Her initial burst of anger had shifted to another emotion. One so much more destructive, as far as she was concerned.

Rubbing her suddenly sweaty palms on her skirt, she discovered that her heart was pounding, and she felt dizzy even though there was plenty of air-conditioning left inside the car. And then for some reason, the burns on the insides of her thighs, from when Richard had forced them open, became almost unbearably painful.

Memories of the unpleasantness that had occurred with him were not what weighed on her mind, however.

Instead, she heard Samuel T.’s voice in her head.

I think Richard hits you. I think those bruises came from him, and that you’re wearing scarves to cover them up. . . .

She and Samuel T. had met in secret only a few nights before, at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in the beautiful darkness of its main gardens. He had called her to come see him there, and even after all their ups and downs, she had never expected what he had said to her.

You can call me. Anytime. I know you and I haven’t made sense. We’re bad for each other in all the ways that count, but you can call me. Day or night. No matter where you are, I’ll come for you. I won’t ask for any explanations. I won’t yell at you or berate you. I won’t judge you—and if you insist, I won’t tell Lane or anybody else.

Samuel T. had been dead serious, no evidence of his jocular nature or his usual sexual teasing evident. He had been . . . sad. Protective and sad.

Looking through the car window, she focused on Amelia.

The girl had walked forward onto the bright green grass, her red and black blouse billowing in the hot breeze, her dark hair whisking off over her shoulder. Ahead of her, looming surely as the burden of their bloodline’s legacy did, the great Bradford crypt rose from the earth, a marble monument to the family’s greatness, with twenty-foot-tall carved statues on all four corners, a great pediment over the entrance marked with a gold-leafed crest, and iron gates that were every bit as intricate and strong as the ones at the entrance of the cemetery itself.

Amelia stopped at the five steps that led up to the aged brass doors, which remained closed even as those iron bars had been opened for the family.

As the young girl tilted her head back as if to regard the crest overhead, the sun glinting in her hair drew out the same copper highlights that were in Samuel T.’s.

Like father, like daughter—

Gin’s door was opened for her and she jumped, putting a palm to her mouth just in case her heart decided to make a run for it up her throat.

As a hand extended into the car for her, she mumbled, “Thank you, Lane.”

Accepting the help, she pulled herself up and out—

“Not Lane.”

At the low words, she jerked to attention, her eyes flipping up to meet Samuel T.’s. She needn’t have worried about encountering his stare, however.

He was looking down and a little to the left . . . at the marks on her forearm that were exposed by the three-quarter sleeves on her silk dress. As his face darkened to violence, she removed herself from his hold, tucked her clutch into her elbow, and smiled.

“Samuel T. What a surprise. I haven’t seen you in forever.”

All of that was supposed to come out smooth and steady. Instead, her voice was reedy and insubstantial, and her body began shaking for no apparent reason. She wasn’t cold, for heaven’s sake.

You’re better than this. Your family’s glorious past is not worth a man hitting you in the present just because you’re afraid you won’t be anything without the money. You’re priceless, Gin, no matter what’s in your bank account.

Stop it, she told herself.

Smiling even more broadly, she expected him to say something and waited for him to play along with the social pleasantries.

As usual, he took his own path.

Samuel T. simply bowed in a gallant fashion, and left her to follow—or not.

EIGHT

Lane had always thought that the family crypt looked sinister, with all its dark eaves and the twisted iron designs over the opaque windows and the ivy choking out the aged white marble. And somehow, the prospect of his father being interred there made all of those Vincent Price prejudices take on an even more dire cast. But where else was he going to put the man? If he disrespected the dead, he was worried Daddy Dearest was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

As if William wasn’t going to do that anyway.

With the urn held like a football in the crook of his arm, Lane walked across the grass, the broad leafy branches of sycamores and beech trees filtering the bright sunshine, creating a ripple effect underfoot that would have been cheerful in other circumstances. As promised, cemetery staff had unlocked the deadbolts and muscled open the great sets of bars¸ leaving the brass double doors undefended and ready to be put to use. Instead of handles or knobs, there were a pair of heavy brass rings, and as he went up the low steps and reached for the one on the right, he was reminded of the time he had come here as a boy with his grandfather.

Just as Mother’s father had done back then, he rotated the ring on its base, the mechanism clanking in a way that echoed in the interior. Hinges as big as his forearms creaked as he pulled the great weight open, and the rush of cool, dry air smelled of autumn leaves and a century’s worth of dust.

The interior was a forty-by-forty-foot perfect square topped by a dome of translucent glass panels that let in more than enough light with which to read the plaques on the walls. In the center, two marble sarcophagi were aligned side by side, the first Elijah Bradford and his beloved Constance Tulane Bradford lying in prominent view, surrounded by the lineage they had created. And in spite of how eternal their repose appeared to be, he understood that this crypt was actually their second burial place. The pair evidently had been dug up and relocated from somewhere on Easterly’s property when this awe-inspiring monument had been constructed in the mid-1800s.

As the footfalls of the others shuffled in, he looked around at the markers that were mounted in orderly rows on the walls, the block lettering on the old brass plaques detailing who had been put into what space at what time. And yes, a vacancy had been prepared for William Baldwine: Across the way, there was a single opening in the lineup of compartments, one that had been revealed by the removal of a square of the marble veneer.

Going over, Lane placed the urn into the darkness and was impressed by how precisely it fit within the confines of the hole, the lid having only an inch to spare.

Stepping back, he frowned, the enormity of the death dawning on him for the first time. Ever since he had come back to Charlemont, it had been one crisis after another, his attention drawn from emergency to emergency. That chaos, coupled with the fact that he had never felt close to his father—and in fact had disliked and mistrusted the man—had made William’s passing almost a footnote.

Now, the reality that he would never again see the man or smell that trademark tobacco scent or hear that commanding stride in Easterly’s corridors, or anywhere else, struck him as . . . not sad, no. Because he honestly did not mourn the loss as one would somebody they loved and cared about.

It was more surreal. Unfathomable. Unbelievable.

That somebody with that big an effect on the world, albeit a negative one, could be gone in the blink of an eye—

Heavy footfall on the marble steps outside the entrance made him turn around, and before he recognized the tall figure cutting a black shadow in the sunlight, his brain tricked him into thinking that it was his father, back from the dead.

His brother Maxwell’s deep voice cleared up any confusion. “I’m late again, huh.”

That lazy drawl suggested the guy didn’t care if he’d offended anyone, but that was Max’s way. He excelled at convincing himself and everyone around him that he didn’t give a shit about anything.

And a lot of times, Lane supposed, it was true. Still, he had showed up, hadn’t he.

“I just put Father’s urn in,” Lane remarked as he nodded at the compartment.

“He doesn’t deserve to be here. He’s not part of this family.”

Naturally, Max was not in a suit, but rather wearing a biker jacket and jeans. With his beard, and the tattoos on his neck, he appeared to be exactly the rebel he in fact was, a man tied to no one and nowhere.