The black Bentley rolled back toward the city with its windows still open to the cold night. The smell of Diane Morgan clung to the leather like a bad memory.Mrs. Hayes kept one hand on the wheel and fanned her nose with the other. She glanced at Ethan in the rearview mirror, and her eyes were full of questions."Why did you not just leave that woman in the gutter?" Mrs. Hayes asked. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head."She treated your mother like garbage. Nobody would blame you.""Because she is useful," Ethan replied. He leaned back and watched the dark fields slide past."Tamara Watanabe is using Sophia to reach for the herb supply in the Southwest. Diane knows how that deal started.""So you keep her like a guard dog," Victoria said slowly. She turned to him with sharp, thoughtful eyes. "One that watches for the wolf.""A guard dog that I do not feed," Ethan said. A cold smile touched his lips. "I only need her to stay alive and stay close."Mrs. Hayes snorted a short laug

The clinic was quiet after Mason left. A single lamp burned on the wall of the back room, and its yellow light fell across a framed portrait that hung above the old oak desk.It showed a gentle woman with soft eyes and a faint, tired smile. Her hair was pinned back, and she wore a plain white coat with a stethoscope around her neck.Ethan stood before it for a long time. He raised one hand and wiped a thin film of dust from the frame with his thumb."Mom," he whispered. His voice was low and rough. "I know you never wanted me to carry this. But I cannot put it down."He looked into her painted eyes and made a silent vow. He would go to New York, and he would stand in front of every family member who had driven her to her grave.Not a single one of them would be forgotten. Not a single debt would stay unpaid.He bowed once to the portrait. Then he turned away and walked to the back of the room, where a squat bronze furnace sat beneath a cloth.He pulled the cloth away and set to work.

The wind on Oak Hill was cold and thin. It came down from the black sky and swept across the rows of pale stones with a sound like a long sigh.Under an old maple tree near the top, a bulky figure sat in the grass in front of a plain gray headstone. The name carved on it was Helen Cole.Diane Morgan hugged her knees and sobbed. In one hand she held a crumpled bag of cheap biscuits, and she stuffed one into her mouth between every sob."Three days," she mumbled with her mouth full. She wiped her nose on her filthy sleeve and glared at the stone. "Three days and three nights, on my knees, on this freezing ground.""Look at me," she wailed to nobody. "Look at what that ungrateful boy has done to me. I was a rich woman. I had a mansion."She had knelt for almost twenty minutes, and her knees had screamed at her the whole time. Then she had given up, flopped onto the grass, and cried herself to sleep.A cold gust woke her near midnight. Her teeth chattered, and her whole body shook under h