Samantha Owens Sam didn’t like funerals. No one does, she knew that. But she’d developed a deep and abiding discomfort of wakes and processionals and graveside tears when she was a kid, at the funeral for a childhood friend who’d been hit by a car, and it had never gone away. Her job was to uncover the cause of death, not to see the person into the ground. Not experience the agony of the people left behind. And yet here she was, one of the left behind. With everything that had happened, she honestly didn’t know if she could manage to get through the afternoon. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to face a hole in the ground. And she knew she wasn’t ready to bury Donovan, either. But she didn’t have that luxury. Susan and Eleanor needed her. So instead of putting her head in the sand and waiting for the day after tomorrow, she was on M Street, walking into White House|Black Market to find an appropriate black dress to wear. She’d rescheduled her flight home so she could stay for a few more days.
