“Who, Kate?” Sharon asked, mystified.

“The WITSEC people. Cavetti. The FBI. But I found this photo, from a folder full of Dad’s things you left back at the house.” She started to reach inside her jacket. “It changes things, Mom. It changes everything.”

Her mother put a hand to her arm. “There are some things we have to talk about Kate. But not here.”

They heard some movement emanating from the house. The agent Kate had seen now stepped down from the back porch. He shone a flashlight broadly around the yard.

Pushing Kate back from the light, Sharon whispered, “You can’t be here, honey. I’ll meet you tomorrow. In the city. I’ll call you. But right now you need to go.”

“I’m not leaving,” Kate said, “not now.” She locked her arms around Em and Justin. “I don’t know when I’ll get to see everyone again.”

“You have to, Kate. We’ll call Cavetti. We’ll let him know you tracked us down, that you’re here. He’ll have to let you stay a few days. In the meantime I’ll come into town tomorrow. We’ll go over some things.”

Kate pulled Em and Justin against her, nodding reluctantly. “Okay.”

“Who’s out there?” one of the agents called. The beam of a flashlight came a little closer.

Sharon pushed Kate toward the boathouse door. “You’ve got to go!”

She touched her hand affectionately to Kate’s face. Then her eyes lit up. Gently, she lifted something from Kate’s neck.

“You’re wearing your pendant.”

“I never take it off,” Kate said. They hugged each other one last time, and then Kate jumped off the pier and slid down the embankment to the lake.

“Tomorrow I’ll tell you something about it,” her mother said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The following morning rose clear and bright. From her hotel room on the edge of downtown, Kate could see Puget Sound and the sun glinting off glass-walled skyscrapers. She cracked the window, and the caw of gulls came into her room, along with a gust of brisk sea air.

It had been a long time since Kate had risen so expectantly.

Sharon called about nine and told Kate to meet her at noon in a restaurant called Ernie’s at the Pike Place Market, the most public venue she knew. Kate tried to figure out how she was going to fill the next three hours. She pulled on her Lycra tights and went for a jog along Western Avenue, stopping a few times to gaze at the colorful sailboats dotting the sound, the dazzling skyline rising above her, and the tip of the famous Space Needle. Afterward, she stopped for a coffee and a muffin at a Starbucks that claimed it was one of the first three ever opened. Around eleven she made it back to the hotel and changed into a green quilted jacket and jeans.

It was only a short walk from her hotel to the Pike Place Market. Kate got there a little early and strolled around the crowded wharf and shops. Ernie’s was a large, bustling café with outdoor seating in the center of the festive market. The square was packed with young families and tourists. Kiosks hawking cool artisan crafts, Rollerbladers gliding through the buzzing crowd, street artists, jugglers, mimes.

Kate stopped at a trinket stall and bought a small polished silver heart charm she thought she’d give to her mom. It had an inscription she thought was amusing.

Sugar Girl.

As she waited, glancing at her watch, the sea, and the festive scene, something old and long buried flashed into Kate’s mind.

She was in the old house. She was maybe eight or ten years old, and she had stayed home from school that day, sick. She’d been pushing her mom to go out and rent her a movie, the prospects of the long day recuperating at home seeming bleak.

“How about I show you a movie?” Her mother smiled.

Kate didn’t know what she meant.

They spent the next few hours on the floor in the den, Kate in her pj’s. From a carton of old things, Sharon pulled out a dog-eared, ancient-looking Playbill.

The original West Side Story.

“That was my favorite thing when I was about your age,” her mother said. “My mom took me to see it at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. What d’ya say I take you?”

Kate beamed. “Okay.”

Her mom pushed a tape into the VCR and turned on the TV, and the two of them curled up together on the couch and watched the story of Romeo and Juliet and their families, recast as Tony and Maria, the Sharks and the Jets. At times her mother sang along, knowing every word-“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way,/From your first cigarette to your last dying day”-and when they played the big dance number in the gym-“I like to be in America!”- Sharon leaped up and mimicked the steps to a tee, dancing in thrilling unison alongside the character of Anita, throwing her hands in the air and kicking up her heels. Kate remembered clearly how it made her laugh.

“Everyone I knew wanted to be Maria,” her mother said, “because she was the prettiest. But I wanted to be Anita because of how she danced.”

“I didn’t know you could dance like that, Mommy,” Kate said, astonished.

“You didn’t, huh?” Her mom plopped herself back down with a weary sigh. “Believe me, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, honey.”

They watched the rest of the movie, and Kate remembered crying as her mother sang, “There’s a place for us,” with the doomed Tony and Maria. Kate recalled how close it made her feel to her mom, how it became something she always remembered fondly. Maybe one day she’d have the chance to share it with her own daughter.

She smiled sweetly. There’s a lot you don’t know about me…

“Hon…?”

Kate turned. Sharon was standing there in front of her, at the market. She had on an orange turtleneck sweater and tortoiseshell sunglasses, her thick hair pulled back with a barrette.

“Mom!” The two of them hugged.

They gazed at each other, now in the light of day. Her mom looked so pretty. It was so good to be there.

“You won’t believe what I was just thinking about,” Kate confided, a little embarrassed, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Tell me.” Sharon smiled. She looped her arm through Kate’s. “C’mon, we have a lot of things to catch up on.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

They talked about a million subjects. Justin and Emily, how they were getting along. How Tina was doing. Kate’s diabetes. Greg. How he was finishing up his residency and had his résumé out, but right now they didn’t know where they’d end up next year.

“Maybe we’ll have to come out here and live with you,” Kate said with a grin.

“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” Sharon smiled.

They talked a lot about Dad.

For lunch they ordered from a cute, athletic-looking waiter, with the tan of a snowboard instructor. Kate ordered the Vietnamese chicken salad and Sharon a salade Niçoise. Every once in a while, the wind kicked up. Kate kept pushing the hair out of her eyes.

Finally, in a little lull, Sharon lifted her sunglasses. She took Kate’s hand and, with a bit of a worried expression, traced the life line on her palm.

“Darling, I think you ought to tell me just why you’re here.”

Kate nodded. “Something happened last week, Mom, on the river…”

She told her mother about the boat that had almost run her down and cut her shell in two.

“Oh, good God, Kate…” Sharon shut her eyes, continuing to grasp Kate’s hand. When she opened them, there were tears. “You don’t know how sorry I am that you’re involved.”

“I think it’s too late for that, Mom. I think it was always too late.” Kate reached inside her bag for her wallet. “There’s something I have to show you, Mom.”

She took out the old snapshot of her father she’d found back at the house and pushed it across the table.