GLASS HOUSES

The call came in at 6:42 in the morning. Elena Cole was already awake. She was always awake now, ever since Marcus died. She'd stopped pretending sleep was coming for her most nights and just let herself sit at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, waiting for the sun or the phone, whichever came first. Today it was the phone. "We've got a body in Ansley Park," the dispatcher said. "Local PD called it in an hour ago. Captain wants GBI on scene before the family lawyer shows up and starts making noise." "Too late for that, I'm guessing." "You'd be guessing right." Elena grabbed her badge off the counter and left her coffee half finished on the table, the way she left most things these days. Ansley Park meant money. Big lawns, bigger houses, the kind of neighborhood where nothing bad was supposed to happen. Elena parked behind two patrol cars and sat for a second before getting out. Just a breath, the way she always gave herself now before she had to look at something she couldn't unsee. A young officer met her at the gate, pale and shaken. "She's out back. Pool house. Family's inside, and there's already a lawyer here. Showed up twenty minutes ago." "That was fast." "Guess when you've got this kind of money, you keep a lawyer's number the way the rest of us keep a plumber's." Elena almost smiled. "Show me the body first." The girl was seventeen, maybe eighteen, blond hair fanned out beneath her on the tile, one arm flung out like she'd been reaching for something. A dark stain spread from the back of her skull. Local PD had already called it: a fall, hit her head on the bench. Elena crouched beside her and looked without touching. The story didn't fit. Bruising on both forearms, deep enough to leave marks. No blood spatter where there should have been some if she'd hit the bench the way they said. Somebody had worked hard to make this look like nothing. That told Elena everything she needed to know. It hadn't been nothing. The mother was in the main house, on a couch that had probably never been sat on before this morning. Caroline Ashworth, mid-fifties, hair perfectly done even at seven in the morning. State senator. Widely rumored to be eyeing the mayor's race. "Mrs. Ashworth. Detective Cole, GBI. I'm very sorry for your loss." "Thank you." Caroline's eyes were red, genuinely red. "I already told the officers everything I know. I was asleep. My husband was asleep. We didn't hear anything." "I'll still need to ask a few questions, when you're ready." "I'm ready now." That was when he walked in. He didn't knock. Didn't announce himself. He simply filled the doorway the way certain men did, like the room existed to receive him. Tall, dark-haired, late thirties, a suit that hadn't been slept in even though it wasn't yet eight. Calm in a way Elena immediately distrusted, because calm at a scene like this usually meant one of two things, and neither one was innocent. "Caroline," he said, "you don't have to answer anything right now." "Julian." Something in Caroline's shoulders loosened. "This is Detective Cole." "Julian Reyes." He held out a hand. His grip was steady. "I represent the Ashworth family." "That was fast," Elena said. "I like to be useful." No apology in it. "Mrs. Ashworth is happy to cooperate, Detective. I just want to make sure that cooperation doesn't turn into something she regrets saying in the state she's in." "I appreciate you looking out for her." "It's my job." "Is it? I thought your job was estate law." Something flickered behind his eyes. Gone fast, but she caught it. "The Ashworths have retained us for a number of matters over the years," he said smoothly. "I handle what needs handling." "I bet you do." Neither of them said anything for a second. Just looked at each other, the kind of look that had nothing to do with liking someone and everything to do with recognizing a person you weren't going to be able to move easily. Elena turned back to Caroline. "Can you walk me through Mia's evening? Who she saw, anything out of the ordinary." Caroline glanced at Julian first. He gave the faintest nod. Permission granted. "She came home around ten. Said goodnight. She liked to swim late, alone, clear her head. I never loved it, but I never stopped her either." Caroline's hands were locked together in her lap. "She'd been distant the last few weeks. Quieter. More secretive on her phone than usual. I told myself it was just being seventeen." "Anyone she might have been seeing? A boyfriend, anyone at all?" "Not that I knew of." Caroline's voice cracked, just slightly. "I thought maybe there was someone she didn't want to tell us about. I never imagined—" She didn't finish the sentence. "I think that's enough for this morning," Julian said quietly. "One more question." Elena didn't wait for permission this time. "Mrs. Ashworth, do you know of anyone who'd want to hurt Mia? Anyone at all?" Something crossed Caroline's face. Gone almost as fast as it appeared, but Elena had seen it. It wasn't grief. It was fear. "No," Caroline said. "No one." It was the first thing she'd said all morning that Elena didn't believe. Elena found Julian by the pool twenty minutes later, hands in his pockets, staring at the water like it might tell him something. "You're still here." "I told Caroline I'd stay until the scene cleared." He didn't look at her right away. "She shouldn't have to watch this alone." "That's decent of you." "I have my moments." He turned to face her, and something in his expression had shifted, less guarded than it had been inside. "You think this was staged." Not a question. Elena didn't bother pretending otherwise. "I think a seventeen-year-old doesn't get bruises on both arms from slipping on wet tile." "I noticed the same thing." Quiet. Almost like he hadn't meant to say it out loud. "I'm not stupid, Detective, whatever you think of lawyers who show up at seven in the morning." "I don't think anything of lawyers who show up at seven in the morning. I think something of lawyers who already know exactly what to say to keep a grieving mother from answering questions." "That's my job." "You said that already." "Because it's true." He studied her for a long moment, longer than was comfortable, long enough that something low in Elena's chest shifted in a way she didn't want to name. "You want to know something? I've represented this family six years. I've watched that girl grow up. And I am telling you, Detective Cole, whatever you're building in your head right now about a rich family protecting its own — you don't know the half of it yet." "So tell me the half of it." He held her gaze, and for one second she thought he actually might. His mouth opened. Then his phone rang. He looked down at the screen, and whatever had been about to happen in his face vanished, replaced by something tight and careful. "I have to take this," he said. "Julian—" "It's Caroline's husband." He was already walking away, phone pressed to his ear, voice dropping low enough that Elena couldn't catch the words. But she caught his face just before he turned. Whatever Richard Ashworth was telling him, it had gone from calm to something close to alarm in under five seconds. He glanced back at her once, and for a moment he looked like a man deciding whether to trust her with something that could get him killed. Then he turned and walked fast toward the house, leaving Elena standing alone by the water with a dead girl's blood still drying twenty feet away, and the growing certainty that whatever Julian Reyes knew, it was a great deal more than he'd told her.