“So who is he with?”

“As odd as it sounds…with Jay’s ex-wife. One of Jay’s ex-wives. Shannon. The one thing Tommy needed that no amount of money could give him was a plain old mom. The nurturing of a mom, the warmth of a mom, the parenting relationship of a mom. He’s crazy about Shannon. So it isn’t a blood tie, but probably that’s best. The Cochrans aren’t exactly famous for their maternal or paternal judgment.”

“So she volunteered for this? She’s good with-”

From nowhere, in that quiet night, over the sparks of fire and zesty scent of pine, she suddenly heard a sound. A phone. A cell phone. Nothing more than that…but she instinctively responded as if she’d heard a rifle shot. She curled up, froze, covered her head.

“Carolina, it’s okay, it’s okay…I’ll turn it off. Hell. I forgot I even had it on me…”

But there seemed to be an invisible mute button in her head that was punched hard. She stopped hearing the phone. His voice. The crackle of fire. It was gone again. Her whole sense of hearing.

She was back in that closet of silence, where no sound seemed to penetrate and nothing got through. She could feel herself shaking, a deep trembling from her fingertips to her lips. Her heart started pounding, pounding, as if she’d been running for her life and just had no breath left, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go.

She saw Maguire leaning over her, saw his mouth move. Was fairly positive his lips framed a mighty annoyed swearword. But that was all she could figure out for some time…

Within an hour of Henry’s arrival, Maguire had the central dining table spread out with contracts, correspondence and various legal documents that supposedly required his immediate attention.