Every kindness Shirley had shown me across four months — I went back through them all, right there in the leather chair, and watched each one reveal its hidden machinery.

The casseroles that kept her in my kitchen.

The albums that opened the subject of the family’s property.

The gentle question about the deed.

The hand on my arm, the offers to help, the whispered have you eaten.

None of it had been what it appeared.

All of it had been reconnaissance and rehearsal, the patient grooming of a mark, and the mark had been me, and I had poured her tea and called her sweetheart the whole way through.

Chapter 15 — The Shield