My hand moved slowly toward the call button.
She glanced at it.
“The officers outside are alive. Dr. Reed is alive. Detective Voss is alive. I am not here for theatrics.”
“You’re dead,” I whispered.
“Legally,” she said. “It has been useful.”
The world narrowed to her face, her pearls, the faint scent of expensive perfume.
Grant had said his mother died of illness.
Grant had grieved her in public.
Grant had inherited her shares, her properties, her foundation seats.
And all this time, Lydia Mercer had been somewhere in the dark, watching.
“What are you?” I asked.
Her smile widened slightly.
“A disappointed mother.”
The phone on the table chimed again.
This time, the message was a video.
The thumbnail showed Grant.
Not in a courthouse. Not in his house.
He sat tied to a chair in a room with concrete walls, his face swollen, his expensive shirt stained dark at the collar. His eyes were wild.
