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corner, with the Dentons separating them.”
      “Don’t go looking for trouble, Nora.”
      “I’m not.” Her face was all innocence. “It’s just that in the play he’s still in love with his dead wife and gets exasperated with his second wife. That’s who Fiona plays—”
      Simon stopped her rush of words with a “time out” gesture. “It’s a play , Nora, not reality.”
      A taxi honked, and they turned to watch it deposit a striking older woman with a slightly hunched posture. “That’s Helen Mochrie,” Nora said. “She plays—”
      “Madame Arcati, the medium. Our turn to play our parts.” Simon strode to the driveway.
      Nora followed in his wake. With her snowy hair, the actress could be any age between sixty-five and eighty. Helen appeared already in character, sweeping ahead of them into the lodge with a swirl of printed skirt, a long, yellow scarf wrapped around her neck, her blue eyes glittering.
      They took her luggage and showed her to the Wordsworth Suite. When Simon opened the door to the narrow, yellow room, Helen ran to the west window that looked out onto Windermere.
      “Brilliant!” she proclaimed, turning to take in Kate’s hand-painted daffodils splashed upon the walls. “Delightful!” she trilled, waving her hands to point to the lines of poetry stenciled as a border near the ceiling. Simon met Nora’s eye with a barely concealed smirk; she had to look away.
      “Kate Ramsey was a stage decorator before running the lodge with Simon,” Nora explained. “She decorated all the suites.”
      Simon opened a door. “Here’s your private bath—”
      “Glorious!” Helen boomed, sweeping past Nora and into the bathroom. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just check with my control.” She shut the door with a slam.
      Simon gave in to his chuckle. “Her control?”
      “Hush, she’ll hear you.” They left the room, and Nora closed the door behind her. “Her ‘control’ is the ghost she uses at séances to reach the spirit world.”
      “You’re taking this much too seriously.” Simon started downstairs. “But she’s aptly cast. The play’s not subtitled An Improbable Farce in Three Acts for nothing.”
      Nora’s mouth gaped open. Long ago, Simon had told her he was a wealth of trivial information. He’d just confirmed it.
      The lodge phone rang. Simon quickened his pace and answered. “Ramsey Lodge.”
      Nora joined him at the desk.
      “I’ll see if she’s in. Hold, please.” Simon punched a button. “For you, a solicitor named Daniel Kemp.” He held the phone out to Nora.
      “Who?” Why would a lawyer call her?
      “He says he represents Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Pembroke.”
      Nora’s throat constricted. Paul’s parents? Why were they calling her now, and through a lawyer? She’d met them for the first and only time at Paul’s memorial service, and it had not been a heartwarming experience for either side. His parents blamed Nora for keeping Paul from them. Nora hadn’t had a chance to explain it was Paul who hadn’t wanted to bring her to Cornwall before Muriel Pembroke had advanced on Nora, eyes blazing, and only Val plunging in to pull Nora out of the way had prevented an altercation. She hadn’t known she was pregnant that day, but that meeting explained why almost six months after Sean’s birth, she still dithered about telling them they had a grandson.
      These thoughts flitted through Nora’s mind in an instant. She gulped. “Why are they having a lawyer call me? Did they find out about Sean?” The lump that had been in her throat plummeted to her stomach; her hands were clammy as she reached for the phone.
      Simon whispered, “You won’t know what they know until you take the man’s call.”

Chapter Six

    “You took her by surprise.”
    Ruth: Act I , Scene 1

    2:55 PM

    Simon left the hall to give Nora privacy with her call. She almost called him back as she clicked the button for line one, wondering