Chapter 5: The Mother

The Chisholm house sat on top of a hill above Henderson, all pale stone and black glass, lit up.

Cian picked me up in a car that cost more than my building.

He talked the whole way there.

About the house, which he called "the mausoleum."

About their mother, who had "the warmth of a very expensive refrigerator."

"Are you trying to make me laugh?" I asked.

"I'm trying to make you laugh before you meet her. It's a kindness. Afterward you won't be able to."

I'd gone home to change.

My one good dress was black and ten years old, and I'd pinned my curls up with a real hairpin instead of a pencil.

The dining room had a table for twenty and five place settings at one end of it.

Ewan was already seated, in a dark suit, watch on his right wrist.

Fenn wore glasses and a jacket he'd clearly been told to wear.

Bram stood by the window with his arms folded and didn't sit until I did.

Their mother came in last.

Silver hair cut sharp at the jaw. Pearls. A cream silk blouse with not one wrinkle in it.

She looked at me the way I'd look at a water-damaged book someone wanted me to buy.

"Miss Ware," she said.

"Mrs. Chisholm," I said. "Apparently."

Cian made a choking noise into his water glass.

She sat.

The first course was soup so clear you could read through it.

Nobody touched it.

"I've had my people look into you," their mother said.

"Twenty-six. A shop clerk. Eleven hundred dollars in checking. Behind on nothing, which I found suspicious."

"Twelve hundred," I said. "Payday was Thursday."

"And on the night your manager dumped you, you found your way to my son."

"Your son found his way to me. In shifts."

Ewan's hand stopped on the stem of his water glass.

Their mother didn't even glance at him.

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