He nodded. “She knew what the Thraxtons were doing, and she didn’t leave.”

I wanted to defend Caro. She was an honest person, and I knew she devoted herself to helping people. Jude had mentioned all the money my sister had given Diotima, and it wasn’t the only charity. But I felt bile rise in my throat as I contemplated Caro’s awareness of her in-laws’ criminal ventures. I could hear her voice when I’d called her in a panic about the letter our mother had written. Ignore it. Focus on your own life. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to think about that—Caro had been all of twenty when she’d said those words to me—but I knew my sister was willing to turn a blind eye to issues that didn’t concern her.

I took a drink. “I don’t understand the scam.”

“Hotels are a shady business,” Ben said. “Their clients can be from anywhere in the world, and you can’t prove they exist. They play it like every room is full, and everyone’s ordering room service and flowers and getting massages. You can launder millions through one hotel that way.”

I swallowed hard. Going over the spreadsheets with Reagan, we’d assumed the lowball number was fake and that the Thraxtons were hiding money from the tax man. It hadn’t occurred to us that they’d fake the profits.

“How long have they been doing this?”

“Years. When I expose them, Theo’s going to jail.”

“But Theo’s the one who left the family business,” I pointed out. “How’s he responsible?”

Ben’s mouth tightened in a snarl, like he was ready to curse me out. “Are you on his side?”

“Of course not. But I don’t understand how this implicates Theo. It’s the rest of his family who’d go to jail.”

“Fuck the Thraxtons,” Ben said, spitting out their name contemptuously. “They think they’re better than everyone else, but they’re just a bunch of crooks.”

I sat there, trying to make sense of it. “Ben, my sister wrote me a message saying that her husband had murdered someone else. She was afraid he’d do the same thing to her.”

“He did.”

“Then why are you obsessing about the business? Because that doesn’t touch Theo.”

“What’s your big idea?” He kicked at a pigeon, who stood its ground and gave him a dirty look.

“Theo killed a woman—girlfriend, wife, whatever you want to call her—in Berlin when he was a student there. His father admitted it to me.”

“Caroline told me about it. She couldn’t even get the woman’s name. It’s a dead end.”

“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “His father told me enough details. The woman used different names, including Mirelle and Marianne. She was stabbed to death in their apartment in Berlin. Theo was young at the time—he was in college. His father whisked him out of the country and into rehab, and the police thought the woman died in a break-in over drugs and cash.”

“You call that enough details? I can see why you’re not a journalist.”

“And I can see why you pull this lone-wolf act. No one could stand working with you for more than five minutes. But for Caro’s sake, I’m going to try. You’re supposed to be a journalist. Dig into the story of this dead woman.”

Ben shook his head. “Caroline couldn’t believe the old man covered everything up for his son.”

“Why does no one ever focus on the woman who died?” I asked. “Everyone acts like she’s this nonentity, that her death doesn’t matter except for what it did to Theo.”

“Then you look into it.”

“I don’t even know where to start!”

“Do what you’re doing now. Ask questions. Shake some trees and see what falls out.” He shrugged. “People think journalism is about writing. It’s not. It’s about being persistent.”

I didn’t speak German or have the option of flying off to Berlin. I didn’t even have a passport. The idea that I was going to solve this cold case from my dungeon room in Queens seemed insane. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to keep researching the story Caroline wanted me to work on,” he said. “If you want to help, give me the memory card.”

“I’ll email you the spreadsheets,” I said grudgingly.

The waiter brought our bill, and Ben paid it. I didn’t object because I couldn’t pay for my Pellegrino with protein bars.

“You said before that Theo killed Caro,” I said. “But I don’t understand what he did, besides showing up at the house.”

“He was terrorizing her.”

“Caro ran down to your neighborhood,” I said, thinking out loud.

“All she had to do was give the memory card to my doorman,” Ben said.

“But she didn’t. She still had it.” Caro had gone into the park instead of Ben’s building. Why? What had drawn her there?

“Right.” Ben was stock still, as if frozen. “What are you saying?”

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” I asked. “I mean, she ran all the way south, over a mile, and then something keeps her from going a couple more yards to give you the card?”

“What are you trying to say?”

There had to be a reason Caro detoured into the park. “What if someone followed her?”

“Theo had been at the house,” Ben mused. “He could’ve waited for her.”

Another thought had crossed my mind. Caro’s father-in-law had watched Theo going into and out of the house. That meant he could’ve seen my sister leave for her run. Theodore’s involvement was an unlikely possibility. But if Caro was giving a journalist information about his company’s ongoing fraud, who knew what he’d do?

“It didn’t have to be Theo,” I said. “Her phone wasn’t on her when she died. If someone else saw her messages or call log, they’d figure out she was meeting you.”

“No one knew,” Ben said, standing. He picked up his book.

“Anyone who has access to her phone knows.”

“Caroline used a burner,” Ben said. “She knew enough to do that.”

He strode off before I could ask him anything else. My rule-following good-girl sister used burner phones? How would she even know where to get one? The feisty pigeon hopped up on the chair Ben had vacated.

“Did any of that make sense to you?” I asked it. “Because I am very confused.”

CHAPTER 25

THEO

The Thraxton hotel in Berlin was on Museum Island, a small patch of land sitting in the middle of the river Spree. It was as far east from the Brandenburg Gate as the Tiergarten’s Victory Column was west, and I took a taxi to get there quickly. That provided an accidental sightseeing tour of the grand boulevard of Unter den Linden, with its neoclassical opera house and the imposing Humboldt University. This was a deviation from my plan to walk the streets I’d known as a student in Berlin, because I’d rarely visited this area in those days. But as I’d stared at my old apartment building, the certainty that another person had been in the room had only grown. I didn’t think it was my sister; I couldn’t remember seeing Juliet until I was carried onto the private plane that took me to rehab. Someone else had carried me onto the plane; Juliet was already there. I’d gotten a decent look at the man’s face as he’d strapped me into a seat. It hadn’t been Klaus, with his distinctive shock of white hair and huge belly. It was a man I couldn’t remember ever seeing before.

The taxi deposited me beside the Lustgarten—a name I’d snickered at as a student; it translated as “Pleasure Garden”—which was across from the cathedral. If I’d been in the city as a tourist, I would’ve loved nothing more than to head north. That way lay the Pergamon Museum with its Babylonian, Assyrian, and Roman treasures; the Neues—or New—Museum, with its bounty from Egypt and Troy; and the smaller Bode Museum, with its Byzantine art and assortment of curious collections. But I took a deep breath and headed south.

The Thraxton International property was a grand fantasy of a building that had its own moat, as if it were a castle. It was largely glass and metal—like all of my family’s hotels—but with baroque touches that included steel gargoyles with gleaming fangs.

Inside, I asked at the desk for the manager. It was a happy surprise when Pierre Dorval appeared, dressed in a sharp navy suit, and kissed me on the cheek. He was in his midforties and one of the most casually elegant humans I knew, with a mane of curly chestnut hair that fanned out like a halo. “I’m sorry, I know people hate that since the pandemic. But I am—what do you Americans call it—a hugger!”

“It’s good to see you,” I said, meaning it. “I had no idea you were in Berlin now.” Pierre had been managing the Thraxton hotel in Paris when I’d left the company.

“The opportunity came up a year ago, and I grabbed it,” Pierre said. “My husband is from Copenhagen, so he was thrilled. I am—what do you call it—‘living the dream.’ What brings you to Berlin?” He clapped his hand over his mouth. “Oh, Theo, I just remembered Caroline. I am so very sorry. She was the most wonderful person. The news does not feel real yet.”

“It’s been an awful time.”