I dropped my canvas duffel on the hardwood floor with a dull thud.

“I need a cup of black coffee, Thomas,” I said to the catering manager as he went by.

Three seats down from Victoria sat Arthur Vance, my father’s sixty-year-old estate lawyer.

A thick leather binder lay open on the table next to his plate.

Vance looked up from his papers, saw my face, and went completely still.

His fork hung two inches above his plate.

“Avery,” Vance said, his quiet lawyer’s phrasing landing like lead in the silent room.