Page 25

Colette was absently washing dishes at the sink early in the afternoon when the doorbell rang.

She set the mug she’d been scrubbing in the drying rack, turned off the water, and wiped her hands on a dish towel, then she walked to the front door in a fog. She was unsurprised to see Aviva standing at the door, but she wasn’t prepared for what the younger woman had come to tell her.

“Colette,” Aviva said, something dark and disturbing and unreadable in her expression. Her voice cracked as she said, “I’ve found him.”

Colette’s throat went dry. “Found who?”

“The man who owns the bracelet.” Aviva pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “Does the name Hubert Verdier ring a bell?”

Colette searched her memory and put a hand over her mouth as realization dawned.

“ Verdier ,” she whispered. “There was a policeman named Verdier in my old neighborhood. Aviva, I spoke with him once, after the war…” She trailed off.

Remembering the brief interaction so long ago felt like recalling a scene from someone else’s life. “Could it be the same man?”

Colette peered down at the printout Aviva handed her.

On it was a grainy newspaper photo of an old man staring right at the camera from a slouched position in a recliner, his eyes rheumy, his expression annoyed, defiant, righteous.

Colette searched his face for evidence of someone she remembered, but all she could see was an old, hunched man.

“Hubert Verdier,” Colette repeated in disbelief.

“He’s the grandfather of Lucas O’Mara’s wife, the one who died a few years ago,” Aviva said. “Lucas told me today that the bracelet is Verdier’s, and that he lived in Paris during the Second World War. It could be him, Colette.”

Colette stared at the photograph, trying to see evil beneath the wrinkles and jowls and white hair. “Did you take my sister?” Colette whispered to the man in the image.

Aviva put a hand on Colette’s back, trying to comfort her, but the contact only made Colette jump.

She couldn’t bring herself to look away from the man’s face, though.

If he had been the man to murder Liliane, it was desperately unfair that he had lived more than a century while her sister had died at the age of four.

And had she really been face-to-face with her mother’s betrayer, her sister’s murderer, all those years before?

Had she let a killer simply walk away because she’d been too foolish to see him for what he was?

Colette didn’t know she was crying until she felt a tear slip down her right cheek. “We have to go talk to him, Aviva.”

Aviva exhaled slowly. “I know. I’ve already called Lucas.”

Colette stared at Aviva. “He’s fine with us confronting his family member about the fact that he’s quite possibly a murderer?”

“I didn’t exactly tell him about what happened to your sister. Just that the bracelet had once belonged to friends of your family, and you wanted to understand where it had been all these years.”

“I see.” Colette frowned. “You and Lucas seem to be getting awfully close.”

Aviva’s gaze slid away. “He’s kind, Colette. He was genuinely upset when I mentioned that the bracelet had disappeared during the Holocaust. He offered to come with us to speak with Verdier.”

“He’s coming with us?”

“It was the only way we were going to get in to see him, Colette,” Aviva said with a sigh. “Maybe I should be the one to question Verdier. It might be hard for you. And if it turns out he’s not the same man…”

“I’ll be all right, Aviva. Please stop treating me like a fragile old lady.”

“Fine,” Aviva said. “But I’m calling Marty, too.”

“Marty? Whatever for?”

“Because he’d do anything to protect you. You know that, right?”

Colette’s cheeks felt warm. “Well, of course. I’d do anything for him, too. He’s my oldest friend.”

Aviva smiled. “You really don’t see it?”

“See what?”

“He’s in love with you, Colette.”

“What are you talking about?” Colette said in astonishment. “Marty is like a brother to me.”

Aviva rolled her eyes. “Believe me, the way he looks at you is extremely unbrotherly.”

Colette’s cheeks felt warm. “That can’t possibly be true.”

“For someone so good at reading people,” Aviva said with a smile, “you’re awfully blind when it comes to yourself.”

The assisted-living facility in Braintree was painted a cheery yellow with white trim, like a lemony cake piped with buttercream. It sat on the corner of a busy intersection near South Shore Plaza, which Colette had driven through a dozen times in the last year alone.

She had been searching her memory since Aviva said the name Verdier, but she couldn’t reconcile the vague image of a pasty, shifty-eyed man with the reality that he might have killed her sister.

She could barely remember their interaction, but she recalled that he’d struck her as a greedy, manipulative man, not a killer.

Had she somehow read him incorrectly? How could she forgive herself if it turned out that she’d had the chance to bring him to justice more than seventy years before—and had foolishly missed it?

Then again, maybe this wasn’t the same man. Verdier wasn’t a terribly uncommon name in France. But his ownership of the bracelet couldn’t be coincidence.

Marty met them in the parking lot. “You don’t have to go in there,” he said, once he’d greeted both Aviva and Colette with kisses on the cheek. “I can take care of it for you.”

Colette searched his face for evidence that he might secretly be in love with her, but he looked just the same as he always did. What on earth was Aviva talking about?

“Thank you, but I have waited nearly eighty years for answers,” Colette replied, surprised by the steeliness in her own voice. “If this is the monster who murdered Liliane, I can handle it. I owe it to my family.”

Aviva and Marty exchanged looks. “Of course,” Marty said, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “But we’re right here with you, okay?”

“I appreciate that,” she said, looking down at their intertwined fingers and then back up at him. Was it her imagination that he looked flustered as he dropped her hand?

A moment later, they were walking toward the front desk, where, true to his word, Lucas O’Mara was waiting for them, chatting with the receptionist.

“How nice that you could all come!” the woman chirped. “Mr. Verdier doesn’t get many visitors anymore, aside from Lucas here, of course.” From the way the woman fluttered her eyelashes at him, it was clear that she looked forward to his visits. “Are you family?”

The three of them mumbled noncommittal answers—it wasn’t as if they could tell her they were dropping in to ask the old man if he’d murdered a child more than seventy years ago.

The woman jotted four numbers down on a piece of paper, which she handed to Lucas, who accepted it with a smile and a nod. “Today’s door code,” she said.

“Door code?” Aviva repeated.

“For the memory-care unit,” the woman confirmed. “It changes every day.”

She beamed at them, and Colette’s heart plummeted like a stone. “Memory care?” Of course she shouldn’t be surprised; the man was 102 years old, for goodness’ sake. But exactly how far gone was he?

In the elevator, Aviva hastily introduced Marty to Lucas, who smiled politely and said, “Yes, I think we’ve met a few times at New England Diamond Alliance gatherings. Nice to see you again, Mr. Weaver. How do you know Aviva and Colette?”

Marty fixed Lucas with a steely look. “They’re both family to me,” he said. “I’d do anything for them. And I mean anything .”

Colette felt her cheeks warm, and Lucas barked out an uneasy laugh.

“Easy, Marty,” Aviva murmured.

The elevator pinged, the door opened, and the four of them stepped out.

Lucas entered the four-digit code at the door on the fourth floor and held it open for Aviva, Colette, and Marty to enter.

Inside, the place was brightly lit and clean, with care workers in teal shirts and nurses in scrubs hurrying around.

There was a spacious gathering room just to the right, where The Price Is Right played loudly on a large television, entertaining the half-dozen residents who were gathered around.

Printed schedules taped to walls announced crafting classes, bingo, and an evening social hour, and Colette shook her head at the unfairness of it all, the fact that this man who may well have destroyed Colette’s family was not only still alive after all these years, but apparently accessing all sorts of engaging activities.

They followed Lucas down a series of hallways until they came to a door marked 423 . “Here he is,” Lucas said, raising his hand to knock.

At first, there was no response, and Colette wondered whether the monster who’d stolen her life was now one of the glassy-eyed residents watching the Showcase Showdown in the other room.

But then Lucas knocked again, more loudly this time, and they could hear a shuffling inside, followed by footsteps.

The door was yanked open a moment later, revealing a hunched, white-haired man with cloudy eyes and a deeply lined face set in a scowl.

“What’s all the racket?” he asked, and even in those few words, Colette could recognize the edges of a French accent, as unmistakable as her own.

It was remarkable that after so many years in another country, the curves of one’s mother tongue always remained.

She sought in his features the policeman she’d spoken with so many years before, but he looked only like an old man, not familiar at all.

His eyes darted from Aviva to Colette to Marty before finally landing on Lucas. “I know you.”

“Yes, Hubert, it’s me, Lucas. I come to visit you every week. Remember? I’m your granddaughter’s husband?”

“I know that ,” Verdier said irritably. “So where’s my granddaughter?”

“She’s not here, Hubert,” Lucas said gently, and Colette and Aviva exchanged concerned glances.

“She never visits me anymore,” Verdier grumbled. “Bring her next time, will you?”