They left without another word, shoulders slumped in defeat. I watched through Vincent’s window as they walked separately to their cars—Brandon to his rental, Melissa to her flashy red convertible that Nicholas had helped her buy last year. Neither looked back at the office. Neither looked at each other.
“It’s done,” Vincent said quietly, placing the documents in his safe.
But it wasn’t done. Not yet.
“I need a ride,” I told Robert.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Home.”
The Canton farmhouse looked exactly as I’d left it four days earlier. White clapboard siding glowing in the late afternoon sun. Nicholas’s rocking chair still on the front porch, where he’d spent his last mobile days watching the orchard bloom. Only Brandon’s rental car in the driveway marked any change.
“Want me to come in with you?” Robert asked as he pulled up behind it.
