Letty nodded in sympathy. “That’s exactly how I’ve felt, ever since the day I found Tanya—back in New York. I’ve been living day to day, not daring to think about what happens beyond tomorrow, terrified that Evan, or the police, would try to take Maya away from me. That was Tanya’s biggest fear, you know.”

“You’re not much like your sister, are you?” Ava asked. “I mean, personality-wise.”

“Tanya was like my mom. Beautiful, impulsive, a free spirit. I’m probably more like my grandmother, who helped raise us. We were pretty much on our own by the time we were Isabelle’s age. I’ve always just been boring and dependable.”

“Nothing boring about being dependable,” Ava insisted. “I don’t like to hear you run yourself down like that, Letty. You are every bit as beautiful as your sister was, but in a different way. You’re sort of a wise old soul, aren’t you?”

“That’s what my grandmother used to tell me,” Letty admitted. “I think me moving to New York to try and become an actress was just a way of trying to rebel against what everybody expected of me.”

“Nothing wrong with spreading your wings and following a dream, especially when you’re young,” Ava pointed out. “I wish I’d done that, instead of getting married when I was just a kid.”

“I’m not so young anymore,” Letty reminded her. “I’m thirty-three. I don’t have a college degree, or a career, or a home. What I do have is a four-year-old child depending on me to make better choices than her mother did.”

“You will,” Ava said, patting Letty’s arm. “What’s going to happen with Maya now?”

“As it turns out, Tanya had a will. And she named me as Maya’s guardian.”

“A will? And she wasn’t but, what did you say? Thirty-two?”

“It was very unlike Tanya,” Letty agreed. “She’d gone through a lot, but I think for the first time in her life, she was thinking about someone besides herself. I’m not saying she was a model citizen. I mean, she was a willing participant in Declan Rooney’s scheme, and then she let Evan think he was Maya’s father, but that was her idea of self-preservation.”

Ava scowled. “God knows that rascal Rooney wasn’t father material.”

“And neither, as it turns out, is Evan Wingfield. I’m not naïve enough to believe that him being arrested today is the end of this story. He’ll fight tooth and nail to get what he wants.”

“Even from a prison cell? Even after he finds out he isn’t Maya’s biological father?”

“It was never really about Maya. This is about money. He’s probably got a lawyer arranging bail right this minute.”

“Would a judge really award custody of a child to a murderer?” Ava asked.