Chapter 1
“That wallpaper went up yesterday.”
Althea stopped breathing.
Only for a beat.
Enough.
Sabella turned so sharply toward the adjoining sitting room that the coins of silverware and glass around us seemed suddenly too loud.
I held the photograph beside the doorway.
Same blue flowers.
Same pale vines.
Same pattern interrupted by the same narrow gold stripe.
Not similar.
Identical.
I looked at Althea.
“When was this taken?”
“I told you. It’s old.”
“No.”
My voice remained quiet.
“The wall is one day old.”
The nearest guests had stopped speaking.
Sabella reached for the photograph with shaking fingers.
I gave it to her.
She studied her mother’s clothes.
A wool cardigan.
Pearl buttons.
Silver chain.
Then her face changed.
“That’s new too.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“The cardigan.”
“How new?”
“I bought it for her seven months ago.”
One month before Elowen Dorrington vanished.
Sabella touched the corner of the photograph.
Then:
“Her hair.”
“What about it?”
“My mother always cut it herself.”
Her voice broke.
“Someone else cut this.”
Althea snapped:
“This is absurd.”
I ignored her.
Sabella looked toward the sitting room.
“Was she here?”
No answer.
I stepped through the doorway.
The room appeared untouched.
New wallpaper.
New chairs.
Flowers.
A tray with two teacups.
One cup still carried a pale lipstick mark.
Sabella saw it.
“My mother wears that color.”
Althea followed us in.
“That proves nothing.”
Then I noticed something beneath the sofa.
A knitting needle.
Plain wood.
One end wrapped in red thread.
Sabella dropped to her knees.
Picked it up.
Her entire body went still.
“She wraps all of them like this because her fingers slip.”
I looked at my fiancée.
“You had an elderly woman in this room yesterday.”
Althea’s face emptied.
I stepped closer.
“Where is Elowen Dorrington?”
She whispered:
“She’s safe.”
Sabella made a broken sound behind me.
Six months of uncertainty ended with two words.
Not dead.
Not lost.
May you like
Safe.
Which meant someone had always known where she was.
