“Our former butler’s daughter. She used to come to the house sometimes when I was growing up and her mother was ill. Mother paid for her schooling. Her name is Vera Lackey.”
Grace turned to her cousin with a mix of dread and excitement. “Lillie, this woman was following Harriet and Oliver. She was spying on Harriet in the days right before her death.”
Lillie went a little pale. She set the spoon down as gently as a whisper.
“Do you know where we could find her?” Grace asked. “I’d like to talk to her.”
“Oh, we’re going to talk to her,” Lillie said, trembling a little. She summoned the waiter for the check. “But we’re going to confront my scheming, meddling mother about it first.”
Grace made plans to meet with Walt again tomorrow, which she knew all too well may or may not actually happen. She had hugged him for a second longer than was natural, feeling his ribs too keenly beneath his worn suit, the sour smell of sweat, and held on to the scrap of hope that he would come through with the information she had asked for. She slipped him the address of the studio where she was staying, so at least he would have a way of contacting her.
“Tomorrow,” she said meaningfully, looking into his eyes.
He wiped a bit of ice cream from her cheek.
She still felt the touch of his fingers when Lillie’s carriage moved through the shadow-spackled streets around Forest Park.
The Carters’ brick house loomed as the carriage approached, and along with it rose up Grace’s complicated memories of being there. She had played hoop and stick with Oliver and Lillie, just there, and eaten creamed lemonade with honey. Oliver had fallen from the front railing after trying to balance on it like an acrobat and, instead of being comforted, had been scolded for tracking blood in the house.
Now Grace followed Lillie up the front steps, Lillie striding with purpose. Lillie was usually the calmest, gentlest person Grace knew. Which made her the most frightening person imaginable when she was angry.
But they weren’t alone. There was a woman standing at the door, waiting. Her back was to them, as though she had just finished ringing the doorbell.
Grace had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she faintly realized the worn spots on the woman’s coat. The pattern of the bag that was clutched in the woman’s hand. She was out of place on the Carters’ front porch, and yet Grace would recognize her anywhere.
Grace stopped short, and the woman spun around.
Eyes just like her own, echoed in another face.
Nell Carter Covington.
Her mother.
“Thank God! Grace Carter Covington. Where have you been?” Grace’s mother asked angrily.
Her eyes filled with tears, caught between relief and fury, the same way that Walt had just made Grace feel. Grace was pierced with guilt as her mother grabbed her, hugging her hard enough to make it hurt.
“Aunt Nell,” Lillie said warmly. “It’s so good to see you. Let us go in.”
Lillie led them inside, deftly removing her hat, and instructed Waters to inform her mother to come down.
He gave an uneasy look in Grace’s direction, but Lillie’s voice turned to steel. “Now, please, Waters.”
He hurried away.
Lillie brought them into the sitting room, fussing over Nell and calling for tea. There were flowers starting to droop in their crystal vases—the only sign that things were not truly right in the Carter home.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” Grace said.
“Looking for you,” Nell said sharply. “Clove refused to take my calls. I had no idea where you were. At this fair, with hundreds of thousands of strangers. You have no idea the agony you have put your father and me through these last few days.”
“I’m fine, Mother. I’m sorry. I should have let you know that I was all right.” It was strange to see her mother in this house. She looked like her older brother Reginald, but she had their mother’s high cheekbones and deeper lines etched around her mouth. Grace could see the resemblance all the more clearly in the large portrait of her grandmother that hung in the hallway.
“I couldn’t reach you,” Nell said. “And with this terrible mess Oliver is caught up in…”
“He didn’t do it,” Grace said, reaching to squeeze Lillie’s hand.
“Of course he didn’t,” Nell snapped. “But reason stands that if it wasn’t Oliver, that means someone else is still out there…”
