Walking into the empty house, Evelyn turned on some lights and placed her briefcase on a chair. Removing a clipboard and measuring tape, she slid a pencil behind her ear and climbed the stairs leading to the upper floor.

She stopped when she reached the doors leading to the east wing, and dwarfed by the majesty of the ornately carved slabs of walnut over eight feet in height, she sighed. The intricate moldings and designs were polished weekly, but much of the detail had been masked by varnish now blackened with age, and she frowned at the loss. Taking a deep breath, Evelyn turned the forged, black lever handles, and as she pushed open the doors, the screech of the hinges echoed through the house.

She wrinkled her nose as the stale air enveloped her, and coughing to clear the musty taste from her throat, Evelyn reached over and flipped on a few light switches. One by one the Edwardian chandeliers in the long hallway in front of her flickered to life, and watching as several bulbs blew almost instantly, Evelyn jotted down a note on her clipboard. It would be the first of many.

It had been years since Evelyn had walked this corridor, and she had done it only once. Oliver, inconsolable at the loss of his wife, had refused to ever acknowledge the existence of the master suite or the wings to the right and left. Turning the drawing room into his bedroom and filling the library with armoires to act as his wardrobe, other than one room at the end of the west wing used by the daughter he loathed, everything else had remained untouched and closed off. Those were his orders, and his orders had been followed. When he died, Addison eventually moved from the paltriest of bedrooms into the master suite, but like her father, the rest of the second floor held no interest…until now.

Evelyn took a few steps into the hallway and opened the first door to her right, her expression brightening instantly as she remembered a little girl’s giggles as she hid from sight. It had been a morning fraught with worry. The nanny had announced in a panicked scream that four-year-old Addison was missing, but Evelyn, levelheaded and perceptive, had remained calm. Listening to the sounds of the house, a distant creak of a door not used for years was all she needed to hear, and inside a triple-wide armoire, she found the little girl, tee-heeing at the trouble she had caused.