Mary POV
The penthouse was quiet when she arrived.
Elena, the housekeeper, let her in with a warm nod and offered tea, which Mary accepted because she'd been up since six and the morning was cold and some things you said yes to without thinking about it.
She set her bag on the kitchen island, arranged the files she'd brought in the order they'd be needed, and stood for a moment in the particular silence of a well-kept space before the day started.
She looked around the kitchen.
It was a good kitchen. Generous, clean, with the kind of equipment that suggested someone had chosen it with care rather than just spending money.
There were small signs of Seraphina in it now, the particular tea she preferred in the cabinet, the notebook she left on the counter when she was working through something, the reading glasses she kept losing and finding. Small things. The quiet evidence of a person making a space their own without meaning to.
Mary thought about the Carter mansion kitchen.
