Edith looks nervously between me and Sky. “Is that all right? She knows all about the baby.”
“Does she?” Sky raises one eyebrow. “And does this friend have a name?”
“Daphne,” I say, stepping forward. “Daphne Marist.”
“Funny,” Sky says, “I could have sworn I knew you under a different name.”
“And I could have sworn your name was Schuyler.”
“Silly,” Edith jumps in. “Her middle name is Schuyler. That’s her mother’s maiden name but she hates it because it’s too . . . what did you always say, Libby?”
“Too bourgeois,” Sky says with a wry smile. “Oh, the conceits of youth! I thought my first name, Elizabeth, was too snooty too, so I went by Libby.”
“And you were Edith’s roommate, the one who—”
“Let’s not rehash old history while the two of you are so clearly in need of baths and a good meal,” Sky interrupts.
At the word bath Edith tenses. I imagine I do too.
“We’ll start with lunch then,” Sky says, “which is being served on the terrace. Come along. There are some other guests I think you’ll be pleased to see.”
WHEN I WALK onto the terrace and see Peter, I freeze. I want to turn and run. But then I hear a baby’s cry. It’s coming from a portable crib. An infant is standing up, holding the bars of the crib. I walk straight toward her, the world around me blurring. She’s wearing a pink-and-orange playsuit. Blond, wispy hair; blue eyes; wide, chubby face—the details don’t matter. They could belong to any baby of eight months. Even the strawberry mark on her nose could belong to any baby. And who am I to know my own baby when I took another woman’s?
But when she holds up her arms, I pick her up. Her body feels stiff at first, resistant, but then I feel her muscles relax and she molds to me. Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. I know it’s her. The fact that she knew me first is only a little bit chastening.
I feel a touch on my elbow and I spin around, tightening my hold, but it’s only Billie leading me to a chair. I sit down warily, holding on to Chloe so tightly she begins to squirm. Carefully, I place her on my lap. She looks up at me, waves her arms and smiles. I laugh, smile back, order myself not to cry.
I feel another touch on my arm and look down to see Edith crouched on the flagstone, beaming up at me. “See, I told you we would find her.”
I shake my head, unable to parse the delusional logic that led us here. I’m reminded of something my mother used to say: Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But was this just chance?
I look around the circle of chairs on the terrace. Peter, stone-faced; Edith, beaming; Sky, looking at Edith, her face rapt with some strong emotion. I pick up that thread first. “You were Edith’s roommate. Is that how she ended up here after—”
“After the incident,” she says quickly. Did she think I was going to blurt out after Edith tossed her baby in the trash? “I thought it was the best place for her, where she could best be taken care of. She always knows I’m here for her, right, Edith?”
Edith tears her eyes away from me and Chloe to look at her friend. “We have secret signals,” she says. “Like in Nancy Drew.”
“The light in the tower,” I say. “You use it to signal to Edith. But how . . .” I look down at Sky’s legs and notice now that she’s not using a cane. She’d walked from the tower to the terrace without one.
“My arthritis comes and goes,” Sky says. “And if I can’t make it up to the tower myself, Billie sends a signal. I make sure that Edie is well taken care of, just as Peter wanted to make sure that you were well taken care of.”
I laugh. Chloe looks up at me expectantly. I smile at her and temper my response. “I don’t think Peter’s motives were quite as altruistic.”
“He was only trying to protect you and Chloe,” Sky says. “You have to admit you were acting erratically.”
“You were going to take her from me,” Peter says. The first thing he’s said since I’ve arrived. “You were looking at jobs on the Internet.”
“For Laurel,” I say.
He laughs. “That may be what you told yourself, but you know the truth. You always meant to take the job yourself. You jumped at the chance when you saw the ad from Schuyler Bennett, your favorite author.”
I look at Sky to see how she responds to his mocking tone, but she is staring at me with a grim expression. “Did you put the ad online for Peter?” I ask.
“It was my idea,” she says. “I didn’t want to believe that a mother would take her child away from its father, but Peter told me you were delusional, that you’d concocted a story of abuse that wasn’t based on reality. He was afraid you were going to run away with Chloe and then hurt yourself and Chloe. I said, Why don’t we see? I placed the ad where you’d see it and you jumped at it, using that poor Hobbes woman’s CV. I saw then that Peter was right and that the best thing I could do was make sure you had a safe place to come with Chloe. I didn’t know that your delusion was so developed you would lead your friend into suicide.”
“I didn’t!” I object. “I don’t even think Laurel did kill herself. It was Stan and Peter’s plan to get Laurel’s money.”
“But why would they kill Laurel when her money wouldn’t even go to Stan?” Sky asks reprovingly.
I shake my head, confused and beginning to feel frightened. Chloe, sensing my fear, begins to fret in my lap. “Maybe they didn’t know until it was too late,”
