“Give me the key, Elena.”

I smoothed my skirt over my knee with one hand, unclasped the chain with the other, and tucked the brass key deep inside my dress collar while Julian glared at me across the funeral parlor.

The service ended twenty minutes later, but Julian never took his eyes off my throat.

By eight o’clock the next morning, the funeral flowers were already wilting on the dining room table, and Uncle Raymond had his cardboard boxes lined up along the study wall.

Raymond pulled a heavy set of cast-iron bookends off Dad’s oak desk and set them in a box.