I doubted that, but I didn’t want to argue with her.

“Will you go to Idylhaven now, since Tariq cannot?” she asked me. We’d talked about Idylhaven the night before. Tariq’s cousin was as convinced as he was that Claudia’s impostor had latched onto my sister there. Deep down I agreed with them, but I was afraid to get my hopes up.

“Yes. Jesse and I already talked about it.” I didn’t add that my friend had been the one originally gung ho about the Idylhaven angle. “We’ll probably drive there today.”

“In that case, I will give you everything that Tariq’s investigator found.”

“Investigator?”

“I do not know his name, but he sent an envelope for Tariq yesterday. My cousin did not find the information immediately useful, but he was hurrying out to meet you. He said he would examine it more closely in the evening. It should still be on his desk.” Padma retrieved a heavy manila envelope that was open at one end. On the front was handwritten For the personal and confidential attention of Mr. Tariq Lawrence. I pulled out a sheaf of pages, double-sided color photocopies. There were maybe a hundred sheets altogether, and I sifted through a few on the top. They were all young women, some of them quite pretty, but with exhausted eyes and vacant expressions. Their photos looked like mugshots. The text on the pages offered only their names and signatures; instead of personal information, there was legalese, which appeared to swear the women to silence about Idylhaven’s policies, practices, and patients.

“Tariq wanted to know every woman who had a connection to Idylhaven in the past year. All of their patients are women, and almost all of their staff, too,” Padma explained. “Tariq believed he would recognize the face of her impostor if he saw it again.”

I stared at the pages. They didn’t seem to be assembled in any order. Sad, desperate women peered up at me. It wasn’t exactly like looking for a needle in a haystack, but it felt about as promising.

❖

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Jesse was saying on the phone. “You’re gonna exit Tariq’s place and head on over to Second Avenue.”

“Why?” I asked. “The subway is on Lex. I was going to come back and pack for…”

“Don’t say it!” Jesse cut me off before I could say Idylhaven.

“Is everything okay?”

“You’ll see. Just don’t blow a gasket.” Now he was being as cryptic as a spy in a thriller.

“Why would I?”

“Plenty of reasons, Tiger Lily. See you soon.”