Chapter 11: The Number on the Back

I did not go back to the dining room.

I stayed on the stairs, with the freckled girl laughing at me from her frame, and I took it off its hook.

Hedwig watched without a word.

The back of the frame was brown paper, taped at the edges, and I pried a corner up with my thumbnail.

A line of blue ink ran across the card inside, in a loose, fast hand.

M. at the lake house, July. Call me, Raff. 207-555-0142.

"She wrote it for him," Hedwig said. "He's never called it."

"Why not?"

"Because she asked him not to, and he has always been a boy who does as he's asked." Her cane rapped the step once. "Until you."

She turned and went slowly down the stairs, a small straight figure in grey, and left me alone with the picture.

I carried it out through the glass doors to the terrace.

The night air was cold and smelled of woodsmoke and wet leaves.

I stood between two stone urns, with a dark lawn rolling away in front of me, and dialed.

It rang four times.

I nearly hung up.

"Hello?" said a voice, rough and low and guarded.

"Is this Sonya?"

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Thora Denning." I took a breath. "I'm in your grandmother's garden. I'm holding a photograph of you on the stairs."

Nothing came down the line but the faint hiss of a bad connection.

"I know who you are," Sonya said at last. "I saw the paper. The emerald. The punch bowl."

"You saw that?"

"Gran sends me clippings. She thinks I don't read them." A short, dry laugh. "That was beautiful, by the way. I watched the picture for ten minutes."

"I was engaged to Hollister Greaves."

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