Chapter 2
My mother was sitting on the floor when I opened the kennel.
Eleanor Winterbourne had dirt on her shawl and murder in her eyes.
Good.
Anger meant strength.
“About time.”
I almost laughed.
Then I knelt.
“Are you hurt?”
“My dignity.”
“Anything useful?”
“My knee.”
Better.
I helped her stand.
Carys immediately wrapped my coat around her shoulders.
Mother noticed the red mark on the maid’s cheek.
Her expression changed.
“Delphina?”
Carys nodded.
Mother looked past me.
The bride remained several yards away beneath the garden lights.
White gown.
White veil.
No bouquet.
My mother stared at her.
Then said:
“Marina.”
Delphina flinched as if struck.
Not confused.
Not uncertain.
Recognition moving both directions.
Mother held out her hand.
“Come closer.”
Delphina didn’t.
I looked between them.
“You know her.”
Mother nodded.
“Last time I saw her, she was thirteen.”
Silence.
Delphina’s voice came thin.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
Mother looked at me.
“Her name is Marina Voss.”
Delphina’s eyes filled.
I expected denial.
Instead she whispered:
“That name is dead.”
There.
Finally.
I turned toward her.
“How long?”
“Rafferty—”
“How long have you been using Delphina?”
She wiped one tear angrily.
“Since I was seventeen.”
Not stolen identity.
Chosen one.
Different.
“Why?”
She stared at Mother.
“Because Winterbourne killed everything attached to Voss.”
Mother’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“You buried my father.”
“No.”
“You hunted my mother.”
“No.”
“You made us disappear.”
Mother took one step forward despite the pain in her knee.
“I helped you disappear.”
Delphina froze.
Mother continued.
“Because Gideon asked me to.”
The garden seemed to narrow around us.
I remembered Gideon Voss differently than Delphina did.
Tall.
Quiet.
Always near my father.
The man who taught me how to spot someone following a car without turning around.
Then suddenly traitor.
Gone.
I had accepted the story because I was twenty-nine and furious.
Now Mother looked directly at Delphina.
“Your father was alive after the night everyone said he betrayed us.”
Delphina whispered:
“How long?”
May you like
Mother answered:
“Long enough to spend twenty-two years wondering why his daughter never answered him.”
