“Then why now?” Rolly asked. “Why wait all this time to finally do this?”

Again, I had no idea. “Shit, I don’t know what to think. I just wish it would all end. Even if that meant we found out they had all died that night.”

“Closure,” Rolly said.

“I hate that word,” I said. “But yeah, basically.”

“And the other thing you need to consider,” Rolly said, “is that if she didn’t leave that hat on the table, then you actually had an intruder in your house. And that doesn’t necessarily mean it was Cynthia’s father.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve already decided we’ve got to get deadbolts.” I pictured a stranger moving about through the rooms of our house, looking at our things, touching our stuff, getting a sense of who we were. I shuddered.

“We try to remember to lock the house up every time we go out. We’re pretty good about it, but the odd time, I guess we must slip up. The back door, I guess it’s possible we’ve forgotten that once in a while, especially if Grace was in and out and we didn’t know it.” I thought about that missing key, tried to remember when I first noticed it wasn’t on the hook. “But I know we locked everything up the night we met with that nutjob psychic.”

“Psychic?” Rolly said. I brought him up to speed.

“When you get deadbolts,” Rolly said, “look into those bars you can put across basement windows. That’s how a lot of kids get in.”

I was quiet for the next few minutes. I hadn’t gotten to the big thing I wanted to discuss. Finally, I said, “The thing is, there’s more.”

“About what?”

“Cyn’s in such a delicate frame of mind, there’s stuff I’m not telling her.” Rolly raised an eyebrow. “About Tess,” I said.

Rolly took another sip of his Sam Adams. “What about Tess?”

“First of all, she’s not well. She told me she’s dying.”

“Ah, fuck,” Rolly said. “What is it?”

“She didn’t want to get into specifics, but I’m guessing it must be cancer or something like that. She doesn’t look all that bad, mostly just tired, you know? But she’s not going to get any better. At least that’s the way it looks at the moment.”

“Cynthia’ll be devastated. They’re so close.”

“I know. And I think it has to be Tess who tells her. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. And before long, it’s going to become obvious that something’s wrong with her.”

“What’s the other thing?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘first of all’ a second ago. What’s the other thing?”

I hesitated. It seemed wrong to tell Rolly about the secret payments Tess had received before I told Cynthia, but that was one of the reasons why I was telling him-to get some guidance on how to break this to my wife.

“For a number of years, Tess was getting money.”

Rolly set down his beer, took his hand off the glass. “What do you mean, getting money?”

“Someone left money for her. Cash, in an envelope. A number of times, with a note that it was to help pay for Cynthia’s education. The amounts varied, but it added up to more than forty thousand dollars.”

“Fucking hell,” Rolly said. “And she’d never told you this before?”

“No.”

“Did she say who it was from?”

I shrugged. “That’s the thing. Tess had no idea, still has no idea, although she wonders whether the envelopes the money came in, the note, whether you could still get fingerprints off them after all these years, or DNA, shit, what do I know about that stuff? But she can’t help but think it’s linked to the disappearance of Cynthia’s family. I mean, who would give her money, other than someone from her family, or someone who felt responsible for what had happened to her family?”

“Jesus Christ,” Rolly repeated. “This is huge. And Cynthia doesn’t know anything about this?”

“No. But she’s entitled to know.”

“Sure, of course she is.” He wrapped his hand around the beer again, drained the glass, signaled the waitress that he wanted another. “I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I have the same concerns you do. Suppose you do tell her. What then?”

I moved my spoon around in the clam chowder. I didn’t have much of an appetite. “That’s the thing. It raises more questions than it answers.”

“And even if it did mean that maybe someone from Cynthia’s family was alive then, it doesn’t mean they’re alive now. The money stopped showing up when?”

“Around the time she finished at UConn,” I said.

“What’s that, twenty years?”

“Not quite. But a long time ago.”

Rolly shook his head in wonderment. “Man, I don’t know how to advise you. I mean, I think I know what I would do if I were in your shoes, but you’ve got to decide yourself how to handle this.”

“Tell me,” I said. “What would you do?”

He pressed his lips together and leaned forward over the table. “I’d sit on it.”

I guess I was surprised. “Really?”

“At least for the time being. Because it’s only going to torment Cynthia. It’ll make her think that, at least back when she was a student, that had she known about the money, maybe there was something she could have done, that she could have found them if she’d only been paying attention and asking the right questions, that she could have found out what happened. But who knows whether that’s even possible now.”

I thought about that. I thought he was right.

“And not only that,” he said. “Just when Tess needs all the support and love she can get from Cynthia, when she’s in poor health, Cynthia’s going to be mad at her.”

“I hadn’t considered that.”

“She’s going to feel betrayed. She’s going to feel her aunt had no business keeping this information from her all these years. She’s going to feel it was her right to know about this. Which it was. And, arguably, still is. But not telling her back then, it’s water under the bridge now.”

I nodded, but then stopped. “But I’ve only just found out. If I don’t tell her, aren’t I betraying her the same way she may feel Tess did?”

Rolly studied me and smiled. “That’s why I’m glad it’s your decision instead of mine, my friend.”

When I got home, Cynthia’s car was in the drive, and there was a vehicle I didn’t recognize parked at the curb. A silver Toyota sedan, the anonymous kind of car you’d look at and never remember a moment later.

I stepped in through the front door and saw Cynthia sitting on the couch in the living room across from a short, heavyset, nearly bald man with olive-colored skin. They both got to their feet and Cynthia moved toward me.

“Hi, honey,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Hi, sweetheart.” I turned toward the man and extended a hand, which he took confidently in his and shook. “Hello,” I said.

“Mr. Archer,” he said, his voice deep and almost syrupy.

“This is Mr. Abagnall,” Cynthia said. “This is the private detective we’re hiring to find out what happened to my family.”