My mother-in-law shaved my head while I slept on the very night the United States Army promoted me into one of the most important commands of

Three years earlier, I had tried to clean it out and found the back panel strangely loose. Ryan had snapped at me so sharply I had frozen with a stack of towels in my arms. Later he apologized with flowers and a story about childhood memories stored there, saying Linda had kept old things from his father and did not like them disturbed.

I looked toward the hallway.

“The linen closet,” I said.

For the first time all day, Linda moved.

It was tiny. A twitch of the hand. A tightening around the eyes.

Price noticed.

Hollow.

Linda stood.

“You have no right,” she said.