Seth Hannah was a small, compact man with a silver-gray pompadour smoothed back in a way that always made me think of a fox. He had a broad, high-domed forehead, dark intelligent eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses, and a good poker face, as any of the Romeos who played cards with him knew only too well. It was a real asset for a banker and that’s what I was getting right now.

“Lucie, my dear. How nice to see you.” He came around from behind his desk and took one of my hands in both of his. “I heard the news about you being with Prescott Saturday afternoon when he … passed, God rest his soul. It must have been a terrible shock. What can I offer you? A cup of coffee, tea, or a glass of water? Please … please. Have a seat.”

He ushered me over to a pair of club chairs covered in royal-blue crushed velvet and settled me into one of them. His office always reminded me of an English gentlemen’s club. Dark paneled walls, an oil painting of the bank’s founder with a handlebar mustache and bushy sideburns, heavy, dark furniture, and an enormous vase filled with roses and mums in the colors of autumn sitting on a low sideboard. Inside I knew he kept top-shelf bottles of liquor that he brought out for special visitors and challenging situations. But not at ten in the morning.

“Water would be great,” I said. My mouth already felt parched.

He pressed a button on the multiline telephone on his desk and said, “Could we have some water, please?”

He sat in the other club chair as his secretary knocked on the door and walked in, carrying a silver tray with a pitcher and two glasses on it. She set it on a small table between us and said, “Please let me know if you need anything else.”

Seth poured two glasses of water and placed mine on a drink coaster with the Blue Ridge Federal logo—the hazy blue mountains as a backdrop for the bank’s name in bold black letters—printed on it. He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other.

“What can I do for you, darling?”

He already knew about the safe-deposit box keys. He was fishing. My guess was he wanted to know how much I knew before he tipped his hand.

I pulled the little envelope out of my pocket, opened it, and dumped the keys on the table. “You can tell me about these.”

He picked up one of them and turned it over, studying it. “It’s one of ours, all right.”

“Come on, Seth.” My anger flared. “Are you really going to make me play twenty questions? Prescott told me about this safe-deposit box just before he died. I had no idea about it until Saturday.”

His eyes flickered. “Where did you get these keys? From Prescott?”