He drank deeply, completely oblivious to the temperature dropping in the room. By morning, the humming would stop. And the stranger he had been hiding behind his charming veneer would finally step out into the harsh daylight.
The scent of stale espresso hit me before I even reached the bottom of the staircase.
I tightened the belt of my silk robe, padding barefoot across the chilled hardwood floors. The house was usually silent at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday, but a low murmur of voices drifted from the kitchen. It wasn’t the casual chatter of a weekend morning; it was the hushed, tactical whispering of a staging area.
I rounded the corner. Jason stood by the sprawling, white Carrera marble kitchen island. He was already dressed in a crisp, powder-blue button-down shirt, tucked immaculately into dark denim. His jaw was locked tight, his posture rigid.
He was not alone.
Hovering nervously by the stainless-steel refrigerator were his parents. Linda Carter wore a taut, practiced smile that didn’t reach her cold, calculating eyes. Her husband, Frank, stood slightly behind her, arms folded tightly across his chest like a bailiff preparing to enforce a judge’s order.
And then, leaning casually against the custom wainscoting of my kitchen archway, was Brooke Miller.
Brooke was a junior art director at Jason’s failing firm. She was wearing a vibrant, aggressive crimson trench coat. A small, white barcode tag was still visibly dangling from the sleeve cuff. She looked at me with the smug, entitled expression of a woman who believed she had just won a grand prize in a rigged lottery.
Jason didn’t offer a greeting. He didn’t offer coffee. He reached onto the marble counter and picked up a thick, manila envelope. He held it out toward me, the air in the room turning brittle.
“Sign,” he ordered.
