The elevator doors opened easily and she found herself in a reception area with thick green carpeting, and a young girl at a desk. She wore a pink linen suit and had short blond hair, and she had the pert look all receptionists were supposed to have. It reminded Hilary of the job she was starting the next day. But she knew she would never look like that. Her looks weren't “cute,” her hair wasn't blond, and she didn't look as though she'd bounce out of her seat if someone asked her to. Instead, Hilary looked quiet and serious as she approached, and looked straight into the girl's eyes.

“I'm here to see Mr. Patterson.”

“Is he expecting you?” She beamed, and Hilary did not smile in reply. She shook her head honestly, and spoke in a restrained voice. Inwardly, she was intimidated by the surroundings, but outwardly nothing showed. She looked perfectly at ease and totally in control.

“No, he's not. But I'd like to see him now.”

“Your name?” Little Miss Smile went into high beam.

“Hilary Walker.” And then she added, as though it would make a difference, “He's my godfather.”

“Oh. Of course,” the little blonde said, and then hit a series of buttons and picked up a phone, speaking inaudibly into it. That was another part of the job, speaking into phones so no one else could hear … Mr. So and So is here to see you, sir … oh, you're out? … tell him what? … it was an art Hilary would have to perfect at the employment agency. And then the girl astonished Hilary. She looked up at her with her perfect smile and waved to a door on her right. “You may go right in. Mr. Patterson's secretary will meet you to show you to his office.” She looked impressed. It wasn't easy to get in to see Arthur Patterson, but the girl was his goddaughter after all.

Hilary stepped inside and looked down a long carpeted corridor. The firm occupied the entire floor and she could see all the way down the hall up a corner office a block away from her. It was an impressive hallway lined with leather-bound legal books, and populated by secretaries at their desks outside the attorneys' offices. She had never been there before, even as a child, and they had moved since then anyway.

“Miss Walker?” An elderly woman with short gray hair and a kindly smile stepped up to her and pointed into the distance down the hall.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Patterson is waiting for you.” As though it had been planned, as though he had known she would come, as though he had been waiting for nine years. But what could he possibly know, sitting here? What could he know of lives like Eileen and Jack's, of caring for her as she died, or fighting him off with a butcher knife, of nearly starving in their home for all those years, and the foster home in Jacksonville, and Maida and Georgine … and juvenile hall … and even the sweaty little man who had “interviewed” her only days ago. What did he know of any of it? And all she knew was that he had killed her mother, as surely as if he had done it with his own hands, and her father, too, eventually. And now here he sat, and she only wanted one thing from him, and then she would leave and never see him again. She never wanted to lay eyes on him again after today.

The secretary stopped at the doorway and knocked. A discreet brass and leather sign on the door said ARTHUR PATTERSON, and then she heard his voice. It was still familiar to her. She could still remember him lying to her eight years before … I'm just going to take them away for a little while, Hilary … I'll come back for you. He never did, and she didn't care, she hated him anyway. She could remember kneeling in the street after he drove off, calling her sisters' names and she had to fight back tears again, but it was almost over now … almost. It was almost exactly eight years since she had last seen them.

“You may come in.” The secretary smiled and stepped aside as she opened the door, and Hilary walked in quietly. She didn't see the desk at first, and then she saw it, a simple slab of glass and chrome, in front of a window offering a full view of New York, and there he sat, incongruous in the modern decor. He was fifty years old and he looked at least ten years older than that, tall, thin, balding, with sad eyes and a pale face. But he was even paler than usual now as he stood up and looked at her. It was as though he had seen a ghost, as she stood in front of him. She was beautiful and tall, with Sam's shiny black hair, but there the resemblance to him stopped … she had Solange's eyes … and the same way of moving her head … and she stood in front of him just as proudly now as Solange had once walked on the rue d'Arcole in Paris twenty-one years before. It was like seeing a ghost … if you changed the black hair to red … it was Solange again … but with angry, bitter eyes, with something fierce in her face that Solange had never had, something that said if you come near me I will kill you before I let you lay a hand on me, and Arthur instantly feared what might have happened to her, what could possibly have made her look like that? And yet she was safe and sound, obviously, and standing in front of him in his office, fully grown and very beautiful. It was a miracle, and he walked slowly toward her, holding out a hand, with dreams of recapturing the past. It was a way of having Sam and Solange back, of sharing once more in their magic. Hilary was going to bring it all back to him. But as he approached, he could sense the wall built around the girl, and she began to back away when he got close to her, and instinctively he stopped approaching.

“Hilary, are you all right?” It was a little late to ask, and she hated the weakness she saw in his eyes. She never understood till then how totally without courage he was. He had no balls, she realized now, that was why he had abandoned her, after betraying them … no guts … it was something Solange had accused him of a lifetime ago, although Hilary didn't know it.

“I'm fine.” She wasted no time with him. She had not come for a warm reunion with a family friend, she had come to ask him the only thing she cared about, the only thing she had cared about for eight years. “I want to know where my sisters are.” Her eyes were icy hard and neither of them moved as she watched his face, not sure of what she saw, terror or grief, and she waited with bated breath for what he would say next.

But whereas he was pale before, he looked ghostly now. He realized that he could not fob her off, that she wanted nothing to do with him. She only wanted them, and he could not give them to her, no matter how much he would have wanted to do so. “Hilary … why don't we sit down …” He waved toward a chair and she shook her head, her eyes riveted to his.

“I'm not interested in sitting down with you. You killed my parents, you destroyed my family. I have nothing to say to you. But I want to know where Alexandra and Megan are. That's all I want. When you tell me that, I'll go.” She waited patiently, the same proud tilt of her head that had made Solange so unique … so extraordinary … he stared at her, seeing someone else, but there was no escaping Hilary. She was a force to be reckoned with, and he understood that fully now. He also sensed that she knew more than he had thought so long ago, but he didn't question her now. He told her the truth, his eyes filled with regret, and damp with tears for what had been and was no more. A family had died at his hands. She was right. And he had never gotten over it. He had started, no family of his own, and Marjorie had left him years before. The woman he loved was gone, her children cast to the winds. And he held himself responsible for what had happened to all of them, even Sam. But there was no way to explain that to this girl, or to excuse himself, least of all to her. God only knew what she had been through in the past eight years.

“I don't know where they are, Hilary. I don't even know where you've been. When I went to Boston to see you seven years ago, you were all gone … the Joneses had left no forwarding address with anyone. I was unable to find you …” His voice trailed off, filled with regret, because his own guilt had been so great, he had been secretly relieved not to have to face her again, and he suspected now that she knew that about him. She had all-seeing eyes, and she looked as though she had an unforgiving heart. There was nothing warm about this girl, nothing gentle, or kind. She was entirely made of granite and barbed wire, shafts of steel and broken glass. There were ugly things inside this girl, he could see it in her eyes, and for an instant he was afraid of her, as though, given the opportunity, she might harm him. And under the circumstances, he wasn't sure that he blamed her.

“You couldn't have tried very hard to find me.” Her voice sounded hard. She wasn't interested in his explanations or apologies. “We went to Florida.”

“And then?” He needed to know what had happened to her, why she looked like that. He had to know … had to … he felt a sob catch in his throat and prayed he wouldn't cry in front of her. “What happened to you?” He wished she would sit down … that they could talk … that she would listen to him … he could talk to her now. He could explain about Marjorie, who was now a Superior Court judge. He could tell her why he couldn't take them to live with him … why nobody wanted all three of them … why he had done what he did. “Are Jack and Eileen still … were they good to you?”

She laughed bitterly, sounding very old, and her eyes looked very green. She was thinking of Jack and that night … and the pathetic wraith Eileen had become before she died. “Eileen died, and I've been a ward of the Jacksonville juvenile courts for the last four years. I've been in foster homes, and juvenile hall, and now I'm free, Mr. Patterson. I don't owe anyone anything, and most of all not you. All I want now are my sisters.” Her heart was pounding as she realized he had lost them.