Not because I was shaking. Because the lock had been changed.
I stood there with the key in my fingers and the new brass cylinder glinting in the weak sunlight, and something inside me turned hard.
Changing the lock meant intention. Preparation. Permanence, or at least an attempt at it.
I remembered the side gate, old cedar with a latch I had installed myself. The small skeleton key for that gate was still on my ring. I slipped through into the narrow path between the house and the neighbor’s fence and moved toward the kitchen window, which was cracked open.
Tiffany’s voice drifted out.
“Once the paperwork is filed, the rest is easy.”
Her mother answered. “And what if she fights?”
Tiffany laughed. “Rosalind? Please. She folds. Peter says she hates conflict more than anything.”
My hand tightened around my key ring until the metal points bit into my palm.
