Last to Die

cradled an infant. She saw the handwritten date and said, “Yeah, that’s the day I was born. My mom said it happened really fast. She said I was in a hurry to get out and she almost didn’t make it to the hospital in time.”
    Will laughed. “You’re still in a hurry to get out.”
    She turned the pages, past more boring baby photos. In a stroller. In a high chair. Clutching a bottle. None of this helped her remember anything because these were all taken before her memories had been laid down. It could just as well be another child’s album.
    She reached the last page. In the final two photos, Claire did not appear. These featured yet another cocktail party, another set of smiling strangers holding wineglasses. That was the burden of the diplomat’s wife, her mom used to joke.
Always smiling, always pouring
. Claire was about to shut the album when Will’s hand suddenly closed over hers.
    “Wait,” he said. “That picture.”
    “What about it?”
    He took the album from her and leaned in close to study one of the party photos. It showed Claire’s dad, cocktail glass in hand, caught in mid-laugh with another man. The handwritten caption said, 4 TH OF JULY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA !
    “This woman,” murmured Will. He pointed to a slim brunette standing to the right of Erskine Ward. She was wearing a low-cut green dress with a gold belt, and her gaze was fixed on Claire’s father. It was a look of unabashed admiration. “Do you know who she is?” Will asked.
    “Should I?”
    “
Look
at her. Try to remember if you’ve ever seen her.”
    The harder she stared, the more familiar the woman seemed, but it was just a wisp of a memory, one she couldn’t be sure of. One that might not even exist, except through a trick of effort. “I don’t know,” she said. “Why?”
    “Because I
do
know her.”
    She frowned at him. “How could you? This is
my
family album.”
    “And that,” he said, pointing to the woman in the photo, “is my mother.”

ANTHONY SANSONE ARRIVED at evensong under cover of darkness, as he had before.
    From her window, Maura saw the Mercedes park in the courtyard below. A familiar figure climbed out, tall and cloaked in black. As he swept past, beneath the courtyard lantern, he briefly cast a long, sinister shadow across the cobblestones and then disappeared.
    She left her room and headed downstairs to intercept him. At the second-floor landing she paused and looked down into the shadowy entrance hall, where Sansone and Gottfried were speaking in hushed voices.
    “… still unclear why she did it,” said Gottfried. “Our contacts are deeply troubled. There’s too much we didn’t know about her, things we should have been told.”
    “You believe it
was
a suicide?”
    “If not suicide, how do we explain …” Gottfried froze at the creak of a step. Both men turned to see Maura standing above them, on the stairs.
    “Dr. Isles,” said Gottfried, instantly forcing a smile. “Having a touch of insomnia?”
    “I want to hear the truth,” she said. “About Anna Welliver.”
    “We’re as baffled about her death as you are.”
    “This isn’t about her death. It’s about her life. You said you had no answers for me, Gottfried.” She looked at Sansone. “Maybe Anthony does.”
    Sansone sighed. “I suppose it is time to be honest with you. I owe you that much, Maura. Come, let’s talk in the library.”
    “Then I’ll say good night to you both,” said Gottfried, and he turned to the stairs. There he paused and looked back at Sansone. “Anna’s gone, but that doesn’t break our promise to her. Remember that, Anthony.” He climbed the steps, disappearing into shadow.
    “What does that mean?” Maura asked.
    “It means there are some things I cannot tell you,” he said as they entered the gloomy passage leading to the library.
    “What’s the point of all the secrecy?”
    “The point is trust. Anna revealed things to us under the strictest confidence. Details we’re unable to share.” He paused at the end of the passageway. “But now we wonder if even
we
knew the truth about her.”
    During the day, sunlight flooded the library’s Palladian windows and gleamed on polished wood tables. But now shadows cloaked the room, transforming alcoves into dark little caves. Anthony switched on a single desk lamp, and in intimate gloom they sat facing each other across a table. All around them loomed rows and rows of bookcases in scholarly formation, two millennia’s worth