He cleared his throat, his long fingers resting on the loose papers. “Would anyone like to say a word?”

Margot waited. The pastor’s speech, although handwritten, had been hollow. But a close friend or a neighbor would have stories to tell. Fond memories, even bittersweet ones, that might give Margot some small taste of who they had been during life.

The silence pulled onward, and onward, and onward, until her skin crawled from it. No one stood. The heads around her were bowed, eyes averted.

Why? So many people came. Someone must have known them. Even if they weren’t well liked—even if they’d been bitter and irritable—surely someone would want to put in a word.

Margot swallowed again and felt her throat ache. Speeches were most often given by family. That meant her. But she had nothing to offer. Hugh and Maria Hull had been as much strangers to her as the nameless faces filling the church.

The silence ached in her bones. In that moment, it seemed to Margot that the guests were even holding their breath. The pastor cleared his throat. “Let us pray.”

She bowed her head, but her mind was racing.

The funeral was tearless. The mourners had maintained a somber mood throughout, and no one had brought children or babies into the hall. Every face she’d been able to glimpse had been respectfully attentive to the service.

But no one cried.

Again, she realized, that duty should have fallen to her first. She was the daughter after all. Her throat ached with dust and stress, but tears were impossible, even if she’d wanted them.

“Amen,” the pastor said, and the word was echoed back in soft murmurs from every corner of the chilled stone chamber.

As she lifted her head, Margot felt eyes on her. She turned. Two rows back and on the opposite side of the church, a man stared at her.

Dull-gray eyes, half-hidden beneath heavy brows, caught flashes of muted light through the nearest stained-glass window. She could barely see his lips behind the salt-and-pepper beard. Shaggy hair had been combed away from his face and clung to the back of his neck. He’d dressed in dark colors, like everyone else in the room, but his clothes were the least formal there: a faded button-up shirt with a dull pattern of crisscrossing lines and navy blue jeans that were so dark they might as well have been black. Margot had the impression that he might not have owned a suit, and this outfit was the closest he could manage from his wardrobe.

The stranger didn’t look away when she met his eyes. Nor did he smile or nod; he simply stared. His expression was impossible to read. Margot’s skin crawled as she turned back to face the caskets.