“Arthur!” Garrison’s voice boomed through the soaring chestnut rafters, laced with theatrical, patronizing familial warmth. “Uncle Arthur! The house manager told me you spent Christmas Eve wandering around diners on Route 30 like a vagrant! I told you last Thanksgiving that you need to spend the winters in Naples! The cold weather is terrible for your bypass grafts!”
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Garrison stopped dead in the center of the hall.
The smirk on his tanned face did not merely fade; it disintegrated into an expression of sharp, instinctive confusion.
Sitting at the twelve-foot oak dining table in the center of the room, eating warm blueberry pancakes drizzled with local maple syrup, was Chloe. She was wearing her new blue fleece sweater, her honey-colored hair brushed into two neat braids, swinging her feet over the rung of an antique ladderback chair.
Beside her sat Eleanor, wearing the cream-colored cable-knit sweater, her posture upright, her dark amber eyes looking across the table at the four men in camel-hair coats with an icy, unblinking stillness that felt like a loaded weapon.
