It kept the soul alive.

I've wasted so many years.

Not wasted, she told herself. How can it be a waste? I've stopped murderers in their tracks. I've rescued kidnapped children.

But through all that, had she really lived? She'd been shut off. Numb. Harboring a deep hatred, a deep darkness of spirit.

She directed her gaze to the plate in her hand-it contained a slice of white cake with white frosting. She looked up and saw Anthony staring at her from across the room, a champagne glass in his hand.

He smiled at her. It was the kind of smile that passed between people who knew each other's deepest secrets.

She smiled back.

Anthony watched as she crossed the room. On the way, she put down the plate and grabbed a glass of champagne. "I thought you were going back to Virginia this morning," she said, taking a sip and looking at him over the edge of the glass.

"I was, but you know how persuasive your mother can be. I'm leaving first thing tomorrow instead. How about you?"

"Late tomorrow evening. I have a few things I need to finish up here."

He let out a slow breath, realizing that after what had happened with Gillian, he'd half expected her to say she wasn't coming back at all.

"I need to talk to you in private." She put down her glass, took his hand, and pulled him through the kitchen into her mother's pottery studio, shutting the door behind them.

A nightlight covered in blue glass bathed them in a velvet hue. From beyond the closed door came the sound of laughter and muffled voices. Sounds of life. It was one of those poetic, crystalline moments he recognized as two-thirds magic, one-third reality.

"I talked to Gavin Hitchcock."

Business. Spell broken.

Anthony took a swallow of champagne and waited. It was always business with Mary.

"I think Gillian might be right. I think it's possible Gavin Hitchcock didn't murder Fiona."

"Really?" He had trouble being as interested as he should have been.

"I'm going to suggest that Elliot get permission to reopen the case. Oh, look-your cup. It's been glazed."

She picked up a shrunken, misshapen cup in the most godawful yellow he'd ever seen. He didn't recognize it. "Are you sure that's mine?"

"Of course it's yours." She turned it around.

He didn't think he could have made something so ugly, but wasn't in the mood to argue. Instead he said, "I had a nice time that night."

"Me too." She smiled. "Remember when you kissed me?"

"Vaguely."

"I was drunk."

"I suspected as much."

"But I'm not drunk now."

"What are you getting at?"

She put the cup back on the shelf, then took his champagne glass from his hand, and set it beside the cup. "Ever since then I've been wondering if it was the alcohol that made it seem so nice."

Mary was someone who required a good three feet of personal space. Now she was standing absurdly close. An invitation if he'd ever seen one. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. "Are you suggesting a test?"

"It might answer some questions."

"And you're always looking for answers, aren't you?" He put his hands lightly and impersonally on her arms, then thought, What the hell, and pulled her snugly against him.

He could feel her chest rising and falling against his. And he thought it would be a cruel world to bring them together like this only to have her tell him she felt nothing, that it had been the alcohol after all. He'd better make the kiss an artistic masterpiece. What was he thinking? He glanced at the yellow cup, then back to Mary. He was no artist.

So he just kissed her. Lips to lips, breath to breath.

When she finally opened her eyes, he asked, "Fireworks?"

"Sparklers."

He would have been disappointed, except that her breathing was funny, and he could feel her heart thundering against his. As always, she would give him only so much. It was a game they played. She was tormenting him, and he liked it. Their time would come. However long it took, he would wait for her.

Chapter 36

Abigail Portman picked her way through the darkening woods. The weather had taken a warm turn the way it often did in early November, and much of yesterday's snow had melted. She'd read in the paper that the Can-trell girl had been found alive. That wasn't the news she wanted to hear. She'd wished she'd died, because it made her feel better to know other people were suffering, that other people's lives were as miserable as hers.

When she reached the memorial, she removed the dead roses and replaced them with a fresh bouquet. Then she straightened and stood in silence, staring at the white cross…

She and Fiona had fought the morning of her death.

That's what people always talked about after a loved one died. The trivial argument they'd had beforehand. Maybe an argument over a messy room, or milk that had been left out of the refrigerator.

In their case it had been about sex.

Abigail recalled the folded note she'd found that had fallen from Fiona's coat pocket. She'd pretended it was a list, or maybe something she herself had dropped. But she'd known it was Fiona's, and she'd been curious. Not in a sneaky way, but in an oh-what-fun way. A we-share-everything way.

Fiona won't mind. We're best friends.

She opened the note, fully expecting to find some light chatter from Mary Cantrell or someone else Fiona hung around with. Instead, it was a note from a boy-or a male anyway. The fact that it was written on lined paper and had been folded into a small square made her think it must have been someone from school, but that didn't really have to be the case.

It had been a shock to find that her daughter was a slut.

The note outlined every disgusting thing the person had done to her daughter, and outlined every disgusting thing Fiona had done back, wondering when they could meet again. The word fuck appeared again and again. Fuck. In a house that had never as much as allowed the word damn.

For a short time, Abigail's mind shut down, refusing to believe what she was reading. It was a joke. A stupid, sick game.

"What are you doing?"

The unfolded note, on wide-ruled paper torn from a spiral notebook, was still in Abigail's hand. Fiona stood in the doorway, dressed in a cute plaid skirt, kneesocks, and dark sweater. Her hair was shiny and straight, falling from a middle part. She looked so sweet and innocent that Abigail wanted to give her another chance. Maybe this was something this boy did to hurt good girls.

"Are you reading my note?"

Fiona crossed the room and snatched the paper from her mother, her face contorted with rage. "That's mine!"

There was no respect in a single cell of her body. Only rage. This wasn't her daughter. This was a stranger. A vicious, hateful stranger.

Where had the other girl gone? Abigail's daughter?

The girl she babied and worshiped and spoiled? The girl who got everything she wanted and more? Had she ever been there? Or was she someone Abigail had made up? Someone she'd created in her own mind, bestowing false traits on the person standing in front of her?

She thought about the mother and daughter day they'd shared a year ago. They'd gone out to eat at Cafe Noir on Hennepin. Over crepes, they'd had a timid discussion about boys and sex, with Abigail nervous but dead set on getting through the conversation. The subject had come up in the past, before Fiona had even started her period, and Abigail thought it would be good to have a refresher, this time going into things a little deeper. She knew Fiona wasn't having sex, and wanted to reassure her that a girl didn't need to have sex to be popular with the boys.

"I've gotten you something." She slid a small, wrapped box across the table.

Fiona unwrapped it, then opened the black velvet case inside.