Page 108 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

As they sampled, Mariah said, “I read the letters.”

Veronica halted with a banana chip halfway to her mouth. “And?”

“I mean, obviously something terrible happened, but we don’t know if it had anything to do with my mom, right?”

“Right,” Veronica said. “But if she had nothing to do with it, why was she working on the book?”

“Maybe she didn’t realize anything happened after she left. Or somebody wrote to her about it, or ...” Mariah shrugged, chewing thoughtfully and looking into the bag of mixed snacks. “This is really good.”

“I hear you,” Veronica said slowly, “but why the big outline? It seemed like your mom was on a quest.”

“Or she just wanted to visit everybody.”

“Maybe.”

“The only people who will really know are the sisters,” Mariah said. “I think we have to go to Delhi and find them.”

“A big task,” Henry said, “since no one wants to talk about it.”

“Well,” Veronica said, “we know that Darshan died, and I’m guessing that’s what caused the big ... whatever. Maybe we can find an obituary for him.”

“Yeah,” Henry said, “but that’s not getting us any closer to the sisters.”

“I think we should look on Facebook and Instagram,” Veronica said.

“Whoa, brilliant,” Mariah said. “We can run their names.”

“Or we can find the Paris Café Farroukh and see if either of the sisters follows it.”

“Huh,” Mariah said. “You’re kind of good at this, aren’t you?”

Pleased, Veronica shrugged one shoulder. “Research is research. The tools are different now, but it’s still the same process.”

“Maybe Jill knows something, too,” Mariah offered. “Ever since we started, it felt like she wasn’t telling me everything.” She plucked one more cookie from a bag of Hobnobs. “Did she send all the letters?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask her.”

“I can do that.” She sighed and put the bag down, brushing her fingers together. “I hereby pronounce Indian snacks the top of the junk food chain. But I’m going to explode if I eat any more. We should take a walk.”

“Wait. Isn’t that my line?”

She grinned. “I know. We switched.Somebodyworked up an appetite.”

Veronica refused the bait. “Maybe we could look up where the Chowpatty beach is. Your mom went there with her friends, and it sounds kind of interesting. A lot of art deco buildings.”

“I’m down.”

Henry said, “I’ll find out where it is.”

In the meantime, Veronica opened Facebook and found Café Farroukh. “Bingo.”

“That was easy.”

She nodded, pulling up her notes and the names of the sisters. The sister who’d opened the Paris café, Chamani, and Zoish, who’d opened the bookstore on Brick Lane.

Both had responded to many posts for Café Farroukh. Some responses she could read in French; others, written in Hindi, she could not. Her heart sped up a little as she clicked on their pages. Hufriya was there, too—which of course she would have been. Why hadn’t Veronicastartedwith Café Guli in London? Oh well.

Both Hufriya and Chamani’s pages were private, but Zoish’s had the banner of a bookstore and a business address.