“I can understand that.”
“Liz suspected. I didn’t know Katherine knew until last night.”
Sophie sighed. “For what it’s worth, she never would have mentioned it if she hadn’t been terrified for me. She’s a good keeper of secrets. Veritable cone of silence.”
Vito lifted a brow. “Not that veritable. She mentioned Elle.”
Sophie’s eyes rolled. “I guess the cone of silence has a crack.”
“Elle died,” Vito said. “She was your… what, sister?”
“How did you guess?”
“Katherine said that Anna finally gave up her touring when she realized ‘she’d been given another chance with Sophie and Elle.’” He shrugged. “Plus, I am a detective.”
“Not a good builder of trebuchets, though, but I’ll let that pass.”
He ran his fingertips along the fine line of her jaw. “Who was Elle, Sophie?”
“My half sister. She was born when I was twelve. I’d been in France for the summer and came home to find everyone in an uproar. Gran had been on tour when Lena dropped another bundle of joy into Harry’s arms. Elle wasn’t even a week old.”
“Your mother has the maternal instincts of a crocodile.”
“Crocodiles take much better care of their young. That was when Anna completely retired. She canceled all her engagements except for Orfeo, because it was in Philly.”
“So I really was lucky to have heard her when I did.”
“Yes, you were.”
“So Anna raised Elle.”
“Anna and I. Mostly me. Anna was never the maternal type. ‘Do something with this baby,’ she’d thunder when I got home from school, but I didn’t mind. Elle was mine.”
“The first time you truly had someone of your own?”
She smiled, very sadly. “Once again, I’m not that hard to figure out. Elle had some health problems, including a really serious food allergy, so I watched her like a hawk. Especially the times Lena would breeze back in. She was never careful with Elle.”
“Lena came back?”
“From time to time. She’d feel a little guilty, come back, hold Elle, then leave a day or two later. At the beginning I hoped Elle would be enough to make Lena finally settle down, even if she hadn’t for me. But she didn’t. Time passed, Elle got bigger.” Sophie’s mouth curved. “She was a beautiful child. Looked like a Botticelli angel with ringlets and these big blue eyes. My hair was straight as a board and I was tall and gawky, but Elle was truly stunning. People would stop and stare. And give her things.”
“Things? Like?”
“Usually harmless things like stickers or a doll. Sometimes they’d give her treats, which would scare me because she was so allergic. We had to read every label.”
Vito thought he could figure out where the story was going. “So one day Lena came back when you weren’t around and fed her the wrong thing.”
“The night of my senior prom. I’d never had many dates. I was always too busy with Elle. I’d even stopped going to France during the summers. But it was my prom. And my date was Mickey DeGrace.”
“He was something special, I take it,” Vito said dryly.
“I’d drooled over Mickey DeGrace all through high school. He’d never paid attention to me, but Trisha, Katherine’s daughter, got it in her mind that I needed a makeover. It worked, and for the first time in my life, Mickey was drooling over me. Prom night came, and we’d… well, we’d stepped away from the dancing. Mickey knew all the best make-out places in the school. I was just so thrilled to have him interested, I went with him.”
This was definitely not good, Vito thought. Dead sister guilt layered with the guilt of sexual experimentation. “What happened, Sophie?”
“We were… you know. Then I get this tap on the shoulder and I thought, ‘I’m gonna get expelled.’ I could see my college hopes dashed with my first and only indiscretion.”
“You were a virgin,” he said and she nodded.
“I think that was the draw for Mickey. He’d had all the other girls. I was fresh meat. Anyway, I was thinking of how I was going to explain… that… away, then I saw the teacher’s face and… I knew. She never even noticed Mickey pulling up his pants.”
“It was Elle. Lena had come.”
“Lena had come and taken Elle out for ice cream. The teacher rushed me to the ice cream parlor, but it was too late. Katherine was there, crying.” Sophie exhaled heavily. “She was zipping up the bag when I ran up, still in my prom dress. She looked up and saw me and…” Sophie shuddered.
“Just like on Sunday,” Vito said, and she nodded.
“Just like. Next thing I remember I was waking up right here. Uncle Harry was asleep, there.” She pointed to a chair. “Elle was dead. Lena had gotten her a sundae with extra nuts. Her throat swelled and she suffocated. Lena killed her.” She looked up, bitter anger in her eyes. “I’d say that’s a damn good reason to hate my mother, Vito.”
“Did Lena know she had an allergy?”
Sophie’s eyes flashed. “She might have had she stuck around long enough. I don’t know what Lena knew, but Elle wasn’t her child to just take. She was mine.”
Vito remembered Katherine’s words at the crime scene the Sunday before. “It was an accident,” she’d said. Vito wisely decided that although he agreed, he would not make the same mistake of telling Sophie so. “I’m sorry, honey.”
She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you. It actually helps, telling it. After she died I was so depressed. I couldn’t stand being in this house. Everything reminded me of Elle. So Harry sent me to my father. Alex convinced me to stay in France, go to the university in Paris. That’s where I met Etienne Moraux. Alex had connections and cash to pay for my schooling. I had good grades, fluent French, and dual citizenship. I made a good assistant to Etienne, who was one of the leading archeologists in France.”
“So how did Brewster fit in the picture?”
“Anna wanted me to come home, so I applied at Shelton College for grad school. Alan Brewster was already a legend, and getting my grad degree under him would have been very, very prestigious.” She winced. “I didn’t mean that as a joke. Under him.”
“I didn’t think you did,” Vito said. “So you studied with Brewster and…?”
“Fell madly in love. Every time I’d try to date a guy my own age I’d think of Mickey DeGrace, and then Elle, so I didn’t date. Until Alan. He was the first man who didn’t remind me of Mickey. I thought he loved me. We were on a dig in France and Alan paid me attention. Pretty soon we were burning up the sheets in his tent. Then I found out Alan was married, that he slept with all his assistants and… that he talked about it. Freely. But he did give me an A,” she ended bitterly. “I was a ‘most able assistant.’”
He remembered the words coming from Brewster’s mouth and wished he’d hit the snake when he had the chance. Now Brewster was missing. Vito should probably have cared a little more. “Like I said. He’s an asshole. Move on.”
“I did, kind of. I ran back to Etienne, who found a place for me in his graduate program. I graduated and Anna wanted me to come home. I got a position with a college here in Philly, but between Amanda and Alan, I found myself either shunned or ridiculed. So I went back to France where it wasn’t an issue. I’d been working for months to be assigned the dig at Mont Vert castle, and then Harry called to tell me that Anna had a stroke. I dropped everything and finally came home.” She lifted her brows. “I found jobs with Ted and teaching at Whitman. And I met you.”
“But your father was rich. Why do you need the money so badly?”
“Alex left me an inheritance, but I’ve used most of it on nursing homes. That’s it.”
“Thank you for telling me.” He held out his arm and she snuggled against him.