Today is finally the day.
Fiona said it aloud as she stood at the window of the penthouse, the city spread below like a map she had learned to read. The apartment had been Mr. Hayes's gift to Laura; it still carried the faint scent of cedar and old perfume. She did not think of that now. She thought of the evening ahead, of the sequence she had rehearsed until it felt inevitable.
She moved through the rooms with a list in her head and a phone in her hand. The calls were short and precise because there was no room for improvisation. Each person she spoke to was a specialist in making a surface tell the truth she wanted it to tell.
