Chapter 9: Hartwell House

Tonight if you're wise.

Margot read the card in the car, and she was wise by the time they reached Evanston.

Hartwell House was a pale stone building behind a clipped hedge, with one lamp lit over the door.

Bridget had been waiting at the curb with her coat over her bar apron and a covered casserole dish in her arms.

"What's that for?" Margot said.

"Cover story. Nobody stops a woman with a casserole."

"It's eleven at night."

"It's a very urgent casserole."

Elias got out of the driver's seat and stood beside Margot at the bottom of the steps.

"I'll be one step behind you," he said. "This is yours."

She looked at him.

It was the first thing he had said since the suite that was not an apology.

"Good," she said, and went up the steps.

The night nurse behind the front desk was young and tired, with a clipboard.

"Visiting hours ended at eight."

"I'm Margot Ellery. My grandfather was brought here tonight."

The nurse's eyes flicked to the clipboard.

"Mr. Ellery was admitted by his family's authority. I can't discuss his room."

"I'm his family."

"Your husband is his family. Mr. Whitcombe signed him in."

"Which room?"

"I can't."

Margot turned and walked straight down the hallway.

"Ma'am," the nurse said. "Ma'am, you can't."

She opened the first door, found an old woman asleep, and closed it softly.

She opened the second.

"Grandpa!" she called, loud, down the length of the corridor. "Thaddeus Ellery!"

Lights came on behind half a dozen doors.

A man in slippers appeared in a doorway, and then a woman with a walker, and then an aide in blue scrubs.

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