Chapter 4: Eight Hours of Rain

"Watch me," I said.

But she was already gone.

I asked the night nurse to put a note on the chart. Nothing by mouth from anyone but staff.

Then I asked the housekeeper to put the bowl in a plastic bag and keep it in the freezer at the house.

She didn't ask why.

"Yes, ma'am."

At six in the morning I left Holly sleeping with the housekeeper beside her and went home to shower.

Home was a stone house on the lake in Lake Forest with eleven bedrooms.

I stood in the front hall in borrowed clothes and read the role's file in my head.

Mrs. Pembroke. Sixty. Widow of the founder.

Fifty-one percent of Pembroke Group, held through the family trust, voted by her alone.

Chair of the board.

Two sons. Chase, thirty-three. Ellis, twenty-nine, Lisbon, no contact in four years.

That was all it gave me. Facts. No memories.

I didn't know what her husband's laugh sounded like or which son she'd loved more.

From the way the house looked, I could guess.

Chase's photos were everywhere. Graduation. Ribbon cuttings. A sailboat.

Ellis was in exactly one, at the back of a shelf, a skinny boy with paint on his hands, half out of the frame.

I showered, dressed in the darkest suit in the closet and went back to Riverbend.

It had rained all night and it was still raining.

At five minutes to seven, a white Range Rover pulled up to the gate.

Brielle got out in a cream trench coat, ankle boots with heels, and sunglasses.

Sunglasses.

The crew was gathered by the trailer with coffee, twenty men and two women in yellow gear.

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