The mid-afternoon heat presses against the louvred shutters, carving bars of white-hot light across the mahogany desk. Renee Chastain adjusts her pearl studs, the cool weight of her Mont Blanc pen grounding her as she watches the woman in the guest chair. Margaret Holcomb sits with a silk-clad stillness, her dark hair a precise line against her pale throat.
"The kitchen is always too quiet on Sundays," Margaret says, her voice a soft, flat rasp. "He lines the silverware drawer with a specific brand of cedar-wood liner—scented, to mask the smell of the old plumbing. He spends hours arranging the forks. If I move one, he doesn't shout. He just stops speaking for three days."
Renee feels a cold needle of recognition skip down her spine. It is the exact detail of her own kitchen, right down to the aromatic wood she bought at a boutique in Savannah last March. She waits for the woman to describe a stranger, but every word builds a portrait of the man Renee ate breakfast with this morning.
Margaret reaches into her oversized leather tote. Her gaze remains fixed on Renee, dark eyes devoid of the very desperation her story suggests. She does not pull the object out yet.
Margaret's hand vanishes into the depths of the leather tote, her fingers tightening.
