He capped his marker and set it on top of the breaker cabinet.

“You should concentrate on resting, Eleanor,” he added, brushing a streak of dust off his sleeve.

“Leave the heavy accounts to me.”

I watched him walk out across the gravel driveway to his dark Audi sedan.

The key code box next to the garage door was showing a red standby light that hadn’t been on yesterday.

By one o’clock the house was totally silent.

My parents had taken the sedan into town to buy Thanksgiving groceries, and Julian’s car was gone from the front curb.