By the time the iron gates closed behind us, the music from the lawn had already softened into something distant and unreal.
Sadie kept her hand in mine, her small fingers wrapped tightly around two of mine. June rested against my shoulder with one cheek damp from where I had wiped the gravy away. Neither of them spoke as we walked down the long gravel drive, past the parked luxury cars, past the valets pretending not to stare, past the white roses Beverly had ordered because she said they made the family look refined.
At the end of the drive, my government-issued black sedan sat beneath an oak tree.
Warren hated that car.
He called it ugly. Practical. Embarrassing.
He had no idea how many times that plain black sedan had carried me into rooms where men with more power than he could imagine stood when I entered.
