Traffic moves. Pedestrians cross. A bus exhales at the curb. Somewhere a siren threads through the noon air. The city has the gall to continue while my life is detonating, and for a moment that ordinary movement makes me want to scream.
Instead I get into my car and sit there gripping the steering wheel until my pulse slows enough for motion to feel safe.
Then I drive to Margaret’s house.
The mansion on Lindell looks different without her. Not smaller, exactly, but less animated. As if the architecture itself knows its general has gone. The housekeeper, Dolores, opens the door before I can knock fully and folds me into a hug so sudden and fierce it nearly knocks the grief back out of me.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she says into my hair. “And I’m so glad you came first.”
First.
Margaret had thought of that too.
Dolores leads me upstairs to the dressing room, a sunlit chamber lined with cream lacquer cabinetry, perfume bottles, silk scarves, and the exact sort of elegant order Margaret maintained even while dying. Nothing is out of place. The vanity sits beneath tall mirrors, and sure enough there is a second hidden keyhole in the left drawer panel.
My hands shake as I insert the key.