The garage smelled of motor oil, cold concrete, and the lavender-scented laundry detergent that seemed to permeate every inch of Emma’s suburban sanctuary. It was a jarring contrast,half of the space was dedicated to a gleaming silver minivan and a rack of bicycles, while the other half had been painstakingly converted into a high-end home office. Glass desks, leather chairs, and shelves of legal volumes looked out over a stack of plastic storage bins filled with holiday decorations.
I stood in the center of it, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, my presence an invasive species in her carefully cultivated ecosystem. Emma was standing behind her desk, her hands gripping the edge of the mahogany until her knuckles were white. She looked like a cornered animal, but her eyes,those Sterlin
