Brandon shut his eyes for a moment. “They said—” He stopped, made himself say it. “They said if I didn’t sign, they’d go to my sister. It was on the phone.

The message came in while I was on the ground.”

“I read it.” Patton’s voice didn’t change, but something behind it hardened. “Listen to me carefully, because this is the part that matters to you right now.

As of two hours ago there are two officers posted outside your sister’s room, around the clock, and her floor is restricted to badged staff and a family list that has exactly three names on it.

Yours, your mother’s, and hers. Nobody is getting near that girl. Do you understand me? Nobody.” She waited until he nodded. “Good. Now start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

So he told her all of it, from the first evening Roderick had beckoned him closer — the confession Roderick had recorded, the will, the reading, the recording playing in the glass conference room, Gareth’s white face, Demi’s heels on the marble.