She gave a windy sigh that smelled suspiciously like dirty martinis. “Sit down.”

Ethan wasn’t used to taking orders in his own house, especially from a woman he wasn’t fond of, but he perched on a stool and set his hands on his knees. Siobhan watched him for a moment.

“When we spoke last, a few months ago, Sutton told me she was very unhappy. It wasn’t like her to confide in me. You know we don’t always see eye to eye about her choices.”

“If you mean how you suggested she leave me last year after Dashiell...I know. She told me all about it.”

“Do you blame me, Ethan?” That strange, dispassionate tone again. Almost as if they were confidants here, not enemies. “You treated her badly. You handled things poorly. She was in bad shape and you were too busy with your little fling to notice.”

His little fling. His stomach clenched. No one could know the truth there. It would destroy them all, Sutton especially.

“I made a mistake. I came clean, I apologized. We were getting things back on track. We’d talked about... We talked about moving, maybe, getting away from all the bad memories. Starting over.”

“Moving? Where?”

“Back to London.”

“I see. And Sutton was happy to do that?”

“We hadn’t made any concrete decisions. We were talking. Planning. The future... Bloody hell, Siobhan, at least she was talking to me again. You have no idea what the past year has been like, not really, for either one of us. It’s been torture. Oh, yes, we’ve put on a brave front. But once the door closed and the people disappeared, once the funeral was over and the neighborhood stopped tiptoeing around, we were left alone to try and muddle through. It was hell.”

“I can imagine,” she said, and she sounded almost like she cared. He knew she didn’t, not really. She was in it for the money. Siobhan and Sutton had a weird, twisted relationship, more like catty girlfriends who despised one another than mother and daughter. But despite all his advice, Sutton refused to cut her out completely. Ethan would never understand.

“I don’t care what Sutton told you, or didn’t. She’s been on edge lately, secretive. Something has definitely been going on with her. Do you know what she’s been planning?”

Sutton’s mother suddenly looked gray and old. “No. But her note doesn’t sound like someone who’s gone gaily off to do the Lord’s work. Why don’t you call the police? If you have nothing to hide...”

“Give me a break, Siobhan. I didn’t hurt her. It’s not like she’s a missing person, either. She left a note, after all. Besides, they won’t even take a missing persons report for seventy-two hours on an adult.”

“How do you know if you haven’t talked to them?”

“I do research my work, Siobhan.”

“For your books. Yes, of course.”

Oh, the disdain in her tone. Ethan tried not to place his very large hands around his mother-in-law’s neck. Siobhan had never understood the creative gene that he and Sutton shared. Sutton said Siobhan wanted her only child to find a rich man to marry, one who would allow her to play tennis at the club and host fabulous backyard garden parties. His temperament was optional. What were a few black eyes and broken ribs in the face of never-ending wealth and comfort?