Sarah Lin had the particular composure of someone who had decided, well in advance, how a conversation would go and had already moved through her side of it in her own mind.
She looked up when Claire came into the office, and something flickered in her eyes, quickly managed, a tightening that was nearly invisible if you did not know to look for it.
“Mrs. Cole,” she said. “Nathaniel is not in the office today.”
“I know,” Claire said pleasantly. “I came to see you.”
She sat down across from Sarah’s desk without being invited, in the same unhurried way she had sat down across from Eleanor Ashworth, and looked at the woman who had spent six years building walls around a man who had just learned how to take them down.
“I am going to tell you what we know,” Claire said. “Not to give you tim
