Chapter 2

The Monday meeting was Rosalind Deacon's idea.

She had spent Saturday night at her desk in Knoxville, typing furiously into her tablet between glasses of wine, composing the email that would put the groundskeeper in his place. She had spent Sunday morning refining it, adding a line about the value of her long-standing relationship with the Ridgeline Barn's management firm, about the professionalism she demanded from the help, about the fact that she had a contract here for years and the owner would hear about his employee's behavior.

She had signed it with her full name and the gold watch on her left wrist had caught the light as she typed.

The reply had come Sunday afternoon, from an address she recognized — the property management firm that had signed her checks every month for four years. The reply was brief, courteous, and said that the matter of the groundskeeper at the Ridgeline Barn had been escalated and would be addressed at the planned Monday meeting, to which she was invited.

Rosalind had read the reply three times, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Escalated. Addressed. Planned.

It was happening. She drove Monday morning with the windows down, humming along to the radio, her navy blazer pressed and hanging in the back seat, her chestnut blowout freshly done.

She arrived at the Ridgeline Barn at ten-forty, twenty minutes early, and parked her silver sedan in the spot nearest the office door. She sat in the car for a moment, looking at the barn — the restored timber, the white-painted trim, the parcel-number sign on the front beam that she had never once actually read.

The place was beautiful. It filled her with a quiet satisfaction, the same satisfaction she felt walking through houses she was about to stage for sale. The Ridgeline Barn was her venue. Her clients' weddings. Her bookings. Her reputation.

She checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, touched the tortoiseshell clip in her hair, and walked inside.

The barn office was small and smelled of old wood and dust. A long table with worn edges sat in the center of the room, surrounded by mismatched chairs. A window looked out over the lawn, the ceremony arch still standing from Saturday, the boxwood hedge dark and full.

Rosalind sat at the table, in the chair she thought of as her seat, the one facing the door. She placed her tablet on the table, a contract folder beside it, and folded her hands. She sat like a woman about to collect a debt.

The door opened at ten-fifty-two.