She was speaking a mile a minute, already in overdrive. Writing the story in her head. I knew from experience that she was looking for the lede. Once she got that—figured out how or where to begin—she told me that the piece more or less wrote itself.

I was nodding as she spoke, but my mind was racing, too. Would anyone in the media care that I had been the last person to talk to Prescott before he died? Hopefully not. Prescott had left too big an imprint on everything he’d touched, the empire he’d built, for anyone to bother with a minor detail like me.

“I know Bobby’s there because I can’t find either him or Win Turnbull. Why were you two down there? What’s going on?”

Already Kit knew about Prescott from Grant Lowry and he had found out from Alex. As they say, three can keep a secret if two are dead. The Averys were never going to be able to contain this news and certainly not spin it the way they wanted to, that Prescott died peacefully at home in his sleep surrounded by his family. Instead, I could just imagine the headlines: Billionaire Philanthropist and Media Mogul Prescott Avery Dies Alone at His Own Party.

“You’re going to have to talk to someone in the family,” I said. “They want to handle this.”

She looked taken aback. “Oh,” she said. “I see. A gag order, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to. Either way, that shouldn’t include talking to me.”

“They didn’t give us a list,” I said.

“I guess I’d better call Grant and let him know. And see what I can worm out of my husband once he shows up … though it probably won’t be much. I love him to death, but he doesn’t cut me any breaks.” Her eyes narrowed. “Was there something suspicious about Prescott’s death? Is that the reason you’re not supposed to talk about it?”

Quinn and I exchanged glances.

“It’s probably better if you ask Bobby or Clay your questions,” Quinn said. “We ought to be getting home.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, giving him a sharp nod. “Look, the optics are already bad, Prescott dying at his own party on Thanksgiving weekend. Not talking about it is only going to make things worse.”

“I doubt Prescott was thinking about the optics when he died,” Quinn said.

“You know perfectly well what I mean.” She glared at him and then turned to me. “Never mind, then. Luce, talk to me. Whatever happened, the Averys’ own newspaper needs to report the story honestly.”

I hesitated. “I, uh … think you should ask Clay, Kit.”

She shot me a look of dismay. I wasn’t going to help her, either.