“I’m going to check your phone records. One call. That’s all I need. One call placed from Tessa to you and your new little family is going to fall apart, too, Juliana. I’m gonna rip it apart, if I learn you’ve been holding out on me.”

“Get out!” Juliana screamed. On the floor, the baby responded to his mother’s tone and started to wail.

D.D. climbed off the sofa. She kept her eyes on Juliana MacDougall, the woman’s pale face, heaving shoulders, wild gaze. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She looked like a woman trapped by a ten-year-old lie.

D.D. gave one last try: “What happened that night, Juliana? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I loved her,” the woman said suddenly. “Tessa was my best friend in the whole world, and I loved her. Then my brother died, my family shattered, and my world went to shit. I’m not going back. Not for her, not for you, not for anyone. Whatever happened to Tessa this time around, I don’t know and I don’t care. Now get out of my home, Detective, and don’t bother me or my family again.”

Juliana held open the door. Her baby was still sobbing on the floor. D.D. took the hint and finally departed. The door slammed shut behind her, the dead bolt turning for good measure.

When D.D. turned, however, she could see Juliana through the front window. The woman had picked up her crying son, cradling the baby against her chest. Soothing the child or letting the child soothe her?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe that’s the way these things worked.

Juliana MacDougall loved her son. As her parents had loved her brother. As Tessa Leoni loved her daughter.

Cycles, D.D. thought. Pieces of a larger pattern. Except she couldn’t quite pull it apart, or put it back together.

Parents loved their children. Some parents would go to any length to protect them. And other parents …

D.D. started to get a bad feeling.

Then her cellphone rang.

Chapter 19

19

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren and Detective Bobby Dodge came for me at 11:43 a.m. I heard their footsteps in the corridor, fast and focused. I had a split second; I used it to stash the blue button in the back part of the lowest drawer in the hospital bed stand.

My only link to Sophie.

My final unnecessary reminder to play by the rules.

Maybe, one day I could return and retrieve the button. If I was lucky, maybe Sophie and I could do it together, reclaiming Gertrude’s missing eye and reattaching it to her dispassionate doll’s face.

If I was lucky.