The house was silent when she entered. The flowers still stood on the dining table. The salmon had dried at the edges beneath its silver cover. The place settings remained perfect, untouched by guests who had never arrived because the dinner had been only a prelude to humiliation.
Arden walked into the kitchen.
No broken crystal remained.
Only the memory of it.
She removed her earrings, set them on the counter, and looked at the place where she had knelt hours earlier.
Then came a sound from the hall.
Slow clapping.
Arden turned.
A man stood near the dining room entrance.
He was older, perhaps in his late sixties, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked slept in but expensive. His silver hair was combed back from a face Arden knew only from old photographs and sealed legal files.
For one breath, she could not move.
“Remarkable evening,” the man said.
His voice was smooth, amused, and impossibly familiar.
Halden appeared behind Arden almost instantly, one hand inside his jacket.
The stranger smiled at him.
“Still loyal, Thomas? How touching.”
Arden’s pulse changed.
Only three people alive knew Halden’s first name
