“She wanted to leave your father,” Klaus said. “But I cared more about my friend’s feelings than I did about hers. I never thought about Ursula’s troubles. I told her she had to stay, and she did.”

It was after eleven when I got back to my hotel, but that meant it was only five o’clock in New York. I called Gloria to check up on Teddy, and then I called Dr. Haven.

“I need to tell you everything I’ve found out,” I said. The words tumbled out of me, with parts of the story in the wrong order, but Dr. Haven listened patiently. At one point, I heard an awful sob and realized belatedly that it had bubbled out of my chest. I was enraged, but I also felt empty and betrayed. I was used to a lack of trust with everyone in my family. I was familiar with the eternal chess games, and I knew that I was just a pawn to my father. But the fact that he would commit a crime and make me believe I was responsible for it was a nightmare I could never wake up from.

Eventually I ran out of words. My face was wet. My breath escaped in tiny gasps.

“Theo . . . this is like something out of a horror movie,” Dr. Haven said finally. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen family members do terrible things to each other, but this is beyond that.”

“I want to make sure that my father never gets anywhere near Teddy.”

“There’s a lot of talk about grandparents’ rights, but they don’t exist,” Dr. Haven said. “Unless the custodial parent can be proven unfit.”

I had no doubt that’s what my father was doing. The question pricking at my brain was whether he’d considered Caroline an unfit parent too. He was doing his damnedest to claim my son, and I could only wonder how far he’d go.

“I know you don’t feel like you can trust anyone right now, but I want you to listen to me,” she added. “You need to trust yourself. Your father—your whole family—plays mind games, but that’s not who you are, Theo. Trust yourself.”

That was easy for her to say, I thought ruefully after we hung up. She didn’t have a chorus in the back of her head whispering, I am full of hidden horrors. She didn’t live with the torment of not knowing what part of your own brain you could rely on.