Chapter 12: The Will

Lars Krebs's lawyer worked on the fourteenth floor of a glass tower on Wisconsin Avenue.

The conference room had a long walnut table and a view of the lake that Lars used to say was worth the rent.

I sat on one side with Rosalyn on my right and Soren on my left.

I had not slept.

I had run through every version of what Chloe could mean, and none of them made sense.

Carter came in at ten to ten, in the navy suit, with the lawyer in the camel coat from Shorewood carrying his briefcase.

He didn't look at me.

He sat at the far end of the table and put his hands flat on the walnut.

He looked like a man who had spent the weekend telling himself something over and over.

Chloe came at ten on the dot.

She wore black, a long high-necked dress with a veil of lace pinned to her hair.

It was the kind of outfit you wear to a funeral.

It was the kind of outfit you wear when you've decided how people will see you.

She walked around the table, past Carter, past me, and sat in the chair at the head of it.

The chair Lars used to sit in.

Nobody told her to move.

The lawyer came in last, a thin man of sixty with silver hair and a folder tied with ribbon.

He looked at each of us in turn.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I'm going to read Lars Krebs's last will and testament. I would ask that no one interrupt."

"We're here for the will of a man who's been dead for thirteen months," Rosalyn said. "Why now?"

"His instructions were to wait until the criminal case was over."

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