But that couldn’t be, and she’d said as much to her brother. “That’s how Papa died.” Why she had to remind him of this, she didn’t know. Shouldn’t he have seen the obvious when the doctor said such nonsense? “It’s highly unlikely that Maman would have died of the same condition. Do you know what the chance of that is?”

Her brother had sighed, his face going hard. “Is the chance zero?”

“Of course not, but—”

“Then it does not matter, does it? Even if there is only a five percent chance, then that means it happens occasionally. And it did. It happened now. For whatever reason, however unlikely, they are both gone, and from the same malady.”

“No.” She’d said it last night over dinner. She thought it again now over her stalled work. Perhaps it had made sense that Papa’s heart had failed him—he was not in prime physical condition. She could recognize that now. Hours at a desk had taken their toll, and he wasn’t exactly trim. But Maman was different. Maman was nearly militant about taking her exercise. Maman never overindulged—and seldom indulged at all these days—on sweets. Maman’s heart ought to have been in perfect condition.

There was something else. Some other cause. There had to be. She didn’t know what, but she couldn’t shake the idea that somewhere in her mind lay the answer. That it wasn’t random at all, it was purposeful. Someone was to blame.

She stared, and she listened. She waited for God to speak, one way or another, through the numbers in her head. Beautiful proofs for a Yes, pursue this. Unsolvable equations for a No, this will get you nowhere.

He always spoke. Always. And she listened, because God was smarter than she was—the only being about whom she could say that with certainty. She didn’t always understand His ways, but she’d learned to trust them. Learned that when harmonious figures sang through her mind, she ought to act.

But there was nothing. Nothing. No yes or no. No stay or go.

God had gone silent.

She curled her fingers into her palm. Drew in a breath. Picked up her pencil. She didn’t need those numbers to do this work; she needed only time and half a brain. Finish this, then think of the other.

The last word finally found its place on the page a moment before Dot appeared at her elbow. “Ready?”

“Mm.” She stood and went a bit mechanically about her duties—tidy her desk, drop the handwritten decrypt into a basket for a secretary to type up, toss the original coded message into the bin to be filed with every other message they intercepted. Then she was shrugging into her coat and cinching the belt around her waist.