I’d noticed something about the Sinclairs. Aside from Abella, who was in stocking feet today, they all wore house shoes. Apparently, going shoeless in the house was gauche—and based on Camilla’s reaction to Abella’s dirty footprints in Abella’s story, so was wearing street shoes. It explained why Flynn was in summer shoes in October, and the disapproving looks Tim and I got when we sullied the family’s floors with our boots. Personally I’m a fan of thick socks indoors, but the Sinclairs’ custom was fine by me. It gave me a chance to examine the discarded shoes lined up along the mudroom wall.

One by one, I turned each shoe over to inspect the sole. I was looking for one thing in particular: dried mud. The rain started late afternoon on the previous day, and everyone in the family had arrived at the house by then. The shoes were a way to corroborate Abella’s story and find out who else was wandering around in the storm on the night Jasper disappeared.

It was easy enough to match the shoes to their owners. Jade’s sneakers were the smallest, while Flynn’s, an expensive designer brand, were huge. The wing tips had to belong to Miles the lawyer. Ned’s loafers were as long and lean as he was, and Camilla wore pretty boat shoes, sensibly flat. Bebe’s were Italian, also designer. The filthy rubber boots could only belong to Norton. That left Abella’s kitten-heel booties and the shoes that, somehow, Jasper left behind.

Between Norton’s walk down to the boathouse to greet us and his trips outside to restock the parlor basket with firewood, he had an excuse for the wet mud that caked the bottoms of his boots. The state of the other shoes was what concerned me. Aside from Camilla’s and Jade’s, all showed traces of mud and yellow, tender bits of leaves. Bebe’s and Ned’s included a dash of sawdust; they’d been in the shed, no question. Miles’s were especially messy, but that could be because he’d searched the grounds with Norton that morning. Strangely, Jasper’s shoes were also tainted with dried mud. That meant five of the guests, plus Jasper himself, spent time outside between the previous afternoon when it started to rain and our arrival that morning on Tern Island.

My pants felt like spandex against my legs as the wet fabric pulled tight over my thighs. Leaving the shoes the way I found them, I rose to standing and stepped into the kitchen. At the apartment, I always keep a pot of coffee on the counter. I can’t say it’s always fresh and hot, but that’s not the point. It’s strong, and ready when I needed it. There was no coffee in the Sinclairs’ kitchen, at least none that I could see. Norton probably hid the machine away in a custom cabinet, cleaned and prepped for morning. The kitchen was completely deserted. But something wasn’t right. I sensed movement. A whisper, slow and steady, source unknown.

The baby-fine hairs on my neck lifted as my eyes darted around the room. What was that sound? More important, why did every muscle in my body strain back toward the door from which I’d come?