I felt sick and achy, as if coming down with the flu, but instead of a virus, the dark sludge of grief was coursing through my veins. “I have to go.”

I tapped away the call and fished the keys out of my pocket.

The front door at the top of the stairs was a piece of art, a gift from a prominent artist, one of Violet’s many admirers. Carved waterlilies decorated the heavy wood. The door handle was a bronze mermaid. It was the kind of door you’d see in Architectural Digest “salvaged” now used as the headboard for a celebrity.

I stepped from the sunlight into the quiet shade of the foyer, entering a magical kingdom. Queendom, really. This was what I remembered from my infrequent visits.

Violet’s house was a place where anything could happen and had: love affairs, fights, scandals. Many of New York’s luminaries had walked the worn black-and-white marble under my feet. Some had behaved badly. There were rumors of a stabbing.

I set the luggage down and closed the door behind me. I should have been thinking: perfect silence, perfect peace. But all I could think was: emptiness, loneliness.

My phone rang.

Bram Dekker. Violet’s estate attorney. I’d called him when I left the stroke center.

“I’m not going to be able to make it today,” he said. “I apologize. I’m in court with a client, and there’s one delay after the other. Could we meet tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be here. Stop by any time.”

I walked past the grand staircase, into the room that had originally been the front parlor. As far back as I could remember, the entire first floor had been a gallery, most of the walls knocked down. Nothing to constrict the imagination, according to Violet.

The ghostly walls had once held vibrant paintings. Now the rooms stood empty. The soul had left the building.

I opened the basement door. Dark basement. Abandoned house. That’d be a no for me. I closed the door. I’d tackle the dungeon later.

Bran had said something, I realized. “I’m sorry. I missed that.”

“I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow at ten?”

A headache pounded to life at my temple. “See you then.”

The delay would give me a chance to reorient myself, an opportunity to recalibrate. I had to somehow swallow down the first taste of grief that filled my mouth and made it hard to breathe.

The wooden sign that used to hang outside, THE GALLERY VELAR, leaned against the wall. I caressed the letters. I was definitely going to keep it.

My mother called as I climbed the stairs with my carry-on to the second floor that was the continuation of the first-floor gallery, its condition pretty much the same.

“Are you there yet?”

“Checking the rooms.”

“You haven’t called any cleaners, have you?”