“You have no idea what this means, Jen.

Dad lit up the second he heard you two were on the way,” he said, swinging our bags into the trunk.

The illusion broke the moment I crossed the threshold of the estate.

Denton was not on a deathbed.

He was not wired to monitors or gasping his last.

He sat upright in a leather armchair in the great front room, pale and older than I remembered but entirely clear-eyed, a cup of black coffee in his hand, surrounded by a dozen relatives who circled the room like patient birds.

As Cody and I came in, every pair of eyes turned toward us, bright with a mix of performed warmth and open calculation.