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  “That’s because you can go into a gallery, show them your work, and instantly, you have a job.”

  “Not quite,” Zoë said, looking up from her drawing. “It takes more work than that and I have a lot of supplies to buy.”

  Faith and Amy looked at her.

  “Okay, so Russ bought them and, yes, I did sell rather quickly to a gallery. Stop staring at me! It just seems to me that going to Eddie’s mother to ask for money would be like my going to my sister to ask for money.”

  “Where did you get the hundred and fifty dollars that got you to New York?” Faith asked.

  “Stole it from my sister,” Zoë said, grinning. “But didn’t she owe me?”

  “And so did Eddie’s mother,” Faith said. “But I didn’t just borrow money, I gave her a piece of the business I wanted to start.”

  “And what business was that?” Amy asked.

  “Right,” Faith said, “you’ve been in this house and haven’t seen how I’ve changed the world.”

  “You changed the world?” Amy asked.

  “Changed it a bit,” Faith said as she got up and went to get her bag on the hall table. She reached inside and pulled out a jar of what looked to be face cream. It was a jar of dark blue glass, about two inches high, with a silver lid and silver writing on it. She handed it to Amy.

  “I’ve never seen this before,” Amy said. “Indigo,” she read on the label. She unscrewed the lid and smelled it, then her eyes widened. “Beth. The seeds.”

  She glanced at Zoë and saw that she was staring at Faith with a look of astonishment on her face.

  “Did I miss something?” Amy asked.

  “Indigo?” Zoë asked. “You don’t know about this stuff? No, right, you’ve been in here. That company is yours?”

  “All except the seven percent that Eddie’s mother owns. I tried for five, but she held out for seven. She uses her millions to do charitable works in Eddie’s name. He died on the same date he died when I was taking care of him.”

  “Destiny,” Amy said, then, “Millions?”

  Zoë laughed. “More like megamillions. It’s hard to believe that you haven’t seen these bottles on the store shelves. There’s shampoo, face cream, you name it. It’s a whole line and they’re everywhere, on TV and in magazines. There isn’t a movie star who doesn’t use it.” She looked at Faith. “If you run this company, how do you have time for a life?”

  “I let a bunch of people in New York who wear suits all day run it. I just stay home with my kids. And…” She hesitated. “I run the charity part of my company. We give a lot of money away. And—”

  Faith seemed to pause, as though for a drumroll. “One of the first things I bought was Tristan’s house and the old medieval house next to it. I found out that after we left, William ran the cows out and restored the house, so it’s still there today.” Faith smiled. “I read that he never married, but he lived to be ninety-five. If you look deep in obscure books on landscaping, you’ll see his name.”

  “That’s great!” Zoë said.

  “The houses are mine and I’ve spent a lot on putting them back to the way they were. When my kids are out of the house, I hope to have the time to oversee the re-creation of an eighteenth-century estate and open it to the public, but for right now, it’s private housing. I don’t get to stay there very often, so maybe you two would like to visit. Amy, would your kids like that?”

  “They’d love it. All of us would. What about the tower?”

  Faith shook her head. “Part of it was still there, but the glass roof was gone and of course there were no plants.”

  “You really did save them,” Amy said.

  “I want to know what happened between getting money from Eddie’s mother to becoming a multimillionaire.”

  Faith smiled in memory. “I talked to Eddie’s mother and I told her the truth, that I had come by some seeds from a plant that is extinct today and was mentioned in the Bible, and I wanted to grow it and make cosmetics with it. She wasn’t interested until I told her I planned to move to California to grow the plant there.”

  “So she was paying you to get out of town,” Zoë said.

  “More or less. Actually, that’s exactly what she was doing. The night before, she’d found the receipt for the engagement ring Eddie had bought me, and she knew what was going to happen. I took the ring off its chain and said I’d throw it into the deal. Gave her the diamond, I kept the chain.” Faith reached under her collar and pulled out a pretty little gold chain. “I always wear it to remind me of Eddie and what might have been.”

  “What you escaped,” Amy said.

  “So how much did she give you?” Zoë asked.

  “We put the money in a revolving account. She’d support me for the seven years I figured I needed to get the plants to a good size, and of course I had to buy land. In the end, it was quite a lot of money, but she’s been repaid many times over.”

  “What happened in your personal life in California?” Amy asked.

  “I met a man who I hadn’t spent my childhood with and who I didn’t mother. We got married, started Indigo, and along the way I had six children.”

  “Six!” Zoë said in horror.

  “Six,” Amy said in envy.

  “We live in a beautiful house in the Napa Valley,” Faith said, “and it’s surrounded by acres of the Balm of Gilead. I’ve given the plant back to the Holy Lands,” she added as though it meant nothing, even though it had been the happiest day of her life when she’d presented plants to their country of origin.

  “What happened to Tyler?” Amy asked.

  “He got married a few years after I left and he became a successful contractor. He built some very nice houses.”

  “Children?”

  “Three,” Faith said.

  “And did you see him again?” Amy asked.

  “Many times. My family and I visited my hometown often and we always saw him and Eddie and my mother. You won’t believe this, but Eddie’s mother and I became friends. She was great at business. I thought all her money came from her late husband, but I found out that that shrewd old woman was a whiz at the stock market. She’s stayed at my house in Napa a dozen times. My kids love her.”

  Faith paused for a moment, then looked up. “One evening we were sharing a bottle of wine and she told me she wished she’d had a daughter-in-law like me.”

  “Did you strangle her?” Zoë asked.

  “No, actually, her words made me cry. She didn’t remember it, but I’d spent years working myself to death to try to make her like me, but she hadn’t. But when I stopped trying, it happened.”

  “Too bad you could never tell Ty that you’d saved his life,” Zoë said.

  “I nearly forgot!” Faith said. “At my mother’s funeral, he told a story that sent chills down my spine. He volunteered to give the eulogy and he told how my mother had saved his life. A few days after he crawled through my window—”

  “And you weren’t there,” Amy said.

  “Yes, by that time I’d already made my deal with Mrs. Wellman and I was getting ready to leave for California.”

  “How did Eddie and Tyler take your news that you were leaving town?” Zoë asked.

  Faith shook her head. “Very well. In fact, they took it too well for my taste.”

  “As long as neither one of them got you,” Amy said.

  “You’re right! I think I was the bone those two dogs had fought over for most of their lives, and as long as neither of them won, they were okay. I don’t like to think this, but in some ways I think they were relieved when I said I wasn’t going to marry either of them.”

  “So what was your creepy funeral story?” Zoë asked. “How had your mom saved Tyler’s life?”

  “Ty said he went out to the cliffs as we used to call the local make-out place. I look back on it and I’d panic if my kids went there. It was really dangerous. There was a turnaround that was on the edge of a huge drop-off. We used to dare one another to look over beca