Caleb Morrow stepped onto his front porch at 7:43 in the morning with a mug of coffee in his hand and stopped. The road in front of his house was buried. Buried under black hoods and chrome grills and the low growl of engines that had never once turned down a dirt road in their lives. Black Escalades, silver Bentleys, a Rolls-Royce the color of gunmetal parked directly across from his mailbox. His neighbor Ray Cutler stood in his yard in a bathrobe, phone raised, mouth open.
Eli appeared at Caleb’s hip blinking at the road in pajamas. Then one of the front doors opened. A woman stepped down from the lead vehicle. She wore a red dress, fitted, sleek, the kind of red that didn’t apologize for itself, and a cream-white coat over her shoulders. Her heels struck the dirt road with the deliberate sound of someone who had never adjusted her pace for terrain. The handbag on her arm was white, structured, and worth more than Caleb’s truck.
