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seemed no one here could fix a snack without burning it. A refrigerator constantly full of moldering leftovers and forgotten lunches bookended the counter. A wooden booth sat in a nook between the front lobby and the kitchen. Sylvia had never seen anyone use it.
    The door to the back yard opened along the other wall. The whole room acted as a corridor to connect Sylvia’s suite with the rest of the ramshackle building. From the window above the sink she could see the parking lot and road. The window in the back door showed an open space of scruffy lawn ending at a border of pines and shrubs. It could be nice with landscaping and a gazebo, maybe a built-in fireplace and grill. But the staff at the Trust lacked vision.
    Petal continued her sobbing. Nora kept treating her like a dog injured in traffic.
    Mark’s face glow ed red with anger. “Okay, enough of this,” he said. “Stop wailing and tell us what’s going on.”
    Face wet with tears and nose snotty and red, Petal slowly sat up from where she burrowed into Nora’s lap. She hiccupped and drew in a shaky breath. She opened her mouth, presumably to explain the calamity, but let out another sob and dropped into Nora’s lap again.
    Nora patted her back, searching Mark’s, then Sylvia’s face for help. To be fair, Nora didn’t know Petal’s normal instability. But on her first day, she shouldn’t interfere when she had no clue.
    “Darla, Darla, Darla,” Petal gasped between sobs.
    Sylvia’s stomach twisted. From Petal’s first scream she’d felt a terrible foreboding.
    Mark squatted in front of Petal, impatience written on his face. “What about Darla?”
    Petal sat up again. This time she forced words. “She’s dead.” Petal blathered away, all her feelings and pain splattering everyone in hearing range.
    What did this mean for Sylvia?
    It didn’t change anything. Whether Darla walked off in her Birkenstocks or whether she died, it didn’t make much difference to Sylvia.
    She needed to focus on Nora. Sure, she had a moment of hesitation about writing Sylvia a check. But with Mark’s urging—and Mark would do anything for Sylvia—Nora would be toeing the line in short order. It had to happen immediately, though. The art dealer annoyingly demanded a down payment before she’d ship the Chihuly.
    Petal’s voice gained some strength, enough for Sylvia to understand. “Darla was just found in the trees by the road. They said she was shot close to the Trust and tried to make it to the highway for help.”
    The vision of the colorful glass vanished.
    “She’d been there since Sunday night.”
    Sylvia stopped breathing. She felt deaf with the flash flood of blood roaring in her ears. No. That couldn’t be. Even her brain, that wonderful and extraordinary tool, ground to a near halt.
    That night. The night Sylvia found the chandelier. The night Darla threatened her.
    “She was shot in the back. Who would want to shoot Darla?” Petal wailed again.
    Sylvia’s chest crushed with the weight of realization. Shot outside the Trust on Sunday night. And she remembered:
    One shot fired out the door into the darkness last Sunday night.

seven
    Nora stood at her office window, heart pounding, breath catching in her chest. She gently rubbed a smooth corn leaf between her thumb and forefinger. There was something definitely wonky about this place. Murder. Murder!
    She squatted down and scratched Abbey behind the ears, letting his warmth calm her. Petal’s pain had seeped through Nora’s clothes and into her skin. Worse yet were Mark and Sylvia’s reactions to the news that someone they worked with had been shot. They hadn’t seemed at all concerned and actually more annoyed that Petal disrupted the quiet morning.
    “What sort of place is this?”
    Abbey didn’t answer her. He lay with his eyes half closed, wallowing in the attention.
    The piles of paper and chaos of the office swamped her. “We ought to book it out of here.”
    Abbey rested his head on his