“You, you didn’t—” “I stepped off the train in Milwaukee, Julian,” I said smoothly, taking a quiet sip of my tea.

“While you were texting me to fetch your dinner.

I took a fifty-minute flight here.

And I have been sleeping in your parents’ master suite for two days.” Chloe rounded on me then, her composure gone entirely.

“You ruined my life!” she screamed, and lunged toward me, but one of the sheriff’s deputies stepped smoothly into her path, taking her by the arm and moving her back.

“No, Chloe,” said Evelyn, and her voice dripped with a cold and total disgust as she moved to stand beside her weeping son Marcus.