Yes. The estate has three sectionsEast House, South House, and West House. East House is mostly for business. South House is for entertaining. And West House is the residential section. There are several wings within West House, including Jaspers personal wing. It includes his sitting room, his game room, his entertainment room, his private dining room, his bedroom, and his bathroom. Thats where the victim was found.

She led them through a hallway that connected the South and West Houses and then along a winding corridor, until they reached a wide stairwell. The corridor continued further along the first floor, leading to some floor-to-ceiling plastic sheeting outside another door at the end. But Matilda stopped here and jogged up the stairs with a vigor that made Karen roll her eyes at Jessie.

Their guide may have been young and full of boundless energy, but not everyone else was. Karens seen-it-all reaction reminded Jessie of their first meeting at Sovereign Studios, when the detectives blouse was smudged with paint from her second graders science project. Her top was unsullied today but she still had that harried mom vibe. In her late thirties, with thin, brittle-looking dirty blonde hair and exhausted gray eyes, she was in solid shape but clearly didnt have any interest in ascending the stairs at anything more than a steady pace.

Jessie might have been almost a decade younger and more athletic, but she was on the same wavelength. She brought up the rear as they made their way to the second floor. She was almost to the top when she felt her phone buzz.

She took it out to find a message from Hannah, who must have just woken up. There was no hello or good morning. Instead it simply said, You better be back before Ryan gets here. I cant do that on my own.

Jessie responded with a thumbs-up emoji. There was no way she wasnt going to be there for him when he came through that door. This case might be important but it wasnt even close to her top priority today.

Matilda pushed open two heavy doors and led them along the thickly carpeted, art-adorned second floor corridor.

This is Jaspers wing, she said in a respectful, hushed voice as they passed through the corridor into what Jessie guessed was the entertainment room, which had a pool table, a foosball table, a ping-pong table, and several old-style stand-up video game machines along with a pinball machine. A gigantic TV monitor, which covered an entire wall, stood in front of two couches and an easy chair. It looked like ten people could comfortably watch whatever he put on.

Matilda walked obliviously through the room, then through the sitting room until she reached a pair of ornate mahogany doors, one of which was ajar. She pushed it open all the way and stepped to the side so Jessie and Karen could enter. When they did, they finally found the folks theyd been looking for.