I smiled. ‘I’m glad you have her. And my pain isn’t too bad,’ I said. ‘It’s manageable, at least. I have a prescription for some hard-core painkillers if I really need them, but I’m trying to hold off.’

Maggie’s eyes flitted around the room. She wanted to talk about it, only didn’t know how.

‘You heard what happened?’ I asked.

‘Well …’

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I figured you had. About Sam.’

‘I’m glad he’s caught,’ she said. ‘No one deserves to be murdered, no matter what they’ve done.’

‘I’m glad, too.’

Maggie dug deep in her pocket. ‘By the way,’ she said, tossing a silver key onto the table between us. ‘I was organizing, and I found this.’

I reached for it, fingering the edges of the metal.

‘It’s the old spare key I had,’ she said. ‘Rachel gave it to me when she lived here.’

‘Oh,’ I said, pausing. ‘I don’t think it works anymore. Ms Moon’ – I raised my eyebrows – ‘or Mrs Alby, I guess, said the locks were changed when Rachel moved.’

‘Yes, I’m sure they were,’ Maggie said matter-of-factly. ‘You can get rid of it if you want, but I felt weird having it. I used to water her plants and things when Vera wasn’t able to.’

‘Vera had a key, too?’ I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, that Rachel’s neighbors might have a spare. Ellie had had one of mine in Brooklyn. So did the lady upstairs, just in case Davis or I ever got locked out.

Maggie folded her hands in her lap. ‘Oh, of course Vera had a spare key, same as me. Those two were thick as thieves, popping back and forth between each other’s places constantly – until things went sour.’

Claire was pregnant.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Because of everything with Claire.’

‘Yes,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s a shame how Vera handled everything. She took it all out on Rachel, who didn’t deserve it. It’s not Rachel’s fault John got the girl pregnant.’

‘You knew about that?’ I asked, my cup nearly slipping from my hand.

‘Course I did. Rachel told me as soon as she found out. She was torn up about it, didn’t know what to do, what to tell Vera.’

I raised the cup to my lips, took another sip of tea. ‘I wish Rachel had told Vera the truth about Claire being pregnant. Then maybe Vera wouldn’t have cut Rachel out like she did. I know Rachel didn’t want to hurt her, but –’

Maggie’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘Vera knew Claire was pregnant.’

I froze, the cup hovering in front of my face. I set it down, trying to stop my hands from shaking. ‘What are you talking about? Vera only just found out, when I told her.’

‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s not true.’