Chapter 6: The One Who Started It
Marcus walked us out an hour later.
The conversation had been long and uncomfortable and necessary.
By the end of it, we knew most of what had happened — but not all of it.
One detail still didn't fit.
The photo had been taken from across the street.
Sandra had admitted to sending it.
But when I asked her directly how she'd known which studio I was at, and exactly when I'd be leaving, she'd gone quiet in a way that wasn't quite right.
She knew the name of the studio.
She knew the time.
She'd said she'd looked it up after Lily mentioned it — but Lily hadn't known the name of the studio.
I'd never told her.
She was six.
She'd called it "the drawing place."
Someone else had given Sandra that information.
I thought about it on the drive home.
Rob was quiet beside me, looking out at the dark road.
"She knew where I was," I said.
"Sandra?"
"She knew the studio.
The timing.
Lily couldn't have told her that."
Rob turned to look at me.
"Someone told Sandra where I'd be," I said.
"Someone who knew my plans that day."
The only people who had known were Rob — who hadn't spoken to Sandra about it — and the one person I'd mentioned it to in passing the week before, while we were having coffee at her kitchen table.
My sister-in-law.
Rob's sister.
Diane.
I hadn't thought of Diane in the context of any of this.
She'd always been pleasant to me — warm, even.
She'd come to our wedding.
She'd held Lily as a newborn.
She sent cards at Christmas.
But she'd also been the one, two years ago, who'd quietly mentioned to Rob that his first wife's family still kept in touch with Marcus.
She'd been the one who'd said, at a family dinner, that she hoped Rob had thought carefully about the prenuptial agreement.
She'd said it lightly, with a smile, and I'd let it pass.
I hadn't let it settle.
"Rob," I said.
"Did you talk to Diane about the will?"
He was still for a moment.
"She asked me once.
A few months ago.
Whether I'd updated my estate documents since we married."
"What did you tell her?"
"That I was looking into it." He paused.
"She said she thought it was wise to be careful."
I looked out the window.
"She knew the studio," I said.
"I told her over coffee.
I showed her Lily's drawing on my phone and said I was thinking about having it done.
She asked which place I was going to.
I told her."
Rob didn't say anything for a long moment.
"You think Diane told Sandra."
"I think Diane gave Sandra the information she needed.
Whether she knew exactly what Sandra planned to do with it — I don't know.
But she knew enough."
Rob's hands tightened on the wheel.
"I've known my sister for sixty-three years," he said.
"I know."
"She wouldn't—" He stopped.
I waited.
"I don't know," he said finally.
"I don't know what she would or wouldn't do."
We pulled into our driveway.
He turned off the engine but didn't get out.
The porch light was on.
Through the front window, the living room lamp made a warm square of light against the dark.
"I need to call her," he said.
"I know you do."
"Not tonight."
"No," I agreed.
"Not tonight."
He looked at the tattoo on my arm.
In the dim light from the porch, Lily's handwriting was just visible — the uneven letters, the small heart she'd drawn at the end of the Y in NANA.
"I'm sorry I didn't ask you first," he said again.
"Before I believed any of it."
"You were hurt.
Someone made sure of that."
"That's not an excuse."
"No," I said.
"But it's a reason.
There's a difference."
He reached over and covered my hand with his.
We sat there for a moment in the quiet car.
Then his phone lit up on the dashboard.
A message from a number I recognized now.
It was Diane.
*I heard you went to Marcus and Sandra's tonight.
May you like
We should talk.
There are things you don't know yet.*
