THE CALAMITY HOUSE
I came downstairs that morning expecting coffee. Instead I found my mother-in-law standing over the housekeeper, demanding she empty her pockets.
Seven pieces of silver were missing from a locked cabinet. Three keys existed. And Cressida Fontaine had already decided who was guilty.
But I'd seen things in this house that didn't add up. A key that had been copied. Items missing from rooms the housekeeper never entered. A receipt in a jacket pocket that belonged to someone nobody wanted to suspect.
The deeper I looked, the more the Fontaine name came apart in my hands. And the people willing to help me were the people who had the most to lose if I failed.
My mother-in-law gave me a choice: protect the family or protect the truth. She didn't tell me I couldn't do both.
She didn't need to. I already knew.