He shrugged. “If I can.”

I despised that word “if.” Especially now.

It was only after the boy had disappeared with those two small life rafts that worry set in again. He’d hardly asked anything about how to find them. Perhaps he only intended to turn them over to Thornhill. A sick fear snaked through me, souring my stomach.

I spun on my heel with a sigh and froze. At the other end of the chronic ward stood its master, tall and distinguished with a guarded look on his face. We stared down the length of that emptiness, and again I had the sense of low, beautifully played cellos sweeping through the silence, warming the shadows with understated strength.

I couldn’t look away, couldn’t take a step forward or to the side as I waited for his gaze to release me. He pressed his lips together, seeming to study me with questions all over his countenance—was I an aid or a patient? Sane or mad? I swallowed, tempted to go to him and throw myself at his mercy. To confess everything and beg him to believe me. Yet I sensed there were certain lines the man would never cross, rules he wouldn’t break, and I had a pretty good idea which those were.

“Miss Fletcher, isn’t it?” He approached, yet seemed to hesitate, and I did not confirm or deny the name.

He reached me and simply stared for an unsettling length of time. I wasn’t certain what he saw. “I was glad of your help before, with Mary Jo.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“You have such steadiness in you. It’s a rare quality.”

I had the sense he was evaluating me, looking for something. “Sometimes when you live among storms, you become a rock to endure the waves.”

“It was bad, then, after your family died?”

He must have been reading my file—or speaking with Thornhill. “With my mother it was very sudden, I believe, like glass shattering. Father and I both felt her lack immensely. She was only twenty-nine and I a mere babe.”

“It seems a waste when they are gone so young, doesn’t it? I’m afraid I understand all too well the shock, the way the pieces never quite fit together again.”

I gave a simple nod, and we shared a moment of solidarity. We were silent, but I was, for once, not alone.

“Well then, thank you again, Miss Fletcher, for your assistance, and for lending your musical abilities. You’re quite an actress.”

“Actually, it wasn’t acting. I am a musician—a concert pianist.” Hope buzzed along my skin. “And my real name is Vivienne Mourdant.”

His face clouded and he seemed to retreat into himself, as if suddenly aware of the very “otherness” of me, the huge chasm between us. “All the same, I’m grateful.”