Frayed Edges

Fifty years is a long time to be wrong about a friend.

There is a coat on my worktable for a man I am not allowed to hand it to. Lawrence Jung is on Rikers Island now, and the visiting schedule out there goes by last name. J is Saturday morning.

S is Wednesday afternoon. Milo Savage is in that building too.

Five murders. Five killers behind bars. Five families who have been told the whole story of what happened to them. And in every one of those stories, standing a little off to the side, warm and worried and never once in the room, is my oldest friend.

Viola Lansing has never told me a lie. Not in fifty years. I am beginning to understand she never needed to.

So I put on the green dress I keep for being brave and started at the top of the list. Five visiting rooms. Five people who did a terrible thing and never once thought it was their own idea. A detective who says a confession is worth less than I think. A lawyer who says there is no charge for being kind to the wrong people.

I have spent seventy-nine years being underestimated and I have made a very good living at it. Viola taught me half of what I know about that game.

She is about to find out I learned the other half on my own.

Frayed Edges is the sixth and final Royal Griffen Hotel Mystery. Start with Haute Mess. This book is the reason for all of them.