He nodded. “The Pediatric Cancer Fund. They do a lot of good work. All I do is write checks.”

He was self-deprecating about it, but Martin’s support of children’s charities had always impressed me. He had one son, Ridley, from his first marriage, and he’d spent a lot of time in hospitals because Ridley had developed a brain tumor when he was three. The boy was almost sixteen now and healthy, but Martin never forgot what hell he’d gone through, having a desperately ill child.

“How is Ridley doing?” I asked.

“Don’t get me started. I love him, but he drives me insane.” Martin had sole custody of Ridley since his divorce. In front of me, the boy was sweet but almost painfully shy, and he rarely looked me in the eye. Martin claimed that his son had an Einstein-level IQ, and even if that was an exaggeration, I knew the boy had once won a science competition with a project about topology and abstract algebra that I’d been unable to decipher. But one thing I understood about Ridley was that he had no friends. It was something I’d experienced, albeit in a different way: my mother’s drunkenness was something I’d had to keep secret. I couldn’t get too close to other girls, because if I spent time after school at their houses, sooner or later they expected to be asked over to mine. It was something that left me feeling lonely, and my heart went out to Ridley.

“Did he get expelled again?” My voice was quiet; this was treacherous ground. Ridley had been forced out of four schools that I knew of. He fought with other boys, or he damaged school property. Martin described it as bad luck, and he wouldn’t discuss its causes or listen to any criticism of Ridley. I had a similar protectiveness towards Claudia, so I understood, but it didn’t make our relationship any easier.

Martin tried to smile. “He’s been expelled from every decent school in the city. I’ve had to hire a bunch of tutors for him now. We’ll see how that goes.” Martin reached for my hand and squeezed it gently. “Let’s talk about you. Are you okay, Lily?”

So much for the European insouciance. “I went to see one of my sister’s old friends. Do you remember Tariq Lawrence? A friend of his thought that I was Claudia and attacked me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Martin. “Your sister just died.”

“No, Claudia isn’t dead after all.” It seemed like a week had whirled past since I’d waited for Detective Renfrew at the morgue, but it had been less than twelve hours. “The woman who died in her apartment was calling herself Claudia Moore, but she wasn’t my sister.”

Martin swore under his breath and stared at me. “Then where is your sister?”

“I have no idea.”