Julian's expression remained calm, almost serene, his voice low and deliberate when he finally spoke, each word carrying a weight that made the hair on Margaret's arms rise instinctively.
"I know," he said simply.
The two words landed in the silent hallway with far more devastating impact than Margaret's frantic warning had managed just moments before. She stared at her son, searching his calm, knowing expression, understanding with a sudden, cold certainty that whatever she'd just witnessed behind that half-open door was not, in fact, news to him at all — and that whatever was about to unfold in the next twenty minutes was proceeding, unsettlingly, exactly according to a plan she had no part in and no understanding of whatsoever.