I woke up to the sound of hangers sliding across a metal rack.
For a moment I forgot where I was. The ceiling above me was not my ceiling. The sheets against my skin were not my sheets. These were silk. Pale ivory silk that whispered every time I moved. The pillow beneath my head smelled like lavender and something else, something expensive I could not name.
Then memory crashed back in. Sterling Estate. My father. The library. The tears.
I sat up slowly. Across the room, near a walk-in closet the size of my old bedroom, three women were working in quiet efficiency. One of them was Margaret, the stylist from yesterday. The other two were younger, dressed in matching black, their hands full of garments wrapped in tissue paper. They moved like a well rehearsed ballet, unwrapping and hangin
