Nobody breathed. The hall held us all in it — the Director by the table, Cross a step inside the door with the mist still on his shoulders, Cole and Voss flanking the stairs, June at the kitchen threshold with a dish towel forgotten in her hands — and Adrian stood over his mother's handwriting with the paper trembling in a way his hands never trembled.
"You knew she was here," he said again, quieter now, and it wasn't a question anymore. It was an accusation with a body count.
"I knew she was going somewhere." The Director's voice had lost its hostess warmth. What remained was careful, and old, and honest in the way June had promised — true, and incomplete. "Near the end, she described a house to me. A kitchen with a window over the counter. A walled garden. An old tree. I assumed it was
