The front door closed behind Evelyn with a softer click than she remembered, as if even the latch had learned restraint. She paused just inside the foyer, keys still in her hand, registering the wrongness before she could name it. The air smelled faintly floral—clean, expensive, unfamiliar. Not the cedar-and-citrus blend she’d chosen years ago. Something had been layered over it.
Her eyes moved automatically, cataloguing. The console table had been cleared of the shallow stone bowl she used for mail; in its place sat a porcelain dish she’d never seen, pale and curved, decorative rather than useful. A throw pillow—cream, embroidered—rested on the armchair by the window. That chair had always been bare by design. She liked the lines clean.
Footsteps sounded from the adjoining hall. Two sta
