“You must be Mrs. Ormsby,” Keegan said. “We’ve never met. I’m staying at my mother’s place up the hill. She passed away a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Ormsby said. She pressed a palm to her breastbone. “So sorry to hear that. She lived in that little cottage, didn’t she?” Despite her practiced graciousness, the woman had a flustered air about her, like a wedding planner surprised by an early guest. It was understandable. She didn’t seem prepared yet for all the visitors and well-wishers who would no doubt flock to her once news about Ormsby got out. She waved for Keegan to follow her into the next room. “You might have heard what befell Mr. Ormsby,” she said.

The sentence had the stilted ring of something he’d read in a Victorian poetry class he’d taken as an English undergrad at USC. I hold it true, whate’er befall… But it didn’t seem out of place in this grand, echoing hallway. What odd anachronisms washed up on the shores of great wealth: the silver inkwell on a bedside table, the calling-card tray in the entryway, befell.

“Yes,” Keegan said, following her towards a broad doorway. “I heard a little about it. A policeman came by my mom’s place to see if I’d heard anything, but I wasn’t at home last night. I wish I had been. Maybe I could have…” He let the sentence trail off. What could he have done? The question was a pit in his stomach.

“I was gone, too,” she said. “I was in Santa Barbara for the summer regatta. Of course, I raced home the moment I heard.”

The rubber soles of his department-store shoes squeaked on the tile floor as he followed Mrs. Ormsby into the next room. “Did the intruders take anything valuable?” he asked.

Without turning to him, Mrs. Ormsby waved his question away. She almost seemed irritated. Who would ask such a question at a time like this?

She led Keegan across the great room—the same room Keegan had slipped into in the dark morning hours. It was both familiar and disorienting to encounter it again in the light of day. It seemed like a week ago at least that he’d crept into this room through the open French door—a memory already beginning to fade at the edges. Was it possible that all of this had happened in just one day?

With the light streaming in from all the tall windows, and the many lamps now lit, the paneled walls took on the warm glow of cello wood. Silver glinted from every tabletop and shelf. Each smooth surface was polished to a gleam. Even the tiled floor dimly mirrored the furniture arranged on top of it.