“What did she say?” Patricia asked.

“Wanda doesn’t know, but then the DSS showed up and a policeman stood at the door,” Mrs. Greene said. “They told her Destiny was on drugs and had marks where someone injected her. They asked her who the man was that Destiny referred to as ‘Boo Daddy.’ Wanda told them she wasn’t seeing any man, but they didn’t believe her.”

“I’ll call those officers from last night,” Patricia said, frantic. “I’ll call them and they can talk to DSS. And Carter can call her doctor. What was his name?”

“You promised this wouldn’t happen,” Mrs. Greene said. “Both of you promised.”

“Carter will call,” Patricia said. “He’ll straighten this out. Should I come out to talk to Wanda?”

“I think it’s best if you don’t see Wanda Taylor right now,” Mrs. Greene said. “She’s not in a receptive frame of mind.”

Patricia disconnected the call but held onto the receiver as the kitchen spun around her. She had seen Destiny. She’d been in her bedroom. She’d sat with her mother. She’d seen her tiny, limp body underneath James Harris, while he stood over her, his face covered in her blood.

“I’m bored,” Blue said, coming into the den.

“Only boring people get bored,” Patricia said, automatically.

“Everyone’s at camp,” Blue said. “There’s no one to play with.”

How had this happened? What had she done?

“Go read a book,” she said.

She picked up the phone and dialed Carter’s office.

“I’ve read all my books,” he said.

“We’ll go to the library later,” she said.

The phone rang, Carter picked up, and she told him what had happened.

“I’m in the middle of a million things right now,” he said.

“We promised her, Carter. We made a promise. That woman is covered in stitches from trying to help your mother.”

“Okay, okay, Patty, I’ll make some calls.”

* * *

—

“Everyone thinks Hitler was bad,” Blue said to the dinner table. “But Himmler was worse.”

“Okay,” Carter said, trying to wind him down. “Can you pass the salt, Patty?”

Patricia picked up the saltshaker but didn’t hand it to Blue just yet.

“Did you call that doctor about Destiny Taylor today?” she asked.

Carter had been deflecting her ever since he got home.

“Can I get the salt before I’m interrogated?” he asked.

She made herself smile and passed it to Blue.

“He was the head of the SS,” Blue said. “Which stands for Schutzstaffel. They were the secret police in Germany.”

“That sounds pretty bad, buddy,” Carter said, taking the salt from him.

“I’m not sure that’s appropriate conversation for the dinner table,” Patricia said.

“The Holocaust was all his idea,” Blue continued.

Patricia waited until Carter had salted everything on his plate for what Patricia thought was a very long time.

“Carter?” she asked the second the saltshaker touched the table. “Did you call?” He put down his fork and gathered his thoughts before looking up at her, and Patricia knew this was a bad sign. “We promised, Carter.”

“The second they form a search committee, any chance I have of becoming department head is over,” Carter said. “And they are so close to a decision that everything I do is scrutinized under a microscope. How do you think it would look if the candidate for chief of psych, who’s a state employee, started calling up other state employees and telling them how to do their jobs? Do you know how bad that would look for me? The Medical University is a state institution. Things have to get done a certain way. I can’t just run around asking questions and casting aspersions.”

“We made a promise,” Patricia said, and realized her hand was shaking. She put her fork down.

“They did medical experiments in the camps,” Blue said. “They would torture one twin and see if the other one felt anything.”

“If her doctor made a decision to remove her from her home, he had a good reason and I’m not going to second-guess him,” Carter said, picking up his fork. “And frankly, after seeing that trailer, he probably made the right decision.”

Which was when the doorbell rang, and Patricia jumped in her seat. Her heart started beating triple time. She had a sinking feeling she knew who it was. She wanted to say something to Carter, to show him how unfair he was being, but the doorbell rang again. Carter looked up over his forkful of chicken.

“Are you going to get that?” he asked.

“I’ll get it,” Blue said, sliding out of his chair.

Patricia stood up and blocked him.

“Finish your chicken,” she said.

She walked toward the front door like a prisoner approaching the electric chair. She swung it wide and through the screen door she saw James Harris. He smiled. This first encounter would be the hardest, but with her family at her back and her house around her, standing on her private property, Patricia gave him her very best fake hostess smile. She’d had lots of practice.

“What a pleasant surprise,” she said through the screen door.

“Did I catch you during a meal again?” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s no bother.”

“You know,” he said, “I got interrupted during a meal recently. It was very upsetting.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. No, she told herself, it was an innocent comment. He wasn’t testing her.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

“It made me think about you,” he said. “It made me realize how often I interrupt your family’s meals.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We enjoy having you.”

She examined his face carefully through the screen. He examined her face right back.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Ever since you invited me into your home I just can’t stay away. I almost feel like it’s my house, too.”

“How nice,” she said.

“So when I found myself dealing with an unpleasant situation today I thought of you,” he said. “You were so helpful last time.”

“Oh?” Patricia said.

“The woman who cleaned for my great-aunt disappeared,” he said. “And I heard that someone was spreading the story that the last place she was seen was my house. The insinuation is that I had something to do with it.”

And Patricia knew. The police had been to see him. They hadn’t said her name. He hadn’t seen her last night. But he was suspicious and had come here to test her, to see if he could jolt her into revealing something. Clearly he had never been to a cocktail party in the Old Village before.

“Who would say something like that, I wonder?” Patricia asked.

“I thought you might have heard something.”

“I don’t listen to gossip.”

“Well,” he said. “The way I heard it, she took off with some fella.”

“Then that settles that,” she said.

“It hurts me to think that you or your kids might hear that I did something to her,” he said. “The last thing I want is for anyone to be afraid of me.”

“Don’t you worry about that for a second,” Patricia said, and she made herself meet his eyes. “No one in this house is afraid of you.”

They held each other for a second, and it felt like a challenge. She looked away first.

“It’s just the way you’re talking to me,” he said. “You won’t open the door. You seem distant. Usually you invite me in when I drop by. I feel like something’s changed.”

“Not a thing,” she said, and realized what she had to do. “We were about to have dessert. Won’t you join us?”

She kept her breathing under control, kept a pleasant smile on her face.

“That would be nice,” he said. “Thank you.”

She realized she had to let him in now, and she forced her arm to reach out toward the door, and she felt the bones in her shoulder grating as she took the latch in one hand and twisted it clockwise. The screen door groaned on its spring.

“Come in,” she said. “You’re always welcome.”

She stood to the side as he stepped past her, and she saw his chin covered with blood and that thing retracting into his mouth, and it was only a shadow, and she closed the door behind him.

“Thank you,” he said.

He had gotten into her house the same as if he’d held a gun to her head. She had to stay calm. She wasn’t helpless. How many times had she stood at a party or in the supermarket, talking about someone’s child being slow, or their baby being ugly, and that person appeared out of nowhere and she smiled in their face and said, I was just thinking about you and that cute baby of yours, and they never had a clue.

She could do this.

“…would drain the person of all their blood and then give them someone else’s blood that was the wrong type,” Blue was saying as she led James Harris back into the dining room.

“Mm-hmm,” Carter said, ignoring Blue.

“Are you talking about Himmler and the camps?” James Harris asked.

Blue and Carter stopped and looked up. Patricia saw every detail in the room all at once. Everything felt freighted with importance.

“Look who stopped by.” She smiled. “Just in time for dessert.”

She picked up her napkin and sat down, gesturing to her left for James Harris to be seated.