He did not wait for her to reply before he turned toward the hallway, his leather soles clicking against the polished oak floorboards.
Caroline folded her hands neatly in her lap, waiting for the front door to click shut, but the silence of the house only deepened.
She walked to the window overlooking Spruce Street and pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
Outside, the dark gray Mercedes sedan sat idling at the curb, its exhaust rising in white plumes against the brick front of the neighbor’s house.
A postman walked down the opposite side of the street, his collar turned up against the October wind.
Grant opened the driver’s door, tossing his leather briefcase onto the passenger seat with a quick, careless jerk of his shoulder.
As he adjusted his rearview mirror, the rear passenger window caught the morning light, revealing the interior of the backseat.
A glossy cream-colored shopping bag with black silk handles sat on the dark leather upholstery.
The logo of a high-end French boutique on Walnut Street was printed across the paper in elegant, embossed lettering.
Caroline had not been to Walnut Street in six months, and she had certainly not purchased anything that required silk handles.
She knew the shop sold only imported lingerie and expensive French perfumes.
The Mercedes pulled away from the curb, its tires leaving wet tracks on the asphalt as it disappeared toward Broad Street.
Caroline stood by the glass until the white plumes of exhaust dissolved completely into the gray morning air.
An hour later, Caroline sat at her desk at Hart Atelier, the design studio her mother had founded thirty years ago.
She touched the edge of the mahogany drafting table her mother had built with her own hands in the sixties.
The wood was worn smooth where countless rolls of blueprint paper had been unrolled over the decades.
