Legend had it that when Mills discovered his bride’s body in the pool, he’d walked up the stairs, through the house, out the front door . . . and never returned. He’d ordered everything to stay exactly as it was, allowing priceless antiques to rot. My father had told me a different version. He’d heard that Mills had ordered his men to sneak in and spirit off the most valuable of the furnishings, so he could maintain the romantic fiction while recouping the most significant losses.

Judging by the wall of broken windows, I’d just entered the conservatory. Brisk lake air blasted through. I jogged to the next room, but I could see no sign of Gabriel. I called, “Gabriel? I’m apologizing, okay? I was being bullheaded, and while I don’t think I’m the only one, I want to talk about this.”

No answer. As I walked to the far doorway, I made tracks in the dust on the floor. One set crossing the room. None at the doorway, meaning Gabriel hadn’t come this way.

Was there another exit from the conservatory? I took three steps back the way I’d come and then heard an impatient, “Olivia,” from the opposite direction. I hurried into a long, narrow room with two fireplaces . . . and a half-dozen doors.

“Shit,” I said.

“Where am I?” a voice demanded. “What the hell is going on?”

The voice seemed to come from all corners, booming, oddly distorted, like speakers turned up too loud. Not Gabriel. Yet it seemed familiar.

“I know you’re here,” the voice continued. “Damn you, come out and face me.”

I turned and there was Nathaniel Mills. He was older, bloated and unkempt, a flask in one hand as he staggered toward me.

“Do you think I can’t hear you?” he shouted at the empty room. “Whispering, laughing, taunting? Do you think I don’t know what you did, you ungodly sons of bitches? Come out and face me!”

He stormed around the room, kicking at invisible debris, shoving aside invisible furniture. Then he stopped dead. He seemed to move around something, carefully, and then let out a cry as he dropped to his knees.

“Letty! It can’t be. You’re wet. So wet. And your poor face. Your beautiful face. What have they—?”

He stopped abruptly again and staggered up. “No, you’re not real. You’re dead and buried.” He wheeled, shouting, “Damn you all back to the hell you came from. You—”

His gaze lit on me. “You.”

I took a slow step back.

“Do you think I can’t see you?” His figure pulsed, shimmering as he moved, and then it wasn’t Mills coming at me. It was James. He stopped short and wavered there, his eyes wide. “Liv? What’s going on? Where am I?”

“James?”