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Each unanswered ring carved her gut. She rushed up the sharp, marble staircase, and stumbled. The phone slipped from her hand, bounced, and shattered down the steps. “No!” Analise cussed, rushing to find the pieces. Her hands shook, jamming the cracked battery cover on. Reaching Taylor was impossible now with a broken phone, and she sprinted back up and around a corner, following the din of ambient music, clinking flatware, and jovial laughter. Embarrassed and insecure over her casual appearance, she cowered at the threshold of the party, pocketing her mittens, momentarily struck by the beauty of the glittering skyline outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Isa.”

Analise decompressed at the sound of Taylor’s voice. She turned and found his arms. His familiar smell was tainted with booze and hair gel, and his kiss was sloppy. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she cried.

He patted his blazer and cursed. “I think I left it on the table.” Taylor bumped and sidled through the guests, disappearing. She slunk against a wall and dug her nails into the top of her hand, counting the seconds before he returned.

He emerged, with his mother trailing, quietly berating him, her brow and cranberry lips wound tight. Analise braced herself. But when they approached, their eyes grew, gluing onto someone behind her.

Taylor’s mother appeared to slam into an invisible wall when she cried, “Ulla!”

Analise whipped around, unsure of what shocked her more. That Taylor’s mom knew Ulla? Or that she’d followed her! Ulla’s perpetual calm exterior and her narrow range of expression was something Analise chose to interpret as protection from past hurt. The armor was gone now. “It’s not enough you destroyed my life once, you have to keep doing it!” She motioned at Taylor.

His mom blanched and bobbed her head at the nearby guests as if to assess how much they’d heard. She gripped Ulla’s arm, dragging her out of the room. “I had nothing to do with this.”

Analise pleaded with Ulla, “What is going on? If you didn’t want me to see Taylor because of his mom, why didn’t you just⁠—!”

“I asked you to trust me!” shrieked Ulla. She stabbed a finger at Taylor. “He was raised by two murdering narcissists!”

Taylor cursed softly.

“Stop it,” Linnea countered, shaking.

Taylor’s dad appeared, and his face mottled upon seeing Ulla, but he recovered, and said with a measured disdain, “Do I need to call the police? You weren’t invited here.” He shifted his eyes to Analise, studying her, his ire giving way to an odd realization.

Taylor tugged on Analise and palmed his head. “Can we let the grown-ups figure out their own shit? C’mon.”

Analise resisted and gaped at the three of them. “Mamma?”

Ulla stared hard at Analise before demanding in Swedish, “End it. Now.”

She cried back in Swedish, “You’re being so unreasonable!”

“When in your entire life have I ever been unreasonable!”

“You can’t ask me to do this! I love him!”

“More than me?” It wasn’t betrayal that set Ulla’s mouth trembling, nor anger. Grief? She turned and left.

Ulla would only need time, that’s all, right? They’d talk over these sordid accusations about Taylor’s parents. Ulla would understand Taylor was nothing like them. But something told Analise if she didn’t go after her, do something, she would irreparably lose Ulla. Analise cried an apology to Taylor and ran from him.

But he caught up at the top of the stairs.

His hand was too clumsy from the alcohol when he reached for her.

Chapter Forty-Three

Linnea

Linnea paced outside the small interview room at the third precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department. Surely she looked the part of a gothic model with her dripping mascara, faux fur coat, black heels, ripped pantyhose, and bedraggled strands escaping her stylish chignon.

Everett was still on the phone at the end of the hallway, head lowered, hand on his hip. She looked at the wad of shredded tissue in her grip bearing wet makeup stains and snot. Where did she get a Kleenex? Was it in her purse? Had someone from the police station given it to her?

Taylor’s heartbroken cries had abated for now, but it wasn’t the end of them. Linnea knew she’d still hear those cries in her sleep.

Everett finally ended the call and walked to her. Linnea choked down the bile lumped in her throat. “What did Francis say?” she asked, referring to their lawyer.

He sighed. “To make sure Taylor shuts up. They can’t hold him here. Ulla might still be able to press charges, but probably not if her daughter corroborates Taylor’s story.”