Mrs. Beecher pulled open the solid wood door, but stayed behind the screen like last time. However, unlike last time, she seemed annoyed at my being there. Couldn’t blame her. I annoyed the best of them.

“Hi again,” I said, waving inanely. “It’s just me. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple more questions.”

She glanced over her shoulder, then said, “I have dinner on.”

“Oh, it’ll just take a minute.”

After pressing her mouth together, she nodded. She wore a gray dress this time that matched her hair and eyes, and a pale yellow apron.

“Awesome, thank you. I understand Harper stayed with her grandparents while the Lowells went on their honeymoon. Do you remember anything odd about that trip? Did Harper seem like she’d been abused in any way? Or bullied? Anything out of the ordinary?” I took out my memo pad again, just in case she gave me some juicy tidbits, because the best tidbits were juicy.

“Not especially.” She shrugged and thought back. “She’d come in every evening after playing out in the sun with the neighbor kids all day. Got a horrible sunburn. Other than that, she had the time of her life. She loved it out there on her grandparents’ estate.”

I paused, then ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “She’d come in?” I asked in surprise. “You mean, you were there? You were at her grandparents’ house with her?”

Her smile stretched as false as a bad face-lift. Suddenly every movement she made was calculated, every expression rehearsed. “I was, yes. I just assumed you knew that.”

“No. No one mentioned it.” Was it really so easy to dismiss the help like they didn’t exist?

A ripple of unease radiated off the woman, and I realized I might have assigned the wrong source to the fear I’d felt the first time I met her. I’d assumed she was afraid of speaking to me because of Mrs. Lowell and what she might do. I’d never imagined …

No, I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Besides the fact that I wasn’t that strong a jumper, this was a sweet old lady. Sweet old ladies didn’t stalk children. They didn’t terrorize them or bully them without a reason, and what reason would anyone have to oppress a five-year-old child?

I decided to play my ace, see if she’d show her hand. I waited a heartbeat, then said, “Well, when I talked to Harper a couple of days ago, she didn’t mention you’d been with her. But you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”

The moment the words of left my mouth, Mrs. Beecher’s emotions went wild like I’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine. But she was a pro. Her poker face was a thing of beauty. The emotion roiling underneath her calm exterior was like a summer hurricane as seen from the calm of space.

I stood there stunned. The housekeeper? Seriously? She was four feet tall and as round as a muffin.

“I’m sorry I keep asking the same question,” I said after a quick shake to recover. “We’re just really worried about Harper. Any information you have will help.”

She suddenly seemed more fragile than fine china as she craned open the screen door and hobbled to the side. “Certainly, certainly. I’m sorry for being so rude. You come on in.” Even her voice quivered more than it had when she first answered.

Oh, yeah. This was going to end badly.

I wondered who else she had inside. A burly beefcake who did all her dirty work for her? A crazy daughter who followed her every order? She didn’t look like the type who would kill a rabbit and put it on a little girl’s bed, but stranger things had happened.

Forcing my feet forward, I stepped inside the spider’s web.

“Can I get you some tea, dear?” she asked.

So you can lace it with arsenic? I think not. “Um, no, thank you, I’m good.”

We stood in the foyer, and I couldn’t help but notice the seventeen million photographs she had of one man. They spanned his entire life from the time he was an infant until he was probably in his early forties. Her son, perhaps? Grandson?

“Now, what else would you like to know?”

Well, what I wanted to know was how on Earth I was going to prove that this sweet old lady had been threatening Harper practically her whole life. But I didn’t think I should ask her that. I totally needed evidence. Or a full confession in high def.

She looked past the foyer, but I couldn’t tell at what. Sadly, I couldn’t turn and look, too, without seeming suspicious, and I wanted this woman to trust in the fact that she had me completely and utterly fooled.

“I know this is silly,” I said, rolling my eyes with a helpless smirk, “but Ms. Lowell insists someone is trying to hurt her. Can you tell me what you remember from that time at her grandparents? Do you remember when the supposed—” I added air quotes. “—threats started?”

Her smile softened with relief. As far as she was concerned, I was just as gullible as her employers had been all those years. But I had to admit to more than my fair share of bafflement. Why would this woman terrorize a five-year-old girl? Then continue to do so her entire life? So much so that Harper had to be institutionalized? The mere thought was horrific.

I looked at the pictures that surrounded us. Maybe she had some help. It didn’t take a genius to realize there was something a tad left of kilter about the guy in the pictures. His blue eyes seemed a little too bright. His brown hair a little too unkempt. His expressions a little too feral. He reminded me of Gerald Roma from grade school, who used to burn ants with a magnifying glass. He was never quite right. It was weird that he spontaneously combusted during finals week our freshman year in college. Payback was a bitch.