“I’m so sorry, Irene, none of us had any idea! But it was unusual for you to be out for an entire week without any notice. Of course, once we learned that Milly had passed, it all made sense…none of us knew that Russ…I mean, you’ve had such a double whammy!”

A little while later, Irene notices Rooney pouring himself a scotch at the drinks trolley. She needs to find Lydia and tell her to keep an eye on him. But she’s too busy. She has to spend time with everyone, nodding her head and lying by omission.

Why is it the people you’d like to leave the party first are always the last to go? The party has thinned out to just Irene, Lydia and Brandon, Dot, Ed and Anita Sorley, and Jayne and Rooney. Irene finally allows herself to eat something—a lemongrass sugar cookie—and Brandon, ever the barista, steeps her a tea that he thinks will complement the cookie. Irene nearly laughs at the absurdity of the notion. It’s a cookie, Brandon, she wants to say. Irene hasn’t tasted anything since Russ died—except the fish that Huck grilled. That had been delicious.

Her thoughts are interrupted by Rooney, who raises his voice above the others and says, “Russ worked for a hedge fund, right? You’re aware, I assume, that the Virgin Islands were recently added to a blacklist of tax havens by the EU? What kind of business was Russ involved in? Are you sure it was aboveboard?”

Brandon, possibly attempting to head Rooney away from the topic, makes things worse. “What does that mean, a blacklist of tax havens?” He looks around the room and shrugs. “I can explain the difference between a latte and an Americano, but tax havens confound me.”

“What does it mean?” Rooney asks in a way that makes it clear he isn’t sure what it means. He’s sitting in the velvet-upholstered bergère chair, holding court now. “It means they conduct business without obeying the tax code. We’re talking money-laundering, numbered accounts at banks in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, shell companies, dark money, terrorists, drug dealers, human traffickers…”

Irene shoots a look at Ed Sorley. The Cayman Islands?

Jayne emits a nervous laugh. “Rooney, stop,” she says. “You knew Russ. He was…well, he was the nicest man in the world is what he was.”

“I second that,” Dot says.

“Sometimes it’s the nice guys who are the worst criminals,” Rooney says. “Because they’re the ones you’d least suspect of anything.”

Irene stands up. “I’m feeling a little worn out,” she says, and everyone takes the hint.