Mr. Adams Sr. was a hardy man in his early seventies who only lived at the center because he didn’t want to take care of a yard anymore.

“They do everything,” he said, handing me a cup of coffee, the liquid threatening to spill over the top with his shaking.

Grief had covered him like a cloak. I worried he’d go downhill now that his granddaughter had passed away.

He tried so hard to make everything look normal. Like he wasn’t crumbling inside. “They do all the yard work. All the cooking. We have to go to the cafeteria, but the food’s not half-bad. All the cleaning. It’s—it’s great here.”

As he fell silent, his mind consumed with sadness, I studied him further. He had a full head of silvery-gray hair and a farmer’s tan. He wore shorts in the winter and a country club sweater. And his grief was so all-consuming, I had to block it before I passed out. Again.

He snapped back to the present and raked a hand over his face. “There’s a golf course and tennis courts right down the road.”

I nodded. “Mr. Adams, did Emery say anything to you about being worried? Maybe someone was following her or calling and hanging up?” I let a wave of grief wash over him as he fought back tears with all his strength before continuing. “Anything that would suggest she was in danger?”

His shoulders shook, and he coughed into a handkerchief.

“She didn’t—no, not that I know of,” he said when he’d recovered. “She never mentioned anything to me.”

“Did she seem worried or anxious lately?”

At first he shook his head, then he thought about it. “Actually, yes. For the last few weeks, she’d seemed distracted. Upset, even.”

“Did she say why?”

“No, and I didn’t push it. She just said she was having some issues at work.”

“At the hospital.”

“Yes. She was the administrator.” His face softened with pride. “Youngest in their history.”

“I read that. You must have been so proud of her.”

“Honey, that girl made me proud every time she took a step. She was the perfect kid, which was something considering her childhood.”

“Her childhood?”

“Oh, you know. Just everyday stuff, I guess. Need a refill?”

He was changing the subject, especially since I hadn’t touched my coffee yet. “Mr. Adams, anything you can tell me, no matter how minor or seemingly inconsequential, may help me find who did this.”

He hung his head. “It’s my fault, really. I should have been harder on the boy.”

“The boy?”

“My namesake. My son. He doesn’t have the willpower that Emmy and I have. I worked hard for what I have. I wanted a better life than I had for my boy. Figured out I had a head for business and was very successful at a very young age. So, Junior grew up wanting for nothing. I think—well, my wife, God rest her soul, warned me over and over to stop indulging him, but I was so busy, and it was just easier to give in.”

“So, he grew up privileged.”

“He grew up spoiled. Never had the resoluteness that Emmy and I had. It was always one failed venture after another. I finally quit sinking money into his schemes. His marriage had fallen apart. Then Emmy’s mother died.”

“She died?” I asked.

“Breast cancer. She was a good woman. A bit hardheaded, but it was a good head. Emmy was the best of both of them. Smart and creative. A good problem solver. She wasn’t afraid of risk, but she always weighed her options and came up with a plan. A thinker, that one. A real thinker.”

“Which was why she made such a great administrator.”

He nodded. I rose from the chair to look at the photos on his mantel while he struggled with another wave of grief. He had several pictures of Emery growing up. She was beautiful. Long, dark blond hair. Wide inquisitive eyes. His grief was affecting me, pouring into my rib cage and dissolving my bones.

“Can you think of any other reason she might have been upset lately?”

“Like I said. The boy.”

“Her father? He had upset her?”

“He always upset her. Again, he’s not the most stable person. Their roles were switched most of her life. She had to be the responsible one while he went off half-cocked on this adventure or that. She didn’t have a childhood, really. Had to grow up entirely too fast. And through it all, through everything Emmy had gone through, she never asked me for anything.”

“She was independent, even growing up?”

“Oh yes. She wouldn’t let me do any extra for her. When she was in Girl Scouts, every year she would only let me buy three boxes of cookies, like everyone else who was addicted to Thin Mints. She would not accept favors. When she was in high school, her dad managed to buy her a car. I remember her face. She was so excited, but God only knows how illegal that transaction was.”

Mr. Adams’s face grew somber.

“And yet when he lost everything two months later in a Ponzi scheme and had to hock it, she wouldn’t even come to me. She wouldn’t even ask for help to get her car back. Two thousand dollars. He lost a fifteen thousand–dollar car for a two thousand–dollar debt. I carry that much in my front pocket.”

Alarmed, I asked, “Are you sure that’s safe?”

He cast me a warm expression. “You want to know the worst part?”

I nodded even though I kind of didn’t.

“She wasn’t even upset. She wasn’t disappointed. A junior in high school lost her car, and she wasn’t the least bit agitated. She’d never expected to keep it as long as she had, she was so used to being let down. She was so used to being disappointed. She was so used to coming second to everything else in his life.”

“Why was she like that?” I asked, more troubled than I thought I would be. “Why wouldn’t she accept money from you? You’re family.”

“I asked her that once. She told me that she saw how I looked at her dad, at my son, and she never wanted me to look at her that way.”

His last words were so broken they were hard to decipher. He broke down. His shoulders shaking. A strong hand over his eyes.

I let him grieve, knowing that was my cue to leave, but there was one more thing that I didn’t quite buy.

When he recovered enough to continue, I asked him, “Mr. Adams, this is going to be a very indelicate question, but if you have so much money, why are you living in this tiny apartment in a retirement center? I’m not sure I buy the yard work argument. You could afford a hundred gardeners.”