The call with Calista had not been pleasant. She was impatient, anxious, and increasingly frustrated that things weren’t proceeding more quickly in Somerset. That was part of it, but the death of her older sister had shaken her profoundly, and to say the least, Calista was not at her best.

Calista had been close to her sister, and in many ways Evelyn Furst was the last member of the family of which that could be said. Evelyn had shared Calista’s passion for the family’s legacy and standing in the world. Her career as a surgeon and as the long-serving dean of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh was something Calista celebrated. Evelyn had been a pioneer for women, had led the way, and to Calista that was what it meant to be a Dauplaise.

To say no one had seen it coming was an understatement. He had known Evelyn for years, and she’d seemed fine when he’d spoken to her at Catherine’s birthday party. Perhaps a touch preoccupied but certainly not suicidal. Of course, it was impossible to predict how the loss of a spouse might affect a person. Evelyn’s suicide note had been profound and sad.

Calista had rather dramatically taken to talking about being “alone in the world.” It was hard to be alone in the world when you had thirty houseguests, as Calista did for the funeral, but Calista had always drawn a distinction between those who upheld her notions of Dauplaise values and those who absconded to Florida. Evelyn was, in Calista’s mind, one of the last who’d carried the torch. A true Dauplaise. She was only interested in results and had no understanding of the time such matters required. And things in Pennsylvania had definitely become more complex.

She was also incensed that he had brought Gibson Vaughn home. She hadn’t wanted him there in the first place, but now she was acting as if his absence explained why things were taking so long. She continued to voice doubts about Jenn and Dan’s competence, and was pushing hard for George to take over personally in Somerset.

George understood, in principle. She was grasping at straws, trying to impose order over a situation that was still fluid. This was not her world, and looking for Suzanne this way exposed her to considerable risk. As it exposed them all. It weighed heavily on him. He had sanctioned these tactics when Kirby Tate had been an abstract. But now Tate was a person, and George had to question the morality of asking his people to go down this path. Jenn and Dan were loyal. When this was all over, George knew there would be a reckoning.