“Then Mark might.”
Mark Ellis arrived that evening.
He looked ten years older than he had in court.
We met in my apartment library, where I had once hosted governors, surgeons, CEOs, and foreign investors.
Now the room mostly held unopened mail and medicines arranged in labeled boxes.
Mark remained standing near the door.
“You should have told me,” I said.
His shoulders lowered.
“I know.”
“Which part?”
He looked toward Rachel.
She nodded.
“Everything.”
Mark sat.
He had worked for me seventeen years.
I had hired him when he was twenty-eight, ambitious and painfully serious. Over time, he became the person who knew which meetings I would hate, which people I secretly liked, and when to remove me from a charity dinner before exhaustion made me unreasonable.
“March seventeenth was the day Dr. Leland came to the apartment,” he said.
I remembered the name.
Neurologist.
Not my regular specialist.
