Chapter 12: What the Night Was For

The police car pulled up before we had reached the curb.

Two officers got out, and Arlene started talking before their doors had closed.

"That woman and those men broke into my son's house! They have a box of his things!"

"Ma'am," the older officer said. "One at a time."

Chad had come down the porch steps behind us with his hands spread.

"Officers, this is a family matter," he said. "My wife's not well. I'd rather no one was embarrassed."

I held out the shoebox and lifted the lid.

"Would you read the name on the top envelope, please?"

The officer took it and tilted it to the light.

"Rochelle Holloway."

"That's me. Look at the postmark and the others underneath."

He went through six of them, with Arlene saying "that's private" over his shoulder.

All of them had my name on the front and had been slit open along the top.

"Mr. Lyle," the officer said. "Why was your wife's mail in a locked drawer, opened?"

"I was keeping it safe for her."

"For six years?"

Chad's mouth moved without making a sound.

"Ma'am, you live here, correct?" the officer asked me.

"I'm his wife. I have a key. I used it."

"Then there's no burglary." He turned to Arlene. "Mrs. Lyle, I could write you up for a false report. I'd go home."

Across the street, the neighbor with the hedge had come out onto his lawn and was not pretending to water anything.

Three other doors had opened.

Chad looked from the officers to the neighbors and then to me.

He didn't say a word.

I walked to the SUV with my brother's arm around my shoulders.

At eleven that night the penthouse was quiet.

Alasdair had gone to his study with two lawyers and a pot of coffee, and he'd told me to sleep.

I didn't.

I stood in the hall outside Elias's door in a borrowed gray sweater and bare feet and knocked twice.

He opened it in a white T-shirt and sweatpants, with a book in his hand.

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