to reveal my past to Caroline, Juliet was who she meant. “But if you have any open appointments tomorrow . . .”

“You could come by at eleven, but I only have half an hour,” she said.

“I’ll take it. Thank you.”

I’d seen various psychologists and psychiatrists at my father’s insistence when I was young, but I quickly realized they all reported back to my family. My sister delighted in mocking me, emailing therapy suggestions to help me over what she described as my pathological fear of animals. I hadn’t set foot in a zoo since I was three, and unfortunately my son was obsessed with them. I’d found Dr. Haven on my own, and she was my secret. But the therapy I was working on with her was not at all what Juliet was suggesting.

I heard a dull thud, and I leaped up. The sound had come from Teddy’s room. I hurried up the hall and opened the door.

My heart skipped a beat, because Teddy wasn’t in bed.

I turned on the light, and there was a squawk from the other side of his room. Teddy and his accomplice, Bunny, were sitting in front of his bookcase.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Teddy pulled Bunny closer. “Nothing.”

He had several large storybooks pulled out and strewn around the floor. He was holding something in his hand but shielding it from my sight.

“Teddy, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

“It doesn’t look like nothing. What are you holding there?”

“Can’t tell you,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Mama said it’s secret.”

I came closer. “That’s changed now, Teddy. Mama’s gone, so you can tell me everything.”

Teddy’s eyes were big as quarters, and he gazed at me pleadingly. “But when she comes back?”

I sat on the rug beside him. “I wish she would. But she’s not going to, Teddy. It’s just us now.”

He was hugging something to his chest.

“Can I see that?” I asked.

He allowed me to take it from him. It was a heart-shaped gold locket. Inside was an adorable childhood photograph of Caroline and her sister.

“It’s a picture of Mama,” he said softly. “With Auntie Dee. They’re just little.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “You took it from Mama’s room?”

“No! Mama left it here.” He pointed at his bookcase.

“Why would she do that?”

“She said gremlins move things around. It’s safe here.”

Caroline had been making bizarre accusations over the past several months, accusing me of invading her privacy.

“Can we go to the zoo tomorrow?” Teddy asked me, his tone brightening.

“Maybe you can go with Gloria?”

“You never go with me.” He hugged Bunny tightly. “Mama will take me.”

My son sounded so determined when he spoke, as if the past week had simply been a bad dream. It broke my heart. “You know Mama isn’t coming back, don’t you, Teddy?”

“You said you can still see her.” His voice was shrill with the piercing logic of a young child. It was my fault for not knowing how to explain to him that his mother was dead. When he cried, I tried to console him with the idea that you can hold someone you love in your heart, even though you can’t touch them. It was foolish of me to hope that a boy who wasn’t yet four could grasp that concept; I couldn’t manage it myself.

“The service at the church was for her, Teddy,” I said gently.

“Uh-huh.”

“You need to get back into bed,” I said.

“I’m not tired.”

“What about Bunny? He looks sleepy, doesn’t he?”

Teddy considered his friend seriously. “You are tired, Bunny,” he said, sounding slightly surprised, as if the stuffed animal had spoken.

I tucked them both into bed and got Teddy some water. “No more adventures tonight,” I said. “Sweet dreams.”

“Where’s Mama now?” Teddy asked.

My heart skipped a beat. “She’s in a better place, Teddy.” Until that moment, I’d never understood why people offered platitudes like that to children. But I had nothing else to give him.

CHAPTER 12

DEIRDRE

At eight in the morning, I was at the Seventeenth Precinct on East Fifty-First Street waiting to talk to Luis Villaverde, the detective quoted in the article about Caro’s death. I hadn’t had any contact with the police after they’d told me she was dead. Someone else—Theo was the obvious suspect—had dealt with the identification and formalities.

Villaverde gave me a toothy grin. He was in his midthirties, olive skinned and dark eyed. He wasn’t tall but he was muscular, with dents on his nose and scars on his face that made him look like a washed-up boxer. “How are you holding up?” he asked.

“We had the funeral yesterday,” I said. “It was hard.”

“Sudden deaths are always tough to square. Especially when someone’s as young as your sister. What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you about the case.”

“The case?” He eyed me skeptically.

“Could we talk somewhere private?”

We ended up in an interview room, sitting in metal chairs across from each other over a metal table. “I guess this makes it hard for people to leave graffiti,” I said, thinking of the wooden table I’d been questioned at when I was fifteen. There had been dozens of sets of initials carved into it, plus choice insults for the cops.

“Mostly it’s because of bedbugs,” Villaverde answered. “What did you want to talk about?”

“What’s going on with the investigation?”

“We don’t have an open investigation.” He looked bemused. “Your sister died of a heart attack, to put it in the simplest terms. Unfortunately, she had an underlying heart condition from her pregnancy.”