The photograph was on his screen at six-forty in the morning and Charles had read the caption three times before he put the phone down, picked it up again, and read it a fourth.
Roman Carter and his new personal secretary at the Bellhaven Group dinner. Close company.
He sat at his breakfast table in his grey morning robe with his coffee going cold in front of him and looked at the photograph and felt the specific temperature of a man who has predicted something terrible and had it confirmed.
He had predicted it and he had told Beatrice explicitly, the day he found out Roman had taken Seraphina in, that this was not about charity. Men like Roman did not take twenty-two year old girls into their homes out of generosity. He had said this and Beatrice had looked at him with the flat patience she deployed when she disagreed with him and intended to wait him out rather than argue.
She had been very patient lately. It was beginning to irritate him.
He called Morris at seven.
