“Father made it clear I was never supposed to talk about her. Not ever.” Juliet’s red mouth tightened. “I was seven when she vanished. I couldn’t understand what had happened—I went to bed one night and everything was normal. When I woke up the next morning, our mother was gone and you were badly injured. Father wouldn’t take you to the hospital, but there were a pair of doctors buzzing around, and Ursula was barking at them in German. I didn’t understand a word. Father told me that our mother had tried to kill you before she ran away. He told me I couldn’t tell anyone, or our mother would go to jail forever, that they might even execute her.” Her eyes were damp. “Even then, I knew he was lying. And he made me lie to you. He said it would be better if you thought a wild animal attacked you. He made up a story about you being torn up by a tiger at the zoo. I know it sounds horrible, but I went along with it. He always reminded me what would happen to our mother if I didn’t.”

“Our mother was already dead,” I said.

“On some level, I think I knew she was gone, but I clung to anything that let me pretend she was alive,” Juliet said.

“What else do you remember?”

“I know Ursula went away for a long time, and I was so glad—you know how much I always hated her—but then she came back, and they got married. In my mind, she was the wicked witch who got rid of my mother.”

“Father’s the one we should blame. He killed our mother.”

Juliet perched on the edge of the bed. “How can you be sure? You weren’t even four when all of this happened.”

“You don’t have to trust my memory,” I said. “Ursula’s been dropping hints that she can’t live with herself. I believe she knows most of what happened. The question is if we can get her to admit it.”

Then I told her everything.

CHAPTER 52 THEO

CHAPTER 52

THEO

When I got out of the hospital a week after I went in, I returned to the cursed house my father had bought as a present for a doomed marriage. But I also quietly made the preparations I needed to. It wouldn’t do to make a move until I was ready.

By the time I came home, Ursula had been moved from a mental hospital—to ensure she didn’t attempt to kill herself again—to an alcohol-detox facility upstate. She wept when I drove up to see her. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was helping Teddy,” she said. “That was all I cared about.”

“I know you did,” I told her. “And you still can. You told me Caroline wanted you to reveal the truth. I need you to do that.”