Margaret’s eyes narrowed slightly as she recognized my attorney, but she quickly masked her displeasure.

“Lena,” Margaret said with a polite nod. “I did not expect to see you here at this hour.”

“I go where my client needs me, Mrs. Mercer,” Lena replied.

Margaret turned back to me, her expression softening into something resembling maternal concern.

“Nora, we need to speak,” she said, reaching out to touch my arm.

I stepped back, letting her hand fall through the empty air.

She did not lose her composure, though her chin tightened.

“I know things have been difficult between you and Grant,” Margaret said.

“Difficult is an interesting word for fraud and infidelity,” I said.

Margaret sighed, a soft, weary sound that she had practiced for decades.

“Grant is weak,” she said, her voice dropping to a confidential whisper. “He has made terrible mistakes, and I am not defending his behavior with that girl.”

She took off her leather gloves, peeling them from her fingers one by one.

“But this public warfare is destroying everything we built,” she continued. “It is destroying the family.”