Silence answered me. A breeze swept through the estate, making the trees whisper and the hair on my arms stand up.

I walked to the front door and tried it. It swung open easily.

“Mayburn!” My whisper was more fierce now. But all I heard were a few creaks, the house settling for the night.

I stepped inside. Thud!

I swung around, my eyes veering, dodging at everything around me. What in the hell was that?

Then I realized it was the door, which had slammed shut. My heart pummeled my ribs. Had it closed by itself? I felt trapped in that big, dark house.

“Hey!” The word, whispered from somewhere deep in the house, made me jump again. “Izzy!”

I took a long breath. “Where in the hell are you?” I whispered back, afraid to move too far from the door, feeling the paranoid need to flee.

“In the library.”

I made myself walk the marble hall, past the living room and through wooden pocket doors that led to the south wing.

I found Mayburn with a flashlight, going through the drawers in a desk.

“Forester called it a study, not a library.” I didn’t like the sight of Mayburn pawing through Forester’s belongings.

“Whatever.” He kept rummaging. “When did you say he got those letters?”

“I’m not sure. He told me about them a few weeks before he died.”

“He’s got a lot of stuff organized by date.” Mayburn seemed to decide on one drawer. He propped up his flashlight, angled it at the drawer, kept rifling through it.

“What’s that?” I pointed to a device the size of a jewelry box that was attached to the phone. A display on one end showed a lighted number.

“It’s downloading all the calls made in and out of the house for the last month. Sometimes you find something interesting.” He stood and took a small, red flashlight from his belt. He put it on the desk, along with something soft and white next to it. “Here’s a flashlight for you. And gloves.”

I crossed the room, put the gloves on and picked up the flashlight. I stood, my arms at my sides, feeling entirely inadequate and fighting the feeling that being here, in the midst of the remnants of Forester’s life, was simply wrong. “What do you want me to do?”

“Give me one second to see if this is going to be easy.”

I felt in the presence of a grave robber. To get my mind off it, I moved to the wet bar and looked at the shelf above it. There, Forester had placed a number of pictures-one of his wife, Liv, another of Shane, a few group photos with extended-family members.

I moved across the room to the bookshelves behind his desk.

I looked at Forester’s wide selection of books, everything from Buddhist texts to Graham Greene to Dostoevsky to contemporary thrillers. I ran my finger, encased in the rubber gloves, over the spine of the books.

“Almost done here,” Mayburn said. “But we’ve got no easy answer. Look on those shelves for the letters, will you? Maybe he kept them inside something.”

The two upper bookshelves held all sorts of knickknacks, vases and bowls. I picked up each one, looking inside them, looking under them. At the end of the shelf, I found a white scalloped bowl made of coarse ceramic. Nothing was inside. I started to place the bowl on the shelf, but something tickled my brain.

I picked up the bowl again. I had the sensation that I’d seen it before, or something like it. Maybe even recently. I’d been in the study more than a few times, yet there was something about the bowl that seemed even more familiar than that.

“You got something?” Mayburn whispered.

“No, nothing. This reminds me of something, but I can’t remember what.”

Mayburn swung his flashlight and moved toward me. He took the bowl from my hands and turned it over. “Handmade.” He shrugged. “But amateur. There’s probably a bunch like it out there.”

“Probably.” I took the bowl from his hands, looked it over one last time and placed it on the shelf.

Mayburn went back to the desk, and I continued my search. When I came to the highest shelf, I reached up and found a large, flat, enamel box. I lifted the cover.

“Bingo,” I said, excitement leaping through my body.

Inside, was a small stack of typed correspondence. I flipped through the letters, looking at the words. For the good of Pickett Enterprises, you need to step down…We all know you’re too old for the job…Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be… And lastly, something in quotes. “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.”

“What’s with that quote?” I said.

“Never heard of it.” Mayburn was reading over my shoulder.

“Who would write this to him?”

“Shane? Is he the kind of guy who feels impotent?”

I thought of Shane in his father’s big, gorgeous office. “Not anymore he doesn’t.” I thought about it. “Maybe Walt Tenning, the CFO, or Chaz Graydon. Life is easier for them with Shane at the helm of Pickett Enterprises.”

“We need to make copies of these letters and leave the copies where we found the originals,” Mayburn said. “Then I’ll check the originals for prints, as well as printer and paper type.”

I pointed to a closet door, where I knew Forester kept a copier.

“I’ll handle the copies,” Mayburn said. “You go look for the medications he was taking.”

“They’re probably in the master bath.” Which was in the north wing of the house, far away and bathed entirely in darkness.

“We need his heart medications. I want them analyzed, and I want a sample of those herbs you said he was taking.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“No way. The phone numbers are still downloading and the copies will take a few minutes. You never have a few minutes to spare in these situations. The sooner we get what we need and get out, the better.”

I hesitated.

“Go, Izzy,” Mayburn said.

Reluctantly, I left the study and tiptoed down the hallway, past the formal living room again.

I froze when I reached the pocket doors that signaled the entrance to the north wing where I’d only been once before when Forester had given me the tour.

Just then, I thought I saw a light swing by in an arc outside.

Turning off my flashlight, I scampered to the glass next to the front window. Careful to keep my body in the shadows, I peered through the windows. Nothing. It was as dark as when I’d walked down the driveway. Had it been lightning? The weather forecast had called for an evening storm. Or had it been the car light of someone following me? Or had Annette returned? I readied myself to run for Mayburn and tell him we had to bail.

But the light didn’t return. Forester’s estate looked calm and dark outside.

I went to the other side of the door and looked through the glass there. Again, nothing. I listened, trying to make my ears as keen as a dog’s. I heard no sounds at all.

I must have imagined the light. But if it was my imagination, then my imagination was making my heart pound. Hard.

I took a deep breath and thought about Mayburn’s words about having no time to spare. But maybe I should tell him about the light and let him decide if we should leave or not. I felt frozen with fear and indecision.

“Let’s get this done with,” I whispered to myself.

I broke into a trot and headed to the north wing. This time I didn’t hesitate. I went from room to room, swinging the flashlight into each, hoping desperately we weren’t being watched by someone outside.

The master bedroom was located at the end of the wing. The ceiling was vaulted and two stories high. The French doors overlooked the dark backyard. I went to a door on the other side. It led to a massive walk-in closet bigger than Sam’s apartment and an equally large master bath. I rushed to the cabinets and opened them quickly. In one, I found a small army of pill bottles. I picked them up and examined them as fast as I could. A few I recognized were muscle relaxants, all very old, probably from a back injury I knew Forester had suffered. A few were for high cholesterol, also old. His cholesterol was a condition that Forester had beat, he said, and he attributed that success to the doctor in Chinatown, who Shane said was Dr. Song Li.