“And once this trust, if that’s what it is, owns Hopetown, they can sell off part of the land?” Virginia said.

“So it’s a trick,” Donald said.

You give ’em an inch, they’ll take a town.

Margaret shook her head in disbelief. “Does Leroy know?”

“I think that’s why he hasn’t signed the papers yet,” Darren said, remembering Erika’s irritation the day before and her father’s other delirious statement that now made a hell of a lot more sense. Rosemary could stop this.

Mary, Mrs. King’s maid, tried to block Darren at the door.

“But you don’t have an appointment, sir,” she said as a piece of pure performance, throwing her voice to the back of the house. Quietly she said to Darren, “Go while you can.” He would realize too late that it was more than Rosemary’s wrath she was warning him against. But at the moment, he removed the thin black woman—who had smudged the bright white of her apron pressing against the heavy door to keep him out—from his path as gently as he could. He had a badge, he said, all the appointment he needed, and he stalked through the house calling Rosemary’s name. He found her in a large study that was lined to the ceiling with books and had several velvet lounge chairs and settees organized in a U-shape in front of a magnificent mahogany desk behind which Rosemary King sat holding a sterling-silver letter opener before a stack of correspondence—all heavyweight paper and embossed envelopes in colors of cream and white. She looked up and saw Darren, and without an ounce of surprise at his presence—wearing an expression that said this was Texas, after all; there were roaches everywhere, no matter how hard you tried to keep them out of the house—she pointed the letter opener at Mary. Her maid was hanging in the doorway of the study, clinging to the doorjamb as she might to a tree in a violent rainstorm, something to keep her from sliding to the floor.

“Get Roger on the phone.”

“I tried to keep him from coming inside—”

“Now!”

For some reason Darren expected Rosemary to stand, to defend herself against what she must have known was coming. But she went back to her stack of correspondence, barely acknowledging Darren over the lenses of the reading glasses perched on her nose. She was wearing jodhpurs and a pale blue cable-knit sweater that brought out the ice in her eyes, even as they reflected the glow of the fire that was crackling in the fireplace to the right of her feet.

“So you traded Sandler Gaines a casino for your son’s freedom?”