Cecilia stopped. Her shoulders squared. She didn’t turn around right away.
"Mara, speak," she said in a flat voice.
"Beatrice knows who I am," I said, the words coming out before I could stop them.
Cecilia turned around slowly. Her face didn’t change, but the air between us went heavy.
"What did you say?" Her voice was quiet now.
"I said, Beatrice knows I’m Mara Smith," I swallowed hard.
Cecilia’s jaw tightened. "When?"
"She told me last night. She said she’d known the second day I got here," I swallowed again. "She said she saw a paper inside the trash with my face in the front."
Cecilia didn’t blink for a long second. She exhaled through her nose and moved closer to me. Close enough that I could smell the bleach on her apron.
"Did she tell anyone else? Do you know if she
