I went to the kitchen.
Mrs. Billy looked up from something she was doing at the counter.
"He's been home since three," she said. "Some kind of meeting he moved here from the office."
"Is he…"
"Not available yet. Probably twenty minutes." She went back to her counter work. "Tea?"
"Yes. Please."
I sat at the kitchen table with my tea and my notes from the meeting, and I started transferring the key points to my gala document the way I always did after a productive session, while everything was fresh and sequenced correctly in my memory.
I worked.
Fourteen minutes later, I heard the other man leave, footsteps, voices in the entrance hall, the elevator, and then the specific return-quality of the penthouse quiet that meant it was just the household again.
Julian appeared in the kitche
