When she’d hung up, I sat back in my chair, exhausted. I’d been so sure the baby would prove to have been Sonia’s, or a twin to Cady. But this news—Cady was Shirley’s or Nathan’s child? Or could Sonia and Cady actually be Gertrude Perec’s daughters? Did that have anything to do with the plague years, or was it just collateral damage?

I opened my eyes: Phyllis Barrier, the head librarian, was looking down at me.

“We’re glad that the library can be helpful even to strangers, Ms. Warshawski, but I do keep wondering what service we provide that you can’t find elsewhere.”

I smiled and stood up. “Libraries are refuges, Ms. Barrier. And yours is particularly welcoming, even in the middle of the night.”

She bit her lip, wondering how to react. I delved into my backpack and produced a thin packet wrapped in tissue paper.

“One of your patrons left these at Doris McKinnon’s farm. Please let her know that at night the lights in the basement are reflected onto the parking lot. Your board probably worries about the electric bill.”

“I . . . You . . .” Barrier turned the packet over and over in her hands.

“Ms. Albritten moved your photo after the first time I visited her. She didn’t want me to connect you to her. Maybe you were right not to trust me—I couldn’t have kept them safe. In answer to your question, I come here to Skype to minimize the risk of outside ears hearing what I have to say.”

I walked away without waiting for a response and returned to the Hippo, my mind on Cady and Sonia, not Emerald and August.

Could Cady be Gertrude’s child instead of her granddaughter? I did sums in my head. Gertrude had been born in 1939 or ’40; she’d have been forty-four when Cady was born. By no means out of the question. Maybe she’d had an affair with Kiel, didn’t use protection because she thought she was postmenopausal, then pretended the child was her daughter’s. Jennifer had died, so no one could question Cady’s parentage. In that case, where was Jennifer’s child? With Matt Chastain, either in death or in hiding?

It was a story, which meant it was only that. I drove to Gertrude Perec’s house, where I found her working in her front yard. She looked up at me, but her expression was not full of love.

“Now what?”

I squatted on the ground next to her. “A complicated story. A difficult question.”

She studied me without speaking, then sighed and put down her trowel. “Come into the house. Dog stays in the car.”

Peppy was leaning out the car window, grunting her wish to be with me. I made the “stay” signal and followed Gertrude into the house, or actually the screened-in porch where I’d first met her last Wednesday.