“There were. Only not every girl was entitled to her own room. Some doubled up. And some entertained their clients in the parlor.”

The image of that made Sara grimace. Sometimes she thought modern women had a glamorized vision of bordellos, but the truth didn’t sound at all sensual or glamorous. It sounded cheap and dirty. A hard and dangerous way to eek out a living. “And a lot of the street was similar houses?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder what led women to prostitution,” she mused out loud. What had caused her great-great-grandmother, Anne Donovan, to feel such desperation? Or had she actually enjoyed it, sought it out? Likely Sara would never know.

“Drugs, alcohol, poverty, rebelliousness. Not much different than now.” Gabriel squatted down on the sidewalk and lifted his camera.

“Are you a photographer too?” she asked, realizing he had said these shots were for the book.

“No. It’s just easier to take my own photos.”

But he did have an eye for it. Sara could see that. He shifted to the left, looked up at the sky, in and out of the lens, adjusting his shots, adjusting his zoom lens.

“It’s not called number twenty-five anymore.” There was an address plate above the mailbox, to the right of the door, with its single brick step leading down to the walk. It was a quiet street, with no traffic and little activity. The light blue house looked lonely, lacking in foliage or flowers. “Do the owners know a murder happened here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to the owner. The house is owned by a trust, and when I contacted the lawyer in charge of it, he gave me a big old no when I asked permission to take interior photos. He tried to tell me the crime happened in the house next door.”

“How do you know it didn’t?”

He turned and looked up at her. His dark eyes were unreadable. “Trust me. I know. I do my research.”

Sara shivered. The hair on her arms had suddenly gone up, even though it was an easy eighty-five degrees. She looked past him to the house again. “What do you know about Anne Donovan? How did she end up here? Drugs, alcohol, or poverty? Or all of the above?”

“From witness accounts of her behavior, it was poverty. No one mentions drugs or alcohol at all.”

“In relation to her. They said her lover used opium and alcohol.”

“Yes. Absinthe in particular.”