His voice had that smooth salesman texture he used when he wanted me to stop asking questions. Once, I had found it charming. On a good day it sounded reassuring. On a bad day it sounded like a man handing you your own stolen wallet. I looked past him toward the front door.
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs. Settling in. Be nice, okay? She’s really fragile.”
Donna Carter had never been fragile a day in her life. She was sixty-two, perfectly lacquered, wore jewelry like armor, and treated every dining table as if it were a throne room. In the two years I had known her, she had criticized my cooking, my furniture, my hours, my refusal to take Ryan’s last name before the wedding, and once, memorably, the way I folded napkins. Fragile was not the word I would have chosen.
Predatory was closer.
I went inside without answering him and headed straight up the stairs. The heels of my pumps hit the hardwood in hard little clicks that echoed through the foyer. Before I reached the second floor, I heard hangers scraping and something heavy hitting the floor. I stepped into the doorway of the master suite and stopped.