“Where is she?” I whispered.
Anthony lowered his gaze.
“I don’t know.”
I gripped the edge of the desk because suddenly standing felt less certain.
Maria moved closer.
I couldn’t look at her.
“Did my father lie to me?”
Anthony answered carefully.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know the entire story.”
“How much do you know?”
“Your mother left.”
The sentence should have been easier than believing she had died.
It wasn’t.
It felt infinitely worse.
“She left me?”
Anthony’s expression softened painfully.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“She tried to take you with her.”
The room became completely still.
“What?”
“Your father stopped her.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You know more.”
“He told everyone she had died. He moved you away from the city for a year. New school. New house. New staff.”
I remembered.
A house near the water.
A tutor.
No friends.
My father saying we needed privacy after the funeral.
“What was her name?” Maria asked quietly.
I looked toward her.
She seemed confused.
“My mother’s?”
“Yes.”
“Catherine.”
Anthony’s face tightened.
Maria turned toward him.
“What?”
He didn’t respond.
“What is it?” she asked.
Anthony stared at her as though he had only just realized something.
Then his eyes moved toward Sofia’s photograph resting on the shelf behind my desk.
A picture Mrs. Greene had taken in the garden and framed without asking me.
Sofia was laughing.
Sunlight falling across her face.
Anthony stood.
He walked toward the photograph.
“What are you doing?”
He picked it up.
His hands began trembling.
Maria stepped closer.
“What is it?”
Anthony looked from the photograph to Maria.
Then toward me.
“Oh, God.”
I felt cold.
“What?”
He placed the photograph back down.
“Maria, what was your mother’s name?”
She frowned.
“Why?”
“Just tell me.”
“Teresa.”
“Before marriage.”
“Teresa Alvarez.”
Anthony slowly shook his head.
“No.”
Maria’s expression hardened.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Your mother used another name before Alvarez.”
“How would you possibly know that?”
Anthony didn’t answer.
Maria stepped closer.
“How would you know my mother?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Anthony looked toward me.
And suddenly I knew I didn’t want to hear the answer.
Not because it was d@ngerous.
Because it was personal.
More personal than anything else that had happened that night.
“Anthony.”
He swallowed.
“Catherine Hale disappeared fourteen years ago.”
