“I'm Lily Malone, her granddaughter,” Lily said, turning, rising. She saw the doctor standing in the doorway—he was tall, young, blond hair pushed back, wire-rimmed glasses. A nurse stood behind him, and at Lily's words, her mouth dropped open.

“It's you! But that's not the name . . .” the nurse said, her words trailing off. The shock registered in her eyes—she had just seen a ghost. Lily was returning from the dead, moment by moment.

“It's not the name she was born with,” Clara said, always polite and trying to be helpful. “But it's the one she goes by now.”

“I need to know about my grandmother,” Lily said steadily, standing up, walking toward the door, then out into the hall with the doctor. “What's wrong with her?”

“The short answer is, we don't know,” the doctor said.

“What tests have you done?”

“CT scan, EEG, EKG, blood panels . . .”

“Clara said you're calling it a neurological event. Did she have a stroke?” Lily asked. She was already preparing to call Rose's cardiologist in Boston. He was a specialist, preeminent in his field. They would transfer Maeve immediately—she would get the best cardiac care in the world, reverse the damage done, bring her back to consciousness.

“It's the first thing we thought of,” Dr. Kirkland said. “She was brought here in a comatose state. But her EKG was normal. And almost immediately, she began having convulsions.”

Lily struggled to maintain her composure. She couldn't bear thinking of her grandmother having seizures.

“A brain tumor seemed possible. I'm her primary-care physician, so I called in a neurologist. Dr. Mead. I'm sure you'll meet her.”

“You said ‘seemed possible.' It's not a brain tumor?”

He shook his head. “No. It seems not to be.”

“Then—what?”

“We did blood tests that showed, well . . .”

“Showed what?”

“This is odd. Her blood carboxyhemoglobin was very elevated. That's what we normally see during very cold winters, in people whose furnaces have been malfunctioning. Or in cars that are left running, with the heaters—”

“Carbon monoxide poisoning?” Lily asked. Living so long in such a cold climate, she had known to have the heating unit checked, install a detector, crack windows when the car was idling, to be ever vigilant about the odorless gas. But this was summer.

“Yes, but Ms. Jameson—er, Malone—we're really not sure. There is no obvious explanation, but the blood levels do seem to indicate—”

“I know what happened,” she said.

The doctor just stood there looking intrigued, at least as much about her identity and sudden reappearance as about her theory of her grandmother's case. The first nurse had obviously told others, because a cluster of people stood down the hall, out of earshot, but looking on.

“Edward did it,” Lily said steadily.

“What do you mean?”

“My husband,” Lily said. “He tried to kill her.”

“Kill?” the doctor asked, densely, forehead wrinkled as he tried to understand.