It was an odd sensation, looking at the picture of a dead woman and seeing your own face staring back at you.

"Mummy pwetty, Mummy pwetty!"

Somehow I found a smile. And somehow I looked from the magazine in my numb hands to my little girl. She bounced with her own special brand of two-year-old enthusiasm beside my wrought-iron chair. Her eyes glowed with excitement. Her dark curls bobbed. She'd been the one to show me the obituary. She'd been the one to come bounding onto the veranda, babbling about her mommy's pretty picture.

The chill was immediate, despite the unseasonably warm February afternoon. After weeks of rain, the sun seemed over-bright. "Where did you get this, sweet-pie?"

Lexie's smile widened. "Nanny Olga's woom," she said, and when she moved just so, I saw the smears of pink lipstick around her little mouth and knew she'd been playing with my makeup again.

"You know you're not supposed to go in there by yourself," I said, and her expression grew perfectly solemn.

"Mommy pwetty."

Something inside me warmed at the painfully innocent words, even as the fissures of cold kept right on bleeding. "And you're a sweetheart," I said, but Lexie was already pushing her doll carriage toward the small table set for an afternoon tea party.

I watched for a long moment, as I so often did, before returning to the picture of the dead woman. I'm not sure why my hand shook. It was just a picture, of a woman I'd never met...but then, even as I slid my finger along the funky cut of her red hair, I recognized the lie for what it was.

I knew this woman, even if we'd never met. "Where's your nanny?" I asked Lexie. "Did you find her?" Dres