Scandal always went better with a glass of pinot, and she finished off her second with a flourish. She checked the kitchen clock, with sincere thoughts of pacing herself, given Mark’s predictable impatience whenever he arrived home to find her two drinks ahead of him. Screw him, snug in his office in the city all day, doing his lunches, walking about at his leisure, hobnobbing on the late train home. Meanwhile, she was stuck here with the baby and Marcus and the nanny and the gardener…

She poured herself another glass, wondering how long it would be until Marcus, that jealous little demon, went in to wake up his napping sister. The nanny had put Jacqueline down before she left, and the little baby hadn’t woken up yet. Patricia checked the clock again, remarking at this extended period of quiet in the house. Wow—sleeping like a champ. Fortified with another swallow of pinot, and mindful of her impish little four-year-old terrorist, she pushed back the ad-crammed Cookie magazine and started up the back steps.

She looked in on Marcus first, finding him lying facedown on the New York Rangers rug next to his sleigh bed, his portable game-unit thingy still turned on near his outstretched hand. Worn out. Of course, they would pay dearly for this late nap when the whirling dervish wouldn’t settle down at bedtime—but by then it would be Mark’s turn to deal.

She went down the hall—puzzled by and frowning at a few clumps of dark soil on the runner (that little demon)—to the closed door with the SH-SH-SH!—ANGEL SLEEPING heart-shaped silk pillow hanging from the doorknob on a frilly lace ribbon. She eased it open on the dim, warm nursery, and was startled to see an adult sitting in the rocking chair next to the crib, swaying back and forth. A woman, holding a little bundle in her arms.

The stranger was cradling baby Jacqueline. But in the quiet warmth of the room, under the softness of the recessed lighting, and feeling the high pile of the rug underfoot, everything still seemed okay.

“Who…?” As Patricia ventured in farther, something in the rocking woman’s posture clicked. “Joan? Joan—is that you?” Patricia stepped closer. “What are you…? Did you come in through the garage?”

Joan—it was her—stopped her slow rocking and stood up from the chair. With the pink-shaded lamp behind her, Patricia barely made out the odd expression on Joan’s face—in particular, the strange twist of her mouth. She smelled dirty, and Patricia’s mind went immediately to her own sister, and that horrible, horrible Thanksgiving last year. Was Joan having a similar breakdown?

And why was she here now, holding baby Jacqueline?

Joan extended her arms to hand the infant back to Patricia. Patricia cradled her baby, and in a moment knew that something wasn’t right. Her daughter’s stillness went beyond the limpness of infant sleep.