“You’re not moving into the house,” Annelle said, exasperation in every word. “We’ve gone over this and over this. We’re going to sell it. God knows, Rosie and I don’t want to live in it, and you can’t afford to buy us out. You can stay in the pool house until we sell this place.”

The gardener was as rapt as though he were watching his favorite reality show.

“You may go,” Lewis told Olivia, in a patronizing way. “None of this is your concern.”

The gardener was shaking his head silently, trying not to laugh.

It wasn’t Olivia’s concern, true, but it was interesting. Olivia smiled, making sure she looked completely benevolent. “Yes, I have to get to my next appointment.” She glanced at her wrist to check the time. “I’ll be late if I don’t get moving.” She maintained the smile as she got into the car and buckled up, relieved to feel the blast of the air-conditioning after she turned on the ignition. She managed a cheerful little finger wave at the three people staring after her as she circled the round rosebed and left the property.

When she’d reached a more mundane street, she drove through a Wendy’s to get some iced tea with lemon. It tasted absolutely wonderful. She sipped it on her way to her motel, which was a far cry from Vespers. She parked around the corner from the stairs to her room and looked the lot over carefully before going to the second floor. No one had been in her room; the maid had come before she’d left that morning.

Olivia was used to being disguised, but it was a special relief to pull off the wig that had turned her into Rebecca Mansfield. She washed her face in the sink, scrubbing it with the skimpy washcloth. Divesting herself of Rebecca’s clothes, she threw herself on the bed to think. Instead of plotting her next move, she thought of the almost hysterical hostility Lewis Goldthorpe had thrown at her, though he hadn’t known who she was or why she was at the house. Olivia grimaced, imagining living with someone that angry and unrealistic, day after day, especially if you were elderly and sick and worried. It would be exhausting.

Olivia felt a rare moment of empathy for Rachel Goldthorpe.

She wished she had killed Lewis. What a useless waste of oxygen.

She decided to search the house that night. She had looked very carefully at the alarm system. She’d worked at an alarm company for a while, and she knew what to look for.