“You need to get back in your car and go home, Mom,” he said, angling his shoulder to block the workbench.

At four o’clock I walked out to my Buick parked on the gravel driveway.

I climbed into the driver’s seat, dug my cell phone out of my purse, and called Arthur Pendelton’s office on speakerphone.

Arthur had been our family lawyer for twenty years, working out of a small brick office across from the county courthouse.

He picked up on the second ring, his warm baritone filling the cold inside of the car.

“Brenda,” he said.