“Now you’re smiling?” he said. “Are you trying to scare me?”

“See, here’s the thing that was bothering me,” Stevie said. “Once I knew Alice was back on the grounds, I kept wondering why. Alice didn’t die here. She died somewhere else. And the person responsible for her death was George Marsh. That much, I know. But why, if she died, would he do something so insane—bring her body back to her home and put it right under her father’s nose? I had to be missing something. So I went to the library. The Ellinghams had this thing called a clipping service—it’s like a human Google alert. Every time they were mentioned in an article in the news, the service would cut it out and send it to them. There’s boxes and boxes and boxes of this stuff in the library here. It hasn’t been digitized because no one really thought it was interesting or worth it. I had to read a lot of stuff—society reports and stuff about hats and dances and people sailing together. Did you know they used to report who was on famous ocean liners? Like, that was a whole news story. Anyway, it took me a few weeks, but I finally found this.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a copy of a clipping from a Burlington newspaper dated December 18, 1932.

“Read it out loud,” she said, handing it to Nate.

Nate took the paper cautiously and began to read.

“‘Wife to Albert Ellingham’—that’s nice, she’s not her own person or anything—‘gives birth in Switzerland. Businessman and philanthropist Albert Ellingham and his wife, Mrs. Iris Ellingham, welcomed a baby girl on Thursday, December 15, in a private hospital outside the city of Zermatt, in the Swiss Alps. Both mother and daughter are doing well, according to Robert Mackenzie, personal secretary to Mr. Ellingham. The child has been named Alice.’ Why am I reading this?”

“Keep going.”

“‘Mr. Ellingham is of course known locally for his property on Mount Morgan, where he intends to open a school. The Ellinghams chose a different snowy mountain setting for the birth to avoid publicity, according to Mr. Mackenzie. They were accompanied on their trip abroad by Miss Flora Robinson, a friend to—’”

“There it is,” she said.

“There what is?”

“I already knew that Alice was born in Switzerland,” she said, her eyes glistening. “But I didn’t know they went with a friend. One friend. Flora Robinson. Iris’s best friend.”

“Makes sense, I guess? Take your friend if you’re going on a long trip to give birth?”

“Or,” Stevie said, “they went away to the Alps, to a super private place, so that Flora could give birth and they could arrange the adoption. Adoptions are personal things. If it had happened here, the press could have leaked it. Maybe they didn’t want Alice to know, or they wanted to be the ones to tell her, on their own time. People have a right to privacy, especially when it comes to their kids.”

“Just because Flora went to Switzerland with them doesn’t mean she gave birth to Alice, does it?” Nate asked.

Stevie closed the DNA article on her tablet and brought up a digital notebook of scans, all of long pages with neat, elaborate handwriting.

“Charles was nice enough to give me the house records, probably to keep me busy. I made copies of them for myself because I like to make my own fun. The Ellingham house was the kind of place where everything got written down, all the visitors, all the menus. So let’s go back to March 1932. Who’s here? Flora Robinson. So let’s see what she’s doing. . . .”

Stevie triumphantly showed the next pages of scans. These were of menus, daily lists of what was served at the main table and to all the guests.

“Look at Flora Robinson in March. This is her normal breakfast.”

She held up one of the menu pages.

Guest, Miss Flora Robinson, breakfast tray service: coffee with milk and sugar, tomato juice, toast and marmalade, scrambled egg, sliced ham, orange slices.

“You’ll see, she gets this almost every day, same thing. She loves her tomato juice and scrambled eggs and orange slices. But then, we get to mid-May, and it all changes.”

Guest, Miss Flora Robinson, breakfast tray service: tea without milk, ginger ale, saltine crackers, dry toast.

“That’s what she gets, if she gets anything at all,” Stevie said. “All of this starts in late May and goes on through June. What does this suggest?”

“Morning sickness,” Nate said, his eyes widening.

“Morning sickness,” Stevie replied, smiling.

“You terrify me,” Nate said quietly.

“I went through the rest of the records. Flora was here for most of 1932. Like, almost all of it. Then, in September, they all pack up and go to Switzerland. So, let’s say Flora was Alice’s biological mother. It means there must also be a biological father. Who is he? This is where George Marsh’s actions start to make sense. . . .”

Stevie was getting that high, frenzied excitement, the one that made Nate visibly nervous.

“George Marsh is never written down as a guest, but he turns up in the records because they have to make up his room and he also gets meals. Here he is, all over March and April. In fact, for at least one weekend in April, it was the Ellinghams, George Marsh, and Flora Robinson. It’s the weekend that, if you count back, would have been pretty much exactly nine months before Alice’s birth. But if you want more, here is Flora . . .”

She brought up a picture of Flora Robinson.

“And here is George Marsh . . .”

One more photo.

“And here is Alice.”

Nate examined the three photos together.

“Oh,” he said.

“This is why he brought her back,” Stevie said. “Because he was her biological father. He wanted to bury her properly, at home.”

“Okay, so you’re going to explain all of this so you get the money? I guess it would be hard to prove, but they could probably do it, check birth records and get DNA . . .”

“Nah,” Stevie said again.

“Okay, what is this nah thing? You aren’t going to try to prove it?”

“It wasn’t about the money,” she said. “If I even tried to claim it, think of the lawyers and the creeps I’d have to deal with. It would ruin my life.”

“Seriously?” he said. “You’re not going to fight for seventy million dollars?”

“What can I buy for seventy million dollars?”

“Anything. Almost literally anything.”

“The way it is now,” she said, “the money stays here, in the school. Alice’s home. The one her father made. He wanted to make a place where impossible things could happen. Albert Ellingham believed in me. He let me come here, and I’m making sure it stays open. This is for Alice and Iris, and for Albert, for Hayes, and Ellie and Fenton.”

She raised her mug.

“Oh my God,” he said. “What are you, a saint or something?”

“I stole this mug,” she said. “So, no. Besides, if the school closed down, you’d have to go home and finish your book or something. I did it for you. I’m not even telling anyone else. I mean, aside from my friends. Like you.”

“Are you trying to make me have an emotion?” Nate said, his eyes reddening a bit. “Because I’ve spent my whole life learning how to repress and deflect and you’re kind of ruining my thing.”

“I have more bad news. Look behind you. The happy couples are coming out . . .”

Janelle and Vi waved back, arm in arm. Behind them, Hunter and Germaine were not quite at this level, but they were talking intently, in that way couples do. Janelle and Vi had only grown closer since the events of the fall and were even planning on how they would visit each other during the summer and coordinate their schedules. Hunter and Germaine and bonded over a mutual interest in the environment and K-dramas. Things at school had not been easy or perfect for anyone, but they were definitely pretty good. It turned out school was generally more straightforward when people weren’t getting murdered all the time.

As the others reached Stevie and Nate, Stevie’s phone rang. She held up a hand and stepped off a few paces to take a video call.

“Where are you?” she asked.

David was on a street somewhere, in a purple campaign T-shirt.

“Oh, um . . .” He looked around. “Iowa. We’re going to three cities today. I’m doing prep work, setting up events at some diners, stuff like that. I wanted to call early because I saw that DNA stuff. You’re all good?”

“I’m great,” she said. “How’s the campaign going?”

“I knocked on three hundred and fifteen doors yesterday. Imagine how lucky those people were, opening their doors to see me.”

“Blessed,” Stevie said.