LOGINHe looked as though he'd dressed in a hurry. His charcoal suit was one I recognized, but it hung loosely across his shoulders now, his tie was slightly off-center. In twenty-seven years, I'd never seen my father leave the house with his tie crooked."Here is fine," I said.He glanced at Marcus. "I'd prefer to speak somewhere private.""Then you shouldn't have come to a courthouse."His jaw tightened then he lowered his voice."Your sister is in that room. Whatever she's telling the district attorney...""You left her a voicemail at seven this morning. You told her not to say anything about this family to anyone."Color rose in his face. "I was advising my daughter.""To keep quiet during a criminal investigation? She's a witness, Dad.""Mr. Grayson."Ellen Rosen had appeared in the doorway halfway down the corridor, her folder tucked under one arm. I hadn't even heard her approach."I'm Ellen Rosen from the district attorney's office. I'd like a copy of that voicemail.""It was a priv
Rosen opened the door to a small room off the corridor. Inside were a table, four chairs, and a window that had been painted shut."Ten minutes," she said. "We'll leave the door slightly open. Mr. Webb will be right outside."Sloane sat down first, she placed both hands flat on the table. Her nails were bitten short. I'd never seen her like that before. Even her gray coat looked too big for her, as though she'd borrowed it from someone else."I'm not going to ask you to forgive me," she said."Good.""I've already told Ms. Rosen everything. The photographs, the hotel room, the money, and what happened the morning I went to Jason's office." She swallowed. "I'm prepared to plead guilty to whatever charges they bring. I asked to see you because there's something else I haven't told anyone, I want you to hear it from me before it becomes part of the official record."I sat opposite her, keeping my coat on."The week Jason's engagement was announced, Cordelia invited me over for tea. Just
Daxton drove me to the courthouse and parked across the street, he left the engine running."I'm not coming in," he said."Okay.""I read the second letter at four this morning, then I read the third." He kept both hands on the steering wheel. "I can't sit in that room and watch them bring her in.....not yet. I don't know how I'll feel, and I don't want to find out in front of a judge.""You don't owe her anything.""I know. That's not what's bothering me." He finally looked at me. "I'll be right here."I leaned over and kissed his cheek, he held me for a moment longer than usual before letting go.Marcus was waiting for me on the courthouse steps. Ellen Rosen met us just inside, near the metal detectors, her glasses hung from a chain around her neck, and she held a coffee in one hand.The courtroom was smaller than I'd imagined, there were wooden benches, fluorescent lights humming overhead, and an American flag standing in one corner.Jason sat alone in the third row, behind the pro
Daxton drove. Jason sat in the passenger seat with his father's letter in his head and his hands flat on his knees. Neither of them spoke for the first twenty minutes. "Do you want me to go in first?" Daxton asked finally. "No." "Okay." "I just don't want to be the only one standing in front of her." Daxton kept his eyes on the road. "You won't be." There were more cameras at the gate than last time, a dozen at least, and the guard didn't ask for names. He lifted the barrier and looked away. In the drive stood two unmarked sedans and a marked police car. Theodore Marsh's gray coupe was parked crooked beside them, like he'd arrived in a hurry. Inside, two detectives stood in the front hall. Cordelia was in the middle of it, a paper in her hand. She wore the same black dress as last week. The housekeeper hadn't come back. Nobody had lit the lamps, and the hall was dim. She looked up when the door opened and saw Jason, then her eyes went to the man behind him. For a moment she di
Rosen let Daxton stand there a long moment with his hand over the paper before she spoke. "Mr. Smith, it's addressed to you, so you're entitled to read it but I need to photograph it first, and I'll have to keep the original for now. It's evidence. You'll get it back." "Okay," he said. His voice sounded far away. She photographed the front, the flap, the seal. Then she lifted it with two gloved fingers and held it out. Daxton took it with his bare hand. The paper was thin and soft at the corners, the way paper gets after years in the dark. He read it standing up. I watched his eyes move down the page, stop, and go back to the top. When he finished, he held it out to Jason. Jason looked at me first. I nodded. He took it and read it out loud, slowly, without seeming to mean to. *Daxton,* *I have written this letter four times and torn up three. This is the one I can stand to leave.* *You are my son. I knew it the week you were born and I have known it every day since. Your mother
The key was small and flat, with the brass worn smooth along one edge. Jason held it up to the window while Marcus leaned closer."There's a number stamped on the end," Marcus said. "Four, four, seven, one."Jason studied it for a moment, then his expression changed."Halloran Trust. On Madison. My father took me there once when I was ten. He let me hold a key just like this in the elevator and told me not to lose it. I remember handing it back to him, but I never knew what it opened." He turned the key over in his hand. "I haven't been back since his funeral.""Then this must be the key he kept," Marcus said.Jason nodded slowly. "After he died, my mother took possession of his belongings. I suppose she kept this with the rest of them.""Cordelia ran the trust after he died," Marcus said. "She'd keep anything there she couldn't throw out.""Then let's go," Daxton said."No." Marcus raised a hand. "This is part of an ongoing investigation. If any of us opens that box without proper au
Three months earlier."Congratulations, Serenity, you're getting married."The fork slipped from my fingers, clattering loudly against my plate,the dining room fell dead silent while I stared across the table at my father. "Excuse me?"Dad didn't even look up,he just calmly dabbed his mouth with a
I don't even remember how I got out of Jason’s office.One minute I was looking at the man I loved handing me divorce papers the next, I was trapped inside the elevator, staring at my reflection in the mirrored walls.The woman looking back at me was a stranger,her lipstick was smeared,her eyes wer
Twenty-four hours. That was how long I lasted as Mrs. Crane, I stared at the papers on Jason’s desk. I kept waiting for the words to scramble into a joke, but they just sat there, heavy and permanent.DIVORCE AGREEMENT.My throat went completely dry just a few hours ago. I'd woken up in his bed w
I didn't sleep that night, or the night after.Every time I closed my eyes, the photographs burned into my eyelids.The dark hotel room,the man with the blurred face,my body and features,the total ruin of the only night that had ever felt real to me.I sat on the edge of the sagging mattress in a c







