Grey Lady was a big house. Before Bill bought it, it had been a bed-and-breakfast, started by a couple that got lonely when their six children all left home. On the second floor alone there were five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The first floor had been renovated at some point so that the modernized kitchen flowed into the dining room, and French doors led into the large front living room with its bay windows. At the back of the house was a wide sunroom, clearly an addition, with views of the barn and down toward the marsh. The two other major rooms on the first floor were Bill’s office and Alice’s office. Bill’s looked more like a storage area than a functioning room; the walls were lined with bookshelves, all filled, and stacks of books covered the floor, creating a strange cityscape in miniature. Bill had left a narrow path through the books that led to the only furniture in the room, a large oak desk, and a faded leather swivel chair that Bill had owned since college. The other office was all Alice, a sunny corner room dominated by a craft table with a sewing machine and stacks of fabric. But there was also a desk in the room, ridiculously neat compared to Bill’s, and that was where Harry decided to look first.

The desk, painted a robin’s-egg blue, was practically child sized compared to the monstrosity in Bill’s office. On top of it was Alice’s laptop computer, closed, and cool to the touch. She had a short stack of mail that hadn’t been opened. Harry riffled through the envelopes, nothing immediately catching his eye. There were credit card applications, what looked like a bill from Macy’s, an alumni letter addressed to William Ackerson from Columbia University.

Harry pulled open the only drawer. He expected it to be as neat and organized as the desk, but inside was a jumbled mess of papers, photographs, a half-filled perfume bottle, a box of thank-you cards. The house made one of its sounds, a wall settling somewhere, and Harry jumped. What would happen if Alice returned home early and found him looking through her things? He cocked his head and listened. The house was quiet again. He told himself that he’d just quickly look through the items in the desk, see if there was a letter from a private investigator, anything that would suggest she had information about his father’s affair.