“Mommy has your picture.”
Rachel whispered, “Evelyn.”
“I heard.”
Evelyn’s hands had begun trembling.
James noticed.
He stepped closer.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m getting married in fifteen minutes. I’m allowed to look strange.”
“You’re not getting married in fifteen minutes.”
She stared at him.
James spoke calmly.
“Not until we know this kid is safe.”
Evelyn loved him for saying it before she had to.
She looked toward the ballroom doors.
Two hundred people.
Months of planning.
Her mother had spent the entire morning worrying because one arrangement of white roses was three inches shorter than another.
None of it mattered anymore.
“Rachel.”
Her maid of honor looked up.
“Tell the coordinator the ceremony is delayed.”
“For how long?”
Evelyn looked at Maisie.
“I don’t know.”
The ambulance found Rebecca Bell seven minutes later.
She was unconscious inside a blue Honda parked half a block from the estate.
The engine was off.
One window was partly open.
Paramedics determined she was breathing but dangerously disoriented when they managed to wake her.
She had apparently suffered a severe reaction to a medication after driving Maisie to the estate.
By the time they loaded Rebecca into the ambulance, Martin had obtained enough information from her purse to confirm her identity.
Rebecca Louise Bell.
Twenty-nine.
Resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Emergency contact: Nora Bell.
There was a phone number.
Martin called it.
No answer.
The second emergency contact was a man named Thomas Bell.
The number was disconnected.
Evelyn listened from the foyer while Maisie sat beside her eating crackers someone from the catering staff had found.
Her wedding veil had been removed.
Her bouquet lay forgotten on a chair.
James returned from speaking with the paramedics.
“Rebecca is going to the hospital.”
“Is she okay?”
“They think she will be.”
“And Maisie?”
“Police are sending someone from family services.”
Maisie looked up when she heard her name.
Evelyn forced a reassuring smile.
James crouched beside her.
“Do you know your home address?”
Maisie shook her head.
“Do you know where Mommy works?”
“No.”
“What does Mommy do?”
“She makes pictures.”
Evelyn frowned.
“Photographer?”
Maisie shrugged.
“She draws houses.”
“Architect?”
Another shrug.
James smiled gently.
“That’s okay.”
Evelyn kept staring at the child.
There was something unnerving about it now that she had time to look.
It was not simply the eyes.
Maisie’s nose had the same slight upward shape Evelyn had possessed as a child.
Her left eyebrow rose higher when she was confused.
Even the small crease in her chin looked familiar.
Evelyn felt ridiculous noticing these things.
Children resembled people.
Faces repeated.