Chapter 4 : She called Dee.

Dee said yes before Mara could finish the sentence. Dee had a specific talent: she had worked member services at Willow Bend for four years, she had watched Hollis Ellison operate from the inside, and she had, since Daniel died, made a quiet project of never attending anything at that club again. She had not been inside the building since the funeral reception. She had told Mara once that she'd go back when she had a reason to go back.

At 6:34 Dee pulled up to Mara's duplex in a ten-year-old Honda and got out wearing a black blazer over jeans — the exact uniform she'd worn to member services — with a leather portfolio under one arm.

"You ready?" Dee said.

"No."

"Good," Dee said. "Being ready is for people who know what's coming."

They drove in separate cars. It was not discussed. Mara knew very well why: if the meeting went badly, Dee wanted to be able to leave without depending on Mara, and Mara wanted the same. They parked in the guests' row on purpose. Two cars, side by side, in the lot for people who weren't sure they got to be here.

The club at 6:40 on a Sunday evening was a different animal than the club at Sunday lunch. The grill room was dark and set for the next day's service; the clubhouse lights in the hallway were on but turned down; the front desk had a single clerk behind it, and that clerk was not Serena Downing. A woman in a navy pantsuit with a small pin that said *MEMBERSHIP SERVICES* looked up and nodded them past — down the hallway, past the lounge, to the far end where the boardroom was.

Finton Whitfield was in the boardroom. He was a small, spare man in his late sixties with white hair cut short and a bow tie, which he wore at all times of day, and he had a reputation at Willow Bend that could be summarized as: he had never raised his voice in forty years on the board, and he had never once been overruled.

He stood when they came in. So did Renata, who was at the side of the table. So did Serena Downing, who was sitting very straight in a chair by the door with her hands folded on her knees.

"Ms. Ellison," Whitfield said. "Ms. Downing tells me you have some paper."

"Yes, sir."

"Please, sit."

She sat. Dee sat beside her. Dee put the leather portfolio down on the table and opened it and clicked the pen that she'd brought.

Whitfield looked at the portfolio. Then he looked at Renata. Then he looked at Mara.

"I understand your uncle struck you at lunch today," he said.

"He did."

"Do you want to press charges?"

Mara was silent for a moment.

"I want," she said, "to see the form."

Whitfield nodded once. He reached into a leather folder on the table and took out a single sheet of paper and laid it flat.

It was the void-transfer form. Not a copy. The original. She could see the club seal embossed in the corner. She could see Hollis's signature. And below it, the counter-approval initials.