“You told me, a long time ago,” I said, “that you didn’t have any children.”

“I remember,” she said. “I guess, first of all, I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted to protect her. And also, a large part of me doesn’t feel I deserve to be called a mother.”

Claire, sitting back down, said, “Miranda.”

“It’s true,” Trixie said. “If I were a good mother, a responsible mother, I wouldn’t have had to ask my sister, and her husband here, to raise her.” She gave Don a warm smile and he gave a tired shrug.

“Why are Claire and Don raising Katie?” I asked. “It’s not just because of, you know, your choice of occupation.”

“No,” Trixie said. “That’s not it.”

Everyone was suddenly very quiet. No one stirred coffee or cut cake. The only sound came from the TV in the other room.

“I could never guarantee that Katie would be safe, living with me,” Trixie said. “I’ve spent the last four years looking over my shoulder. The men, that man, coming after me, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Katie to get at me.”

“Are we talking about Gary Merker?” I asked.

“He murdered Katie’s father,” she said. “And he’d like nothing more than to find me, kill me too. And Katie.”

“Why?”

Trixie opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out right away.

“Is it because of that massacre at the Kickstart?” I asked. “I’ve talked to the police in Canborough. I know about that night, when the three bikers were shot and killed. And how Merker, and his friend Leo Edgars, somehow managed not to get killed, saying they weren’t there at the time. How, after that, Merker bailed on his share of the drugs and prostitution, how he let the Comets run things, take over his share of the market. What happened, Trixie? Did Merker cut some sort of deal with the competition? Wipe out his buddies? Was that easier than trying to get them in on the deal, too? Did you see something? Are you a witness?”

Trixie listened in quiet amazement. She was taken aback at how much I knew, I could tell that by the look on her face.

“Is that why Merker’s after you? Because of what you know? And something you took from him?”

Trixie got up, walked over to the row of hangers by the back door, fished something out of a jacket, and came back to the table. It was a piece of paper, folded over. She unfolded it.

“This was the note that was left for me, in the basement, when we found Martin Benson.”

I remembered her finding it, how she wouldn’t let me see it.

“It’s not all as simple as it seems,” she said, pushing the note across the table to me.

It read: