I forced myself to laugh a little with her and sat talking awhile. She wore out quickly, though, and fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. I stayed with her while she slept, haunted by Gabriella’s accusations in my dreams.

What a life. Growing up in that soul-killing house, raped by her own uncle, poisoned by her employer, and dying slowly and painfully. Yet she wasn’t an unhappy person. When she’d moved next door she was frightened but not angry. She’d raised Caroline with joy and had taken pleasure in the freedom to lead her own life away from her parents. So maybe my pity was not only misplaced but condescending.

While I watched Louisa’s chest rise and fall with her stertorous breath, I wondered what I should tell Caroline about her father. Not telling her was a form of control, a seizing of power in her life I had no right to. But telling her seemed unreasonably cruel. Did she deserve so heavy a knowledge?

I was still chewing it over in my mind when she dashed in at noon to fix Louisa’s lunch, a light little meal with no salt and precious little food. Caroline was glad to see me but in a hurry, racing between meetings.

“Did you find the flyer? I left it by the coffeepot. I wish you’d tell me why you’re so excited about it—if it concerns Ma I have a right to know.”

“If I knew exactly how it concerned her, I’d tell you in a flash—I’m just picking my way through the forest right now.”

I found the flyer and studied it while she took Louisa’s lunch in to her. It left me more baffled than I’d been originally: all kinds of benefits Louisa got regularly were excluded. Outpatient care, dialysis, home oxygen. When Caroline came in I asked her who paid for all those things, wondering if she was somehow scraping the money together.

She shook her head. “Xerxes has been real good to Ma. They pay all these bills without asking. If you can’t tell me what’s going on with my own mother, I’m heading back to the office. And maybe I can find someone there who’ll tell me. Maybe I’ll hire my own investigator.” She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Try it, brat—all the PI’s in town have been informed that you’re a bad risk.”

She laughed and left. I stayed until Louisa had eaten her meager lunch and fallen asleep once more. Leaving the television on as white noise, I tiptoed out and returned the spare key to the ledge over the back porch.

I wished I understood the point of doing all that blood work years before anyone was interested in suing the company. Presumably it tied in with the insurance fiddle, but I couldn’t see the exact connection. I didn’t know anyone at Xerxes who might talk to me. Ms. Chigwell might, but her connection had been tenuous and not exactly sympathetic. She was all I had, though, so I made the long drive to Hinsdale.