Estelle pushed herself away from the door, made her way to the dining room, and set the book on the table. With its faded cover and rusty water stain in the lower right corner, the volume looked sorely out of place against the gleaming rosewood. With exaggerated care, Estelle opened it. At first glance, the book was unremarkable. She flipped through pages yellowed at the edges, but there was nothing tucked inside. No notes, no papers, no instructions, no cleverly hollowed-out chapters. For a moment, Estelle wondered if she had lost her mind. If she had imagined everything.

She reached the end of the book. The inside of the back cover was also water-stained and torn along the bottom. Someone had tried to repair it at some point—

Estelle lifted the water-stained edge with her thumbnail. Someone had done more than repair it. A document had been tucked between the lining and the back cover, its edges just visible. Carefully, Estelle extracted it from its hiding place.

It was a birth certificate. For a Marthe Marie Varennes, born in Marseille, France, on 4 May 1939, daughter of Jules Varennes and Edith Marie Bouchet. It had all the official stamps required, and all the creases and folds one might expect from a travelling document.

Estelle stepped away from the table and the document that lay on its surface. The clock on the mantel chimed noon. She had three hours left before she would say good-bye to Aviva Wyler.

The cemetery had been well chosen. It sprawled with organized abandon in all directions, avenues that cut through in an eclectic collection of angles, straightaways, and curves. With its collection of jutting monuments, squat mausoleums, and elevated sculpture, the sight lines were nonexistent. It would be an easy place in which to get turned around and lose one’s bearings. It would be easy for a body to slip away into a myriad of hiding places. Which, Estelle assumed, was the entire point.

They entered on rue Rachel, Aviva’s hand clutched tightly in hers. The breathtaking irony of the street name was not lost on Estelle. It was as if all the fates were conspiring to make her doubt what she was doing. To make her remember the promise she had made to this little girl’s aunt to keep her safe.