“I know,” I said softly. We were silent for a minute. “I need to ask you something, Ursula. Did Caroline ever ask you about my first wife?”

My stepmother nodded sadly. “She did. It was almost three months ago. She was a little bit sneaky about it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my brain doing the arithmetic. Caroline had first mentioned divorce two months ago, but she’d never explained why she suddenly wanted one.

“She came to your father’s house several times, looking for photographs.” Ursula took another drink. She and my father lived in a tremendous town house directly across the street from ours, but my stepmother only ever referred to it as your father’s house. The smaller town house Caroline and I shared had been a wedding gift from them. “One day, when no one else was around, she said to me, ‘Is there a photo album from Theo’s first wedding?’”

I inhaled sharply. “How did she . . . ?”

Ursula put up a hand. “I have no idea—I am simply telling you what I know, dear. Caroline caught me by surprise with that, but she was too clever for her own good. I said, ‘What photo album?’ Of course, I should have said, ‘What wedding?’ But it didn’t really matter. Caroline said, ‘Wasn’t Theo married before?’ and I said of course not. She persisted. ‘Isn’t that why he dropped out of university in Berlin?’ Ah, pardon me, she said college, not university. I asked who told her this baffling thing.”

“What did she say?”

“She tried to pretend you—yes, you yourself, Theo—had made some oblique reference.” Ursula rolled her eyes. “I grew up with a father and brother in the Stasi. This pretty little girl thought she could trick me?”

I didn’t say it was likely because Ursula was drunk when Caroline tried to ambush her, but the thought crossed my mind. My stepmother could read me, though.

“You are thinking it is because of the wine.” She lifted her glass and drank defiantly. “I have been keeping secrets for the Thraxton family ever since my brother placed me in your father’s house. I am a vault. I do not slip up. I did not spill a word about your . . . mistakes.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, and Mirelle’s face appeared, as if conjured from the back of my mind. There had been a time when I’d thought about nothing except her death, but I’d finally realized I had to keep moving forward, in spite of what I’d done. I could still do good in the world. I could spend the rest of my life making up for my mistakes. I am full of hidden horrors, whispered a voice, and I shuddered. There had been so much blood when Mirelle died . . .