“I don’t know that any of that sounds ‘unsettlingly suspicious,’” Declan said. “The first was probably just really wet kitchen scraps or perhaps a stew or casserole that she had made and didn’t like—”

“A whole garbage bag full of it?”

Declan held up his hand to forestall Mason’s objections. “The second one sounds completely reasonable, even if it was a genuine Persian rug. Women are fickle like that. My mother threw away an entire dining room suite that ...