I looked down at the dark, muddy lawn below.

The phone in my pocket began to vibrate again, the screen flashing an incoming call from Harper Sloane.

I let myself drop from the sill.

My boots hit the wet earth with a heavy thud, the impact jarring up my spine.

Cold mud splattered across my jeans as I stumbled forward, stabilizing myself against the stone foundation.

I pulled the hood of my coat over my head and ran toward the cover of the boxwood hedge.

Behind me, the window sash rattled, and Celeste’s silhouette appeared in the frame, shouting my name into the rain.

I didn’t look back.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and swiped to answer Harper’s call as I hurried along the gravel path toward the side gate.

“Clara, thank goodness,” Harper’s voice was tense over the line.

“They’ve moved the meeting up to two o’clock at the hunt club,” she said.

“Marisol Keene is already there with Graham and the board.”

“I have the journals,” I said, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

“And Eleanor’s private files.”