I pulled my collar up against the cold.

As we walked down the steps toward the waiting SUV, a headlight flashed at the end of the driveway.

A single black sedan was parked near the gate.

Its engine was idling, a thin trail of exhaust rising into the wet air.

The headlights flickered twice.

A signal.

I stopped on the wet gravel.

“Colonel?” Vance asked, his hand reaching for his sidearm.

“Who is that?” he added.

I watched the sedan.

The driver’s side door began to swing open.

The driver’s door of the sedan opened wide.

A man stepped out into the pouring rain.

The yellow light from the dashboard illuminated his face as he turned toward us.

It was Grant.

His hair was plastered to his forehead, his expensive wool coat already turning black with water.

He did not look like the confident heir to the Monroe fortune anymore.

He looked small, hunched against the wind.

“Allison,” he called out, his voice straining against the storm.

Vance kept his hand on his weapon, his boots planted firmly in the wet gravel.