“Mitch, I think we’re here.”

        Kit’s voice snapped Mitch back from his reverie. From the patient look on his friend’s face, Mitch guessed that this was not the first time Kit had spoken to him.

        Mitch’s father was already out of the car and walking toward the building—a determined set to his stride. Mitch grimaced and decided he would have to join him. “I guess there is no reason to put this off.”

        “Put what off?” Kit asked. “Who is Aunt Victoria? You’ve never mentioned her before.”

        Mitch got out of the front seat and opened the rear door.

        “Mitch?”

        “She’s my father’s sister—his only sibling. She owns twelve percent of Pembroke Steel. And she hates me.”

        Mitch grabbed the leather strap on the edge of his trunk and hefted it out toward him. Kit grasped the other end. Together they lowered it to the grass.

        “Why does she hate you?”

        Mitch didn’t answer immediately. Instead he grasped the handle on Kit’s trunk and the two men repeated the procedure. When they had finished, Kit asked his question again. “Why does she hate you?”

        Mitch started to remove the rifles and shotguns from the car. His throat was tight, making speech difficult. “She seems to have formed the opinion that I murdered her son when we were teenagers.”

        Mitch wasn’t looking at Kit, but he could literally hear his friend’s surprise. There was an awkward moment of almost silence in which Kit’s teeth snapped together a couple of times as if he kept opening his mouth to speak, then closing it without saying anything. “That’s absurd,” he finally protested.

        “I’m not certain she isn’t right,” Mitch disagreed.