Chapter 13: Two in the Morning

The kitchen light was on at the farmhouse, and every window around it was dark.

Bridget's white SUV sat in the gravel with its door not quite shut.

Rhett parked behind it and did not say a word, and neither did I.

I had dressed in the truck, in yesterday's jeans and his gray sweater, and my hair was still damp from the cottage shower.

I hoped it looked like panic.

It was only partly a lie.

Edith opened the back door before we reached it.

She wore a quilted robe and her pearls, and her face gave nothing away.

"She's brought a man," she said quietly. "He says he is her attorney. He has not touched his tea."

"Where's Effie?" I said.

"Asleep upstairs, with the hall light on and the door locked. I turned the key myself."

We went in.

Bridget sat at the kitchen table in a cream blazer and full makeup, at two in the morning.

Beside her sat a thin man in a gray suit, with a leather folder squared in front of him.

A second folder, thick and flagged in yellow, lay in front of Bridget.

She looked at Rhett's shirt, which was buttoned wrong, and at my sweater, which was his, and her mouth twisted into something close to a smile.

"Well," she said. "That didn't take long."

"Sit down, both of you," Edith said. "Nobody leaves my kitchen until I have heard it all."

We sat.

Bridget opened the thick folder and turned it toward Edith.

"Grandma, I didn't want to do this tonight," she said. "But Bailey's been telling Rhett things, and I have to protect you both."

"Protect us from what?"

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