The text message arrived at 2:17 AM Pacific Time, vibrating my phone across the nightstand of my Seattle hotel room with enough force to wake me from a fitful sleep. I’d been dreaming about the Castellano case again—the same nightmare where I’m running through dark corridors trying to reach Angela Moretti before they do, always one door behind, always one second too late. I grabbed the phone, squinting against the sudden brightness, expecting it to be Deputy Chief Crawford with an update on the protection detail.

Instead, my mother’s name glowed on the screen. The message was characteristically brief, characteristically tone-deaf: Finally did something about that house of yours. You’re welcome.

I stared at those words for a full thirty seconds before my sleep-deprived brain could process them. The house. My house in Alexandria, Virginia.

The three-bedroom colonial I’d purchased two years ago after making Deputy U.S. Marshal, the property I’d specifically chosen because it sat exactly fifteen minutes from the federal courthouse and twenty minutes from the Marshal Service headquarters in Arlington. My fingers moved across the screen: Mom?

What do you mean? The response came immediately, as if she’d been waiting for me to wake up and appreciate her handiwork. Sold it.

You were never there anyway, always traveling for that job of yours. The money will help your sister with her wedding. You can stop being so selfish now.

I sat up so abruptly I nearly threw the phone across the room. My heart was hammering, my mouth suddenly dry. This had to be a joke.

Some kind of terrible, ill-conceived joke that would make sense in the morning after I’d had coffee and could think clearly. You sold MY house? I typed, hands shaking.