The drive back from the Conway estate took forty minutes.
Arianne stepped out of the car. Her legs felt strange. Like she'd been sitting too long in a position that wasn't hers. The house was right there—home—but her chest stayed tight anyway.
Franz came up behind her. Gio was already walking ahead, jacket over his arm, the whole long day settled into his shoulders.
The house was quiet. Twins upstairs in their room, playing. Aunt Estella somewhere in back, the kitchen or the garden. The kind of quiet that meant people were living here, not performing.
Arianne stopped in the hallway. Her hand went to the banister.
"I have work."
Franz looked at her. "Now?"
"It piled up. I was gone all day."
She wasn't lying. There was always work. But her voice came out too even. Flat. The tone he'd learned to read—the one she used when she wasn't withdrawing because something was wrong, but because something had been too much and she needed to be alone to survive it.
