Chapter 4: Two Sugars

"Pantry," Constance said. "Now."

She said it with a smile for Poppy's benefit, and she walked out of the kitchen without waiting.

I turned off the burner and followed.

The pantry was a narrow room of shelves and flour tins that smelled like cinnamon.

Constance closed the door and stood with her back against it.

Up close, I saw that she had aged.

There was a gray streak in her silver that hadn't been there at my engagement lunch.

"You have ten minutes to be out of my son's house," she said.

"I was hired."

"You were hired under a false name."

"Then tell him my real one."

Constance's chin lifted.

"Tell him," I said again. "Walk out there and say, 'Christian, that's Willa Eastwick, the girl who stole from our Foundation.' I'll wait."

"Do not mistake me for a fool."

"I don't. That's why you won't."

Her nostrils flared.

For a moment I saw it clearly, the thing she was afraid of.

It wasn't me, and it wasn't Christian.

It was the question he would ask next, the one a smart man always asks.

Who else could have taken it?

"You were convicted," she said carefully. "That is the end of the matter."

"It was the end for four years and four months," I said. "I did every day of it."

"Then you should be grateful it's over."

"I'm not grateful. I'm home."

"This is not your home."

"It's where my daughter is."

"That child is a Thorsby," Constance said, and she glanced at the door in case Poppy could hear.

"Then say you're sorry," I said.

"Sorry is for people who are wrong."

She opened the pantry door and walked out, and her heels clicked down the hall.

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