"They traded places!" 
    Ardenné Leuront was met with confused looks from the rest of the reluctant guests. She ignored this. She was too busy, in any case, untangling the rest of the threads from the knot she had just located.
    "But we knew that," someone protested in a whiny, petulant voice. "Maisie said she told you herself of her and Lilliana's arrangement."
    She ignored this too.    
    "We have assumed," Ardenné said, pacing rapidly now. "That the killer was someone who was after Lilliana herself. That was the logical step, for what else would someone think when they found a person dead, looking entirely not herself?"
    She paused, turning on her patent leather heel to face her assembly. A few, the parents, were hanging onto her every word. Some were steadfastly ignoring her, these were the red herrings. People who so vehemently opposed her that they simply could not have executed such a calculated crime. Lilliana was found, after all, in a stranger's home, with a stranger's face and a stranger's knife plunged into her back. Devoid of prints or electronic signature, of course. And with every suspect tied up with a perfect alibi— a weekend getaway for their friends deep in the woods. That was why Ardenné had been called. 
    It was the ones who stared at her calmly, the very picture of placidity and repose. There were exactly four of these. One of them had done it, she had known this, but now, the threads were unspooling and she finally knew which she held in her fingers. 
    "Maisie was the target, that is what the logic said. And so, I followed it. To Hazel Hawthorne, her roommate. To Theodore Everett, her partner in life and business. And to Rami Nasik, her lover. The knife is traced back rather quickly to Rami, a personal chef who is protective of his tools. But this means nothing. He is accounted for and the knife had been missing for some time." Ardenné shook her head, ignoring Hazel and Rami blanching, the first when her name was said at all, the second when his title was pronounced. 
    It was not this reaction she was looking for. Not yet.
    "This yielded nothing, as Maisie is here with all her friends. Theodore, Rami, Hazel. Curious, then, why a man, one James Rodriguez, who she claims to not know shows up so persistently right on time with the track of the murder." 
    James sulked in his seat, glaring daggers across the room. 
    "But as disruptive a gentleman as James is, he did know her. Or he knew her... as Lilliana. Even if he had not known, as I suspect he did not, he had sensed it. Known that the Lilliana he is spending time with one week is suddenly standoffish the next week, her personality altered in such a way as to be different. Things begin to align, at least for the police. For me, no. Just as I thought, not but a day later, it is revealed that James's car is in fact in the shop and while he could have rented something, James only had enough money for the cab fare directly from his residence to confront Maisie. Skinflint is too generous a term for James." 
    He scowled.
    "Another dead end," Ardenné went on. "Logic dictated that the intended victim was in fact, Lilliana. In doing so, Maisie Dickens herself became suspect next. Who else? If she was not the target, then perhaps she was the instigator. Again, it was logical." 
    Maisie curled into herself on the couch. Theodore tucked an arm protectively around her side, his stare challenging.
    "Alas, the cabin once again proved an impediment. Everyone is here and everyone saw everyone. So we must move, to Lilliana's own threads."
    Ardenné turned to the group of people hovering behind the couch holding Maisie and her companions, their discomfort in stark contrast to the others' lounging around.
    "Her loving parents, Joe and Katarina Dickens who simply miss their estranged daughter, never mind why she had become so in the first." 
    A gasp from the mother, a thunderous and grief-stricken look from the father.
    "Or perhaps, her best friend and ex-partner, Raine, who had a falling out with her just the last week. And, who I would be remiss in not noting, is a realtor themselves." 
    Raine flushed, a deep scarlet bleeding through their dark skin. 
    "Ah, but then I discover that there is a neighbor that is wildly jealous. A Miss Birdie Lillengail who takes her neighborly duties too far, taking it upon herself to read the mail and sort the laundry in Lilliana's stead." 
    An elderly woman, perched at the edge of a chair arduously dragged from the dining room, pursed her lips as though she had just eaten a lemon. 
    Ardenné shook her head. 
    "No, it is none of this. None of this is correct! And yet logic is never wrong, the threads were followed to the wrong place and became mixed. But when untangled..." 
    Ardenné stopped her movement triumphantly. She was met with several blank faces, most frosted over with incomprehension but one still intentionally so. A mask. 
    She was close. Very close indeed. Her target was confirmed for herself, but that wouldn't do for the two detectives that stood inconspicuously by each exit. No, they refused to take an expression as evidence enough. 
    She pushed further. 
    "Don't you see now? They traded places, but the case was never about who was where. It was about the bonds between them." She moved her long, delicate fingers, miming plucking a thread from her chest. "These two women had nothing to tie them, but you see they designed it that way precisely. They orbited each other's lives. The switch was about the escape, the tether that remained in one spot. Free to do as they pleased with only one person to check them for it. To be someone else, for a while, and leave your problems behind. A new perspective, a new change of pace. The switch was not the solution, but the key to it. A vaguely familiar face, a conversation on a train, a routine that spanned years of their lives. All leading to someone else."
    A tension had fallen over the room, thick and anticipatory. Breaths had ceased in their chests, hanging on a knife point, waiting.
    Ardenné allowed herself the indulgence of reveling in it for a half-second before she went on. 
    "Someone who had known not one but both women. Someone who knew of their secret— the one their faces could not hide that told of an interwoven ancestral tree. The one that lead to an obscure millionaire that had built her empire on the stooped backs of those less fortunate for years, slowly dying miles and miles away, for whom family was the only salvation she could have. And the one person who could not let that happen, for fear of their own revenge slipping through their fingers, along with a nice, tidy bonus sum of money, for their services. One person, who found their own duplicate in a subordinate at their practice to run their morning route, to cook breakfast much before anyone else was awake, but loudly and distinctly enough that there was no doubt who it could be, creating a meticulous alibi. Someone who alerted James to where ‘Lilliana' was, setting the stage for their dupe. All the while, they themselves traveled hours in the dead of night to lay their trap." 
    The loose floorboard by the door creaked as a weight pressed into it. At last.
    Ardenne whipped around, one metallic nail extended. "The solicitor of the family that never was, Theodore!" 
    To his credit, he did not flinch. He merely pivoted on his heel, fingers releasing the doorknob, accepting of his fate. A smile stretched over his lips, equal parts mocking as it was sheepish.
    "Guilty."