Page 19 of My Darling Girls

“It happened so fast I don’t know what to think.”

“Was there a doctor?”

“Gertrude called for Ira.”

“But not a doctor?”

Finn doesn’t respond for a long time. Jo continues her work through the silence, interrupted only by their breathing and the groan of floorboards beneath her feet.

A few minutes later, Jo pushes forward. “Was Millie close to Grace, then?”

She senses his movement before his voice is in her ear. “You sure ask a lot of questions about Millie.” She flinches and almost drops the developer. He’s right behind her, mere inches away. “Why are you so interested in my niece?” She stops working and just stands there, at her worktable, her body rigid. The bitter smell of the chemicals is grounding. The smell of Finn—his spicy shaving cream and a hint of tobacco—is alarming. He’s too close, so close she feels his warm breath on her neck, and yet she doesn’t feel frightened. Instead, she’s acutely aware of every inch of her skin tingling in response to his closeness.

“Why, Jo?” He takes in air sharply, and Jo isn’t sure if he’s inhaling her scent or if it’s the chemicals irritating his nostrils.

“I . . . I find her death suspicious.”

“What makes you think so?”

Aware of his every breath, Jo straightens her back. If she moves just an inch, she can lean into him. She hasn’t realized until this moment how much she has missed that human connection. That closeness to a solid, live man. “Millie’s symptoms were similar to poisoning. Not a disease. Not some infection.” Can he hear her heart pounding like a trapped butterfly against the window? “No one else got sick. It must’ve been something else, something that was intended just for Millie.”

“A photographer and a doctor, are you?” He chuckles, and a moment later, the air shifts, and in one fluid movement, he moves away from her.

“It could be arsenic,” she says. “It has the same symptoms, especially if administered in a big enough dose. It doesn’t smell. It’s tasteless. Millie would never suspect anything as she consumed it through her tea.”

“How do you know about the tea?”

Jo’s stomach heaves. She got comfortable with Finn. And careless with her words. “I think Gertrude mentioned the tea. Or maybe it was Grace.” It’s dangerous and stupid. She knows she should stop talking about Millie. She knows she isn’t going to.

“I was there with you. No one talked about the tea.”

“Someone else must’ve mentioned it. Another member of your family. Maybe it was Charles.” Another lie, and not a good one. More words designed to cover up her slip—a story that she cannot reasonably explain to anyone.

Finn takes his time to respond. He must be assessing her words, trying to figure out how she could possibly know about the tea. When Jo thinks he won’t say anything else, he pushes the words out. “Are you saying someone in my family poisoned Millie?”

“No. No. That’s not what I’m saying.” The words are floundering flies in the space between them. Her awkwardness driving her to say things she doesn’t mean. “It could’ve been someone else. Someone who had access to the kitchen. To the teapot.”

“No one else was in the house that day.”

“You’re not hearing me, Finn.”

“Oh, I’m hearing you, all right.” His voice is angry, and Jo is breathless. The blood pulsates in her veins in a rhythmic, odd staccato.

“I’m sorry.” With shaking hands, Jo sets the developer back on the table, finds the carrier tray, and sets it in front of her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She places a small strip of photographic paper on the baseboard.

The few silent minutes that follow don’t bring any relief. The silence is not really silence. It is anxiety and suspicion and relentless thoughts that swirl around them in a hurricane. And also fear. It moves under Jo’s skin like a tick. It burrows. It slices. It chomps on doubts. Jo’s mind keeps going back to the range of symptoms Millie experienced. It must be arsenic. Determination to know more takes shape.

“Millie got sick right after she had her tea,” Jo says, her voice rough. She’s mentioned tea already. She might as well continue on this track. “Arsenic works fast. It must be the tea.”

“And how would someone like you know how arsenic works?”

“I work with chemicals.”

“All right, you know chemicals. But you don’t know anything about my family. About Millie.” He pauses as if to take a steadying breath. “I understand how easy it is to accuse us of murder. Considering what you witnessed the other night. But you don’t know my sister or her children. You don’t know us.”

“I’m not accusing anyone, Finn. I’m just sharing my thoughts.”

“Who’d want to kill a fifteen-year-old girl? Her mother? Her sister?” His frustration is apparent in how each word strains. As if he’s talking with a clenched jaw. “You don’t make any sense.” His voice vibrates with a dangerous, dark undercurrent. “I don’t know what to think of you, Jo.”