Then Grace.
Then Lily.
They were all crying.
Lily had no sweater.
The room was cold because someone had opened the window earlier.
She was shivering.
Richard removed his jacket.
He knelt and wrapped it around her shoulders, then pulled Grace and Olivia close enough that the jacket covered parts of them too.
Lily stared at him.
“Are you police?”
For the first time, his expression softened.
“No.”
“Are you rich?”
A strange laugh escaped me through my tears.
Richard blinked.
“I suppose.”
Lily considered this.
“Grandmother likes rich people.”
Behind us, somebody made a choking sound that might have been laughter.
Richard looked toward Margaret.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed.”
We left the Whitmore estate twenty-three minutes later.
Margaret tried everything.
Threats.
Lawyers.
Claims that I was unstable.
Claims that the girls were attached to the estate.
Claims that Michael had wanted them raised “as Whitmores.”
A reporter recorded half of it on a phone.
