That made everything clear—they’d been talking about Theo’s sister, not me.

“What’s Juliet done now?” I asked.

“In English you have this one word, troublemaker,” Ursula said. “But in German, we say Unruhestifter, Klatschbase, Provokateur, about a dozen more. Different words for different trouble.”

“Which one is Juliet?”

“All of them,” Ursula said. “But I like Stänkerin best.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. After what Adinah Gerstein had told me about Ursula going through Caro’s room, I wasn’t going to trust her. But I’d been pawing through my sister’s belongings too. Maybe I couldn’t throw stones.

“Auntie Dee, you’re coming to dinner?” Teddy called down the hall while munching on a cookie that probably wasn’t his first.

“Your grandpa invited me yesterday.”

“Don’t let her come over here,” Ursula hissed at Gloria.

“Okay,” Gloria answered uncertainly.

“What did Juliet do?” I whispered.

“There are ongoing conversations about custody,” Ursula said, her eyes on Teddy. “Which do not strike me as appropriate.”

We crossed the street and walked up the steps to the other Thraxton house, the one I’d never been inside. It’s unbelievable, Caroline had claimed. Like a museum. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s ridiculous anyone lives like that. She hadn’t been exaggerating. A butler answered the door. Past the foyer were a pair of massive stone lions guarding the broad hallway. They looked ancient, like something on display at the Met.

“Trains!” Teddy said.

“Of course, darling,” Ursula said. “Go and see the trains. Grandpa has them set up for you.”

Teddy skidded around one of the lions and vanished.

“Don’t worry—he knows this house inside out,” Ursula said. “Care for a drink?”

She led me into a parlor. The house was so much larger than Theo and Caroline’s. With the hallways leading east and west as well as north, I was willing to bet this mansion had swallowed real estate on either side of it. This wasn’t so much a house as a palace. Oddly, the lighting was turned down low, as if the Thraxtons were watching their energy bill. Because it was so dim, I didn’t immediately realize someone else was in the parlor when Ursula walked me in.

“Well, aren’t you the little ray of sunshine, Deirdre?” cooed a sly voice from the corner. In the gloom, I spotted Theo’s sister on a settee, her plush body spilling out of a tiger-striped dress.

I was wearing jeans and black leather boots with a draped and shirred black top, my version of church-and-family-dinner attire. “If I’d known I was going on safari, I would’ve worn khaki.”

Juliet smiled like she’d caught a canary.

“Why are you still here?” Ursula asked her.