cho

ver re

ring at my phone on the desk. Abby, where are y

went quiet when I hurt her. Maybe she was staying with a friend. Maybe she'd taken a room near the station. She'd re

eboard, but I left it alone. I've never been good at drinking th

care if

were m

fter eleven, my mother talking in one ear, the board closing in from the other, while my wife watched me for something I could

to be clear, even to the pa

he first tim

d notebook and ink-stained fingers, eyes closed as she smelled her coffee-c

miled at their own reflections. Abigail didn't. She

was genuine. I still think

something in a house like mine. My mother knows where people are tender and how to press until they fold inward. Abigail lea

elf a lot

something a

led it convenient. The Winchester Group's founding trust contains a clause known only to the family:

rdrooms and took meeting after meeting while my cousins waited nearby. She made me in

m not excusing her. I'm explai

the trust says she isn't enough. Every year, Victor's people edg

n, and it was bad. Three directors were wavering, and Victor was sending flowers to the b

aid Naomi, I s

clear abo

decided love was a weakness. We ended things cleanly. When I saw Naomi again at a cha

Naomi's grandfather, Harold, had old ties to a Swiss dynasty-some obscure history Mother tr

ontract. N

Abigail woul

without raising her voice. I told myself-God help me-that it meant

hat it would cost to

, I went

as shut. Lily's was open; she lay beneath her bl

bedroom, ready to

was un

od open. An empty h

ot dramatically, just like missing

ng ring s

hen I believed a ring could say what I couldn't. She had never taken i

ned by repeated passes of a hand. A strip of p

d up th

o

elf. She's upset. She wants me

hone

I looked at the phone, the ring in my hand,

number. I let it vibrate until t

meeting began in an hour. Mother

quared my shoulders, and went downst

read t

countless times what I'd g