I glanced toward the cabana next to the pool, noting that there were several lights on inside. I took a chance and headed there now, despite the fact that I wanted to get into the main house while Marion’s visitors were still there and perhaps mingle and meet a few of them.

Still, this seemed a good time to question Sidra. I hoped she would be alone; I wondered where the child, Carlos, was and why I had neither seen nor heard him thus far.

I reached the door of the cabana and rapped on it lightly, and after a moment the door swung open to reveal a sobbing Sidra. If she had been crying before, right now she seemed positively hysterical. Though I didn’t know her, I felt the urge to wrap my arms around her and tell her it would all be okay.

“What do you want?” she asked, not unkindly. She stood in the doorway, clutching a handkerchief to her cheek, her shoulders shuddering from stifled tears.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” I said. “Obviously, you’re not.”

She seemed to sense my honest concern, and after a moment recognition came into her face.

“You’re the woman Marion invited to stay here, the woman who found Wendell’s body.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize that earlier. Come in.”

I stepped up into the cabana and pulled the door closed behind me. I looked around, noting the tasteful but subdued beige-and-brown decor of the living room/kitchen. The place looked like what it was, a poolside cabana that had been converted temporarily into an apartment.

“I know we don’t know each other,” I said, “but I was worried about you. You seemed so distraught earlier. And now, even more so.”

That set her off. She let out a sob, catching it in the handkerchief pressed to her lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m just so frightened, so confused. So many things have happened, and then the roses and now the picture…”

She pointed toward a shelf of photos, and I stepped closer, taking them all in. There were several photos of Sidra, as beautiful in pictures as she was in person, along with quite a few small framed photos of a handsome little boy.

“Is this your son?” I asked.

“Carlos. He’s away at a soccer tournament.”

Looking down, I realized that one of the photos was on the floor, a lovely family portrait that had been shattered, a knife bored into it through Sidra’s face.

I gasped, kneeling down to get a better look. It was a framed 8x10 photo of the Smythe family, a nice professional shot like the kind people send in Christmas cards. In it, the family was posed artfully around a fireplace with Marion and Wendell seated at the center. I recognized Judith to their right and Derek and Sidra to their left with Carlos standing in front of them.

“Who did this?” I asked. The knife looked like an ordinary steak knife, but it had been driven right into the photo, broken glass radiating out from there like a spiderweb.