He looked back at the oval driveway. There was little evidence of that morning’s commotion. The lawn looked trampled down in a few places, and a yellow scrap of crime-scene tape was caught under a potted plant. Otherwise, starlings still pecked around in the flower beds, and the high cirrus clouds still scudded across the unrelenting summer sky. Time moved on, with or without Ormsby or Marilyn or his mother.

The big door swung open when Keegan wasn’t expecting it. He took a step back and felt a quick jolt of adrenaline set his heart racing. Dammit! He couldn’t afford to be so jumpy.

A face peered out at him blankly from the partly opened door—a plumpish woman in her forties—maybe fifties. The surprise of seeing a stranger made Keegan wonder, nonsensically, if he’d knocked on the wrong door. The woman’s face was pale, but it bore a harried kind of beauty that must have served her well in her youth, with high cheekbones and heavy, inquisitive brows. Her eyes were rimmed in red and her silver-threaded brunette hair was pulled back in a hasty bun. “Flowers?” she said.

Keegan dug his hands in his pockets. His blue Arrow shirt was open at the collar, and he’d rolled up the sleeves. Even freshly shaven, he knew he didn’t look like the well-bred, well-heeled men anyone would expect to come knocking on the door in this neighborhood. He did look like someone making a delivery.

“No,” he said to the woman. “Sorry. I’m a neighbor. I’m here to see Miss Ormsby-Cutler. Is she—?”

The door opened wider, and Keegan could see the bright front entryway behind her. The woman who stood on the checkerboard tile wore a black mid-length dress with a white collar. She looked Keegan over appraisingly and seemed to shift into a more genteel mien. “Of course,” she said, her voice suddenly deeper and more fluid. “How nice of you to call. Please come in, Mr.—?”

“Keegan.”

“Of course, Mr. Keegan,” she said, as though she should have known. She held her hand out, limply, for Keegan to shake, and he did. “Please do come in.”

Her transatlantic accent struck Keegan as more Bryn Mawr than Brentwood. She must have grown up on the other coast.

She stepped to one side, so Keegan could enter, and then she closed the door behind him. “I didn’t think Eve knew any of our neighbors.” Her voice echoed faintly in the grand open space. “She only just arrived a few days ago. But then I’ve been out of town.”

Keegan glanced around at the sweeping staircase, the dangling crystal chandelier, the blinding white walls and glossy tilework. A silver tray stood upon a central pedestal table, as if waiting for Edwardian calling cards. The August afternoon light shone down through a lofty atrium. In daylight, the whole scene lacked any hint of menace. It was opulent, but in the blandest, most benign and unimaginative way—all whipped cream and icing.