My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

“For all of it. The farm. The pressure. The lies. He said Robert is sick.”

My grip tightened around the edge of the counter.

“Sick how?”

“Heart condition. Serious. He mentioned surgery. He was… strange, Mom. Softer than before. But he kept asking odd questions too. Whether I visit the farm often. Whether anyone else is living there. Whether there’s unusual activity on the property.”

I looked out through the kitchen window toward the white fields beyond the barn and felt something cold move through me that had nothing to do with weather.

Reconnaissance.

“Did you tell him anything?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I exhaled slowly. “I’ll alert Ellis. And Maren.”

“There’s more,” Jenna said. “He tried to make it sound like family should come together in hard times. Like whatever happened before ought to be set aside.”

Of course he did.

Illness has a way of tempting people to retrofit morality onto old behavior. It can make urgency look like redemption when sometimes it is simply desperation in a cleaner coat.

After we hung up, I went straight to Ellis. He listened without interruption, then nodded once.

“I’ll check perimeter systems,” he said. “And increase remote camera coverage at the gate.”