For a moment Elena could not make the name fit the shape the whisper had given it, because everything she knew about Richard belonged to a different story.

Richard was the soft-spoken, grief-stricken brother-in-law who had sat beside her through the worst days of her life.

Richard had held her hand in the courtroom when the judge read out the sentence, had wept, or seemed to weep, at the cruelty of it.

Richard was the one who had stepped forward when Elena was taken away in chains and volunteered to raise little three-year-old Chloe, so that the child would not be lost to the foster system, so that she would grow up with family.

Elena had wept with gratitude for that.