The coffee—like the wine Eve had stolen from Ormsby’s cellar—didn’t taste like anything Keegan was used to. It was silky and bore the scent of blackberries. He tried a few sips, couldn’t decide if he liked it or not, and then set the cup and saucer on the table between them.

For a while the widow talked, and Keegan tried to listen, though his legs itched with the urge to get up and flee. In his years writing about crime, he’d never understood the old chestnut that a criminal always returned to the scene. Nothing seemed less likely. He kept glancing at the French door, with its pane of too-clean glass. Just beyond it—through the garden, through the chain-link gate, up the hill—was the place he’d much rather be.

“I don’t know what will become of me,” Mrs. Ormsby was saying.

Her voice cracked as she spoke, which drew back Keegan’s attention. It didn’t seem to be an affectation. Keegan looked at her more keenly.

The widow worried the silver buttons on her dress with one hand and seemed to be blinking back tears. Vertical lines showed in her lips when she pursed them. She seemed on the verge of breaking down, and that possibility redoubled Keegan’s need to be somewhere—anywhere—else. He was a complete stranger. It was not his place to console. There had to be someone this woman could call.

The best he could do was lighten the mood, however clumsily. “You’ve got a beautiful place here,” he said brightly. He looked around at the splendor that surrounded them, noticing, yet again, how out of place he felt, an interloper in a too-opulent world. The gilt-framed hunting scenes, the burnished wood and glimmering crystal, the lacquered grand piano, all seemed to press in on him, an obscene clutter of riches. Keegan felt an odd, irrational pang of envy for a dead man.

Mrs. Ormsby picked up her cup and saucer and held them in front of her stiffly, trying to compose herself.

Keegan pressed on: “Why, you could sell this house and live on the Riviera for the rest of your life, if it took your fancy.”

Mrs. Ormsby sat straighter. “This place?” she said. She shook her head forlornly, and the beige coffee swirled a bit in her cup. “None of this really belonged to Nigel. It’s all part of the family trust. His grandfather set it up. Ironclad. Everything will go to his sister now, and her girl. I won’t see a penny.”

“Her girl?” Keegan said, a little too quickly. “You mean Eve?” What had she said about Ormsby’s wine? She had as much right to it as he did?

The widow nodded and set her coffee cup back on the tray. “Nigel didn’t have any real money,” she said. “Not of his own.”

Keegan felt caught off guard. The idea seemed impossible. “Wasn’t he an actor?” he said.