Candace ponders this for only a moment. “It can only be because Father threatened to expose him. He’d found out that before me, Martin had trifled with other wealthy young women at the riding club in hopes of winning their affections. I didn’t want to believe him. He told me this when he whisked me away to this sanatorium. Father said he was going to inform the police that Martin had wanted the consumption to kill me and that they should look into all of Martin’s past activities.”

“So Martin came to San Francisco and placed the ad . . .” I let the observation trail away as I contemplate this. It still makes no sense why he sought me out. I don’t fit his pattern in any shape or form. “Why would he marry me, then?” I wonder out loud. I am little more than a pauper without Martin.

“You don’t have money?” Candace says, a look of wearied puzzlement on her face.

“I don’t have anything,” I say, and even as the words leave my mouth, clarity falls over me. Of course. My poverty was the reason. If the police had caught up with Martin in San Francisco, his marriage to me would have been evidence only that he is a polygamist, not that he seduces women for their money and then plans for their demise after he marries them. “That’s why he married me, Candace. He wanted proof that he’s not a man who tricks wealthy women into marrying him. I’m the proof.”

And that’s why Martin took Kat with him, I muse to myself. Not to torture Candace. He doesn’t care about Candace. He took Kat because she will inherit Candace’s trust. Kat was money to Martin, the only thing he did care about.

We sit there with sweat trickling down our necks for several long moments while I wait for Candace to ask me again how Kat and I got out of the house but Martin did not.

She will ask.

And I must tell her.

We sit quietly for a long time, Candace’s forehead lowered in her hand. Just when I think she has instead nodded off to sleep, she slowly tilts her head to look at me.

“What happened to Martin?”

I look about the patio to see who else is braving the worst heat of the day. The elderly man on the far side of the paving stones is snoring as he sleeps. The nurses are inside. Kat still slumbers.

I turn back to Candace.

“You need to know something before I tell you the rest. What I did, I did for Kat. It’s important that you keep that in mind. I’m . . . I’m asking for your trust with what I am about to tell you.”

Candace just stares at me and doesn’t say anything.

“Do I have it? Do I have your trust?”

“I . . . I don’t know you,” she finally says.

“I brought Kat to you when I could’ve kept her. You owe me your trust.”