Emily's Desperation

The air in Mr. Sterling’s study was thick with the cloying scent of old paper and something metallic, something that Miles was beginning to associate with death. He’d cataloged the room meticulously, his gaze sweeping over the mahogany desk, the leather-bound books lining the walls, the framed photographs that seemed to stare with vacant eyes. It was a tomb, a monument to a life lived in shadow, and now, the final resting place of its architect.

He found Emily Sterling hunched in the drawing-room, a picture of performative grief. Her sobs, however, had lacked a certain conviction, a tremor in the voice that spoke of performative sadness rather than genuine despair. Miles, a man who’d spent too many years sifting through the wreckage of human lives, had learned to read the subtle tells, the minute shifts in posture and expression that betrayed the truth.

“Ms. Sterling,” he’d begun, his voice a low rumble in the cavernous room, “we need to discuss your father’s finances. Specifically, yours.”