I stopped wiping the wood and climbed two steps closer to her open office door.

“Sloan?

Did the afternoon mail come up the driveway yet?”

Sloan turned around in her leather desk chair, her manicured nails tapping against the side of a glass mug.

She didn’t answer me.

She pulled her office door shut until the latch clicked tight, cutting her voice off mid-sentence.

I lowered my dust cloth and turned back toward the front hall table, where Mark had set his morning stack of mail before leaving for work.

Sitting right on top of a glossy magazine was a heavy square envelope from an escrow company down on High Street, addressed only to Mark.