JANE USUALLY LEFT for Chip’s apartment after dinner, but that night she joined Liz, Kitty, and their mother to watch television in the den. When Jane entered the room, Mrs. Bennet looked up from the catalog she was paging through and said, “Is Chip working tonight, honey?”

Jane nodded, and even if Liz hadn’t known that Chip’s shift finished at seven, she’d have been able to tell that her sister was lying.

Several minutes later, when Kitty and Mrs. Bennet were discussing whether the throat of the prostitute on the legal drama was likelier to have been slit by her ex-husband or her john, Liz murmured to Jane, “Any word from him?”

Somberly, and also quietly, Jane said, “He just called.”

“And?”

“We’re having dinner the day after tomorrow.”

This plan did not sound promising to Liz—the formality of it, the delay. She said, “Did you tell him how far along you are?”

Jane nodded.

So he was aware the baby wasn’t his, Liz thought. And he wasn’t planning to talk about it with Jane for forty-eight hours.

Jane stayed in the den for no more than twenty minutes and went up to bed before the show’s conclusion; apparently, she was unmotivated to find out that the crime had, as Mrs. Bennet had suspected, been committed by the prostitute’s ex-husband.