Angelica’s gaze shifted to Elle, and she yielded to the pressure for information. “Bradley was my son, my only child, and he always loved the Tower just as it was. Aging, decrepit... He found it when he was four. Climbed the steep stairs to the tower room at the top and played there with his armies. He built Lego castles that looked like ours, and when he got older, he hauled a desk up there and did his homework while he looked out the windows to the sea. I homeschooled him, as well as some of the children around Gothic. Of course.”

“Of course,” Sofia accused Angelica. “He was lonely.”

“He never complained.” Angelica yielded. “But yes, I fear that’s true. When he went to college, he left California, and I seldom heard from him. Because he was in love.” She looked at Sofia. “He was too young.”

“I was one year older! What did you think? I was a seductress? A temptress? He was my first lover!”

Elle covered her ears and hummed loudly.

“I loved him. We loved each other.” Sofia spoke to Angelica and Elle.

“You were too young. Both less than twenty. I could not approve.” Angelica sounded and looked like a mature, sensible matron, not like a woman who had seen all hopes of love and family crushed.

“He loved me. He loved you.” Sofia stood. “You made him miserable.”

“Yes. Worse, when he brought you home, I treated you badly.”

Sofia snorted. And sat.

Angelica looked her right in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Sofia took a breath, let it out in a sigh and leaned back in her chair. “Apology accepted.”

“He brought you home to meet me, it went badly, and he went with you to the airport and came back. He didn’t come to find me. Or maybe he did. I tried to reconstruct those moments, and if my appointment calendar is correct, I was chastising an employee who... Well, not important. Not as important as my son. Bradley went up to his room in the Tower, to his desk, and started a letter to me.” Angelica looked at Elle. “I know this because after we spoke this afternoon, I climbed the stairs, four stories, to the Tower room. I would not ask someone else to go up there if it was dangerous. As I now suspected it was.”

Adam took Elle’s hand and squeezed her fingers.

She clung to him.

Angelica cleared her throat. “Bradley was writing a letter that assured me that he loved me, that he loved you, Sofia, that he hoped and prayed we could be a family soon because you were going to have a baby—”

Sofia pressed her fist to her mouth and tears overflowed.