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door revealed a shape that was bulky but not tall. She opened the door to find that the shape wasn’t a single body at all, but a woman holding a child. Neither were locals; she had never seen them before.
    “May I help you?” she asked.
    “I’m looking for Mara O’Neill,” the woman said worriedly. “I’ve been trying to reach her. Are you a friend?”
    Paige nodded.
    “She was supposed to meet me in Boston earlier today,” the woman hurried on, “but we must have crossed signals. I’ve been stopping along the highway at intervals to call, but she doesn’t answer her phone.”
    “No,” Paige said, studying the woman. She was middle-aged and Caucasian, clearly not the biological mother of the child, who had skin the color of pecans and the largest, most soulful eyes Paige had ever seen. She assumed the two were part of the adoption network with which Mara had become involved.
    “Is Mara here?” the woman asked.
    Paige swallowed. “No.”
    “Oh, dear. Do you know where she is or how soon she’ll be back? This is dreadful. We had everything arranged. She was so excited.”
    The child was looking at Paige, who found she couldn’t look away. It was a little girl. Her size said she wasn’t yet a year old, but the look in her eyes said she was older.
    Paige had seen that look before, in a photograph Mara had shown her. Her heart skipped a beat, rendering the hand that touched the child’s cheek unsteady. “How do you know Mara?” she asked the woman.
    “I’m with the adoption agency. Among other things, it’s my job to be on hand at the airport when adoptive children arrive from other countries. This little one came from a tiny town a distance from Calcutta. She had an escort from the agency in Bombay. Poor thing has been at it for better than three days. Mara must have mistaken the day or the time. Is the office closed? The answering service is taking her calls.”
    “Sameera,” Paige breathed. Mara’s baby. “But I thought she wasn’t coming for weeks!” She reached for the child.
    “We often advise our parents not to speak of dates. Political unrest can delay things.”
    Paige thought of that upper right bedroom with its bright yellow walls and the large, lopsided navy stars that had just now been visible from the yard. Her eyes filled with tears as she cradled the child. “Sami.”
    The child didn’t make a sound. Paige was the one who cried softly, mourning for the mother Mara would have been and the happiness she would have known. The child’s arrival made Mara’s death that much more of a mystery. Mara wouldn’t commit suicide with Sami three days away.
    Still hugging the child, Paige wiped her eyes on her arm. It was a minute before she was composed enough to look at the woman and say, “Mara died Wednesday. We buried her this morning.”
    The woman gasped. “Died?”
    “A terrible accident.”
    “ Died? Oh, my.” She paused. “Poor Mara. She waited so long for this child. And Sameera—she’s come so far.”
    “That’s all right,” Paige said with an odd calm. “I’ll keep her.” It made sense, the one thing she could do to make up for all she hadn’t done before. “My name is Paige Pfeiffer. I was Mara’s best friend, a pediatrician also. We practiced together. I was interviewed as a character reference during her home study. If you check your files, you’ll see that my name is listed as the one to call in case of emergency, which is pretty much what you’ve done.” She looked down at the child. The little girl’s thin legs straddled her waist, tiny fingers clutched her sweater. Her head lay on Paige’s chest, eyes wide and frightened. She felt light as a feather, but warm in a pleasant sort of way.
    I’ll take care of her for you, Mara. I can do that.
    “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” the woman said quickly.
    “Why not?”
    “Because there are rules, procedures, red tape.” The words ran together. The woman was clearly flustered.