The Family Name

The door opened three inches before Meera found her voice.

“Evening,” she said, far too brightly, holding up the planting schedule like a shield. “We were just finalizing the wind load position on the north terrace.”

The security guard, a broad, unhurried man named Herb who had worked the west wing for longer than Meera had been employed there, glanced between the two of them with an expression that suggested he had seen considerably stranger things at nine at night and had stopped being curious about most of them years ago. “Didn’t realize anyone was still up here. Lights looked off from the corridor.”

“Just the desk lamp. Bad habit.” Meera smiled, praying it looked like exhaustion rather than panic. “We’ll lock up properly on the way out.”

“No trouble.” Herb’s gaze flicked briefly to Julian, unreadable, and for one long second Meera’s heart stopped entirely on the theory that…