“We were different, Mr. Fox. But we were sisters. We looked out for each other.”

Fox straightens away from the photograph and continues down the hall. By now it’s drawing close to seven in the morning and the fizz of discovery has died away. I’m unsettled and exhausted. I can’t think. I sense a puzzle of a thousand pieces lying before me, and I can’t lift one, let alone connect it to another. We reach the door. Fox opens it and turns to say good-bye.

“How worried should I be?” I ask.

For the first time, his face softens. His pale eyes ease around the corners.

“Miss Macallister, I can only promise I’ll do my damnedest to see no harm comes to Mrs. Digby, so long as I’m on the case.”

AFTER HE LEAVES, I finish my Bloody Mary and make some dry toast. There’s no point in trying to sleep, but I return to my bedroom anyway and pick up the photograph on the nightstand.

You have to remember that my sister is an artist. Since we were children she would stare at a painting or a drawing, a statue or a photograph, and take in every detail, however small. She would remember things about people and places. She would pick up her charcoals or her watercolors or her oil paints, and what I noticed—when I was bothered to notice—was that every stroke mattered, every speck that appeared on the paper or the canvas had some purpose, like a novelist writing a book—every word matters—or a musician composing a symphony—every note matters.

So I study that photograph with the same attention to detail from which I imagine she created it. I squint at the children’s faces and their clothing. Though the photograph is black and white, I can tell they’re standing in front of some Arctic habitat, like the one in the Bronx Zoo. An animal stands behind the little girl. It has white fur, and it’s preparing to slide into the water. A polar bear.

I set the photograph back down on the nightstand and walk to the hallway closet, where I pull down the suitcase from the uppermost shelf.

Iris

JUNE 1940

Rome, Italy

Since the day Iris had returned from her week with Sasha, the tenth of May, the radio remained switched on almost permanently—except when Ruth and Iris were asleep—blaring out tinny news bulletins from the BBC that turned worse and worse as the days went by.