If she wasn’t directly responsible for whatever happened to Jasper, I thought, she had help getting to dreamland last night. It was the only way I could see her sleeping through the attack; hell, with the number of pills it takes me to drift off some nights you could tap-dance on Carson’s body and I wouldn’t flinch. And if Abella was in the habit of popping pills, maybe Jasper did the same. You don’t need a history of drug use to go overboard or make one lethal, ill-fated match.

On the other nightstand, I found something else peculiar: a water ring, the kind you get from forgetting to use a coaster. It was faint—I had to get in close to spot it—but it was there. Already I’d seen enough of the house to know Norton kept it immaculate. Why not buff away the stain? True, the mark could be fresh, but there was no glass in sight, nothing to collect for testing. Abella Beaudry would be an important interview. She had some explaining to do.

When I was done with the area around the bed, I took note of the location of the windows. Three of them, close together, bowed outward from the house. The screens were all intact, the windows shut tight against the storm, and as a result the room retained its smells. I picked up the sour tang of sweat, but it was almost completely overpowered by the sharp, metallic stench of blood. Aside from the windows, the room also had a glass door that opened onto a Juliet balcony. There were no stairs leading down to the ground, but I wondered if someone could have climbed up another way. The floors were pristine—no messy footprints, no debris from outside. These observations I marked in my notebook, filing them away for later.

With one more sweeping appraisal of the room, I was done. The doors in the house were old with antique hardware. I found the key to Jasper’s room in the keyhole and locked it behind me. In the gloved palm of my hand, before dropping it in my pocket for safekeeping, the key seemed to emit a low-frequency vibration that zipped through my body like a shock. At home I never lock interior doors, not even when using the bathroom. Not anymore.

It took twenty minutes to search the second and third floors of the house. On the outside the place appeared huge to the point of obscenity, but its warren of hallways made the interior feel unnervingly cramped. I couldn’t get my bearings. There were doors everywhere, closets that turned corners to go on forever. Some were lined with fancy dresses and suits zipped into storage bags. The Sinclairs must have held parties out here years ago, Gatsby-style. The staircase to the third floor, which was entirely occupied by a master bedroom that clearly belonged to the house’s owner, spiraled upward to a dizzying height. In good weather, Camilla would be able to see all the way to Canada.