Chapter One
The body was found in the conservatory, which would have been almost funny if Eleanor Vance had any laughter left in her. She stood in the doorway of Thornwood House, rain dripping from her coat onto the black-and-white tiles, and watched the forensic team work. Twenty-four hours ago, she'd been in London, arguing contract terms for a client's wrongful dismissal case. Now she was back in the Yorkshire village she'd fled eleven years ago, because her estranged father was dead and the police weren't convinced it was natural causes.
"Ms. Vance?" The detective emerged from the conservatory's glass-walled interior. He was younger than she'd expected—mid-thirties, dark hair curling slightly at the collar, with the kind of careful, observant eyes that made her instinctively check her own expression.
"Detective Inspector Daniel Marsh."
He showed his warrant card, though she'd already known who he was. The village grapevine had been efficient even before social media.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Are you?" The words came out sharper than intended.
"You think someone killed him." His pause was telling. "I think there are inconsistencies that warrant investigation. The pathologist found elevated levels of potassium in his blood. Not enough to be definitive, but enough to question."
Potassium Eleanor's legal mind catalogued the implication: stopped heart, symptoms mimicking natural cardiac arrest, difficult to detect without specific testing.
"You think someone injected him." "I think someone with medical knowledge had opportunity and potentially motive.
" He glanced at the notebook in his hand.
"Your father changed his will three weeks ago. You were the primary beneficiary."
Eleanor felt the familiar cold settle over her the armor she'd developed at fifteen, when her mother died and her father retreated into silence, when the village whispered about the Vance family curse and the women who left too young.
"I hadn't spoken to him in eleven years. I didn't know about the will."
"So I've been told." Something in his tone suggested he'd been told much more, that she was the cold daughter who abandoned her aging father, the ambitious lawyer who'd clawed her way out and never looked back.
"You'll understand that I need to ask where you were three weeks ago, and last Tuesday between six and midnight."
"Last Tuesday I was in court until four, then at my firm's offices until nearly ten. Multiple witnesses, security footage, timestamped emails." She'd learned to document her existence, to leave trails.
"Three weeks ago I was in Edinburgh for a conference. Hotel records, credit card transactions, a presentation that was livestreamed." Marsh made notes without apparent disappointment. "Your father had other visitors. We're compiling a list."
"Let me save you time." Eleanor stepped further into the hall, forcing him to retreat slightly. The familiar smell of beeswax and old wood enveloped
her mother had loved this house, had fought to preserve its gardens and its history.
"His nurse, Mrs. Patterson. His solicitor, Mr. Holloway. The vicar, though Dad stopped attending services years ago. And Gabriel Ashworth, who wanted to buy the eastern meadow for development." Marsh's pen stopped.
"You know Ashworth?"
"We grew up together." The understatement of the decade.
"He was my father's protégé. Studied medicine, then business. He visits Thornwood every few months to check on his investment prospects."
"His investment prospects," Marsh repeated carefully. "The meadow borders his family's estate. He's been trying to acquire it for fifteen years." Eleanor met his eyes.
"My father refused. Repeatedly. Publicly. At the village fête last summer, he announced he'd rather see the land flooded than sell to Gabriel."
"That's quite specific."
"That's my father." She heard the bitterness in her own voice, couldn't stop it. "He enjoyed refusing people. It was one of his few remaining pleasures." Marsh studied her with that unsettling focus.
"You don't seem surprised that he was murdered."
"I'm not surprised that someone finally wanted him dead." Eleanor walked toward the conservatory, stopping at the threshold where yellow police tape barred entry. Her father's reading chair sat empty by the windows, his book. The Count of Monte Cristo, appropriately—abandoned on the side table.
"I'm surprised they succeeded. He seemed... indestructible."
"Ms. Vance." Marsh's voice softened slightly, which she distrusted more than his interrogation. "I need to warn you. In cases like this, family members are often"
"Convenient suspects. Yes, I'm aware." She turned to face him. "I didn't kill him, Detective Inspector. I didn't love him enough to kill him, and I didn't hate him enough either. I felt nothing for him at all, which is probably worse, but it doesn't make me a murderer." She expected judgment, found instead something like recognition.
"Indifference is harder to explain than hatred," he said quietly.
"In my experience." Before she could interpret this, footsteps sounded in the hall behind them. Eleanor turned to find Gabriel Ashworth in the doorway, as if summoned by her mention of him. He was broader than she remembered, the boyish leanness filled out into something more formidable, his fair hair cropped shorter than his old rebellious length. But the eyes were the same gray-green, calculating, seeing too much.
"Ellie." He stopped, visibly adjusting whatever greeting he'd prepared. "I came as soon as I heard. I'm so sorry."
"For his death, or that you won't get the meadow?" Gabriel's jaw tightened. "For your loss. Whatever else he was, he was your father."
"Was he?" She felt Marsh watching this exchange with professional interest. "You'd know better than me, Gabriel. You were the son he wanted."
The silence stretched. Gabriel's hands flexed at his sides she remembered those hands, their surprising gentleness, the way they'd once trembled when he touched her. Before everything. Before she left.
"I'll need to speak with you as well, Mr. Ashworth," Marsh interjected. "Given your relationship with the deceased."
"Of course." Gabriel's composure reasserted itself, the mask sliding into place. "Anything I can do to help." Eleanor watched him, remembering the boy who'd once sworn he'd never become his father, never prioritize land and legacy over people.
The man before her wore an expensive coat and an expression of practiced sincerity. She wondered when exactly the transformation had completed, and whether she'd have noticed if she'd stayed.
"Ms. Vance." Marsh's voice recalled her. "I'd like you to remain in the area while we investigate. And I'd advise you not to discuss the case with potential witnesses." He meant Gabriel. She understood, even as she resented the implication that she'd be manipulated, that her history made her vulnerable.
"I know how investigations work, Detective. I'm a solicitor."
"Then you know that knowing the law doesn't protect you from breaking it." He held her gaze a moment longer than necessary. "I'll be in touch."
