“I hope Darraugh hasn’t exaggerated your abilities. I will watch for you tonight.”

I shook my head. “I can’t stay out here tonight. But I’ll be back tomorrow” That didn’t please her at all: if her son was employing me it was my duty to work the hours that they set.

“And if someone else hires me tomorrow, should I drop my work for Darraugh to respond to that client’s demands?” I said.

The heavy lines around her nose deepened. She tried to demand what obligation could possibly take precedence over her needs, but I wasn’t

about to tell her. To her credit, she didn’t waste a long time on argument when she saw I wasn’t giving in.

“But you will tell me personally what you find out. I don’t want to have to get reports from Darraugh: there are times when I wish he was more like his father.”

Her tone didn’t make that sound like a compliment. When I stood to leave, she asked me-ordered, really-to take the cups back to the kitchen. I turned them over before putting them in the sink: Coalport bone china. Mugs, indeed.

I spent the drive to Chicago going over her surprising remarks. I wondered why Darraugh hated Larchmont so much. I found myself constructing Gothic scenarios. Darraugh was a widower. Perhaps his beloved wife had died there, while his wastrel father absconded with Darraugh’s wife’s diamonds and his own secretary. Or perhaps Darraugh suspected Geraldine of drowning his wife-or even his father-in the ornamental pond and had vowed never to set foot on Drummond land again.

As I returned to the small bungalows of Chicago’s West Side, I realized the situation was probably something far less dramatic. Darraugh and his mother no doubt merely had the the usual frictions of any family.

Whatever their history, Ms. Graham resented her son’s failure to visit her as often as she wanted. I wondered if phantom lights in the upper windows were a way of forcing Darraugh to pay attention to her. I foresaw the possibility of getting squeezed between these two strong personalities. At least it beat fretting about Morrell.

CHAPTER 3

Hands Across the Water

It was the thought of Geraldine Graham’s binoculars that determined me to slide through the grounds around Larchmont Hall Sunday night without showing a light or making the kind o? ruckus I’d set up if I tripped and broke an ankle. She had called once already during the day to make sure I was coming out. I asked if she’d seen her flickering lights the night before; she hadn’t, she said, but she didn’t spend the whole night looking for them as I would. Just as I was stiffening at being treated like a hired hand, she disarmed me, saying, “Even ten years ago, I was still strong enough to spend the night looking for intruders. I can’t now.”

I wore my night-prowler’s costume: black jeans, dark windbreaker over a sweater, black cap pulling my hair flat against my head, charcoal on my cheeks to keep the moonlight from reflecting off my skin. Ms. Graham’s eyes would have to be good to find me even with her Rigel optics.