Carolyn smiled and followed him out of the dining room.

As they headed up the grand marble staircase, she explained there wasn’t much to tell about her life. She gave him a quick summary of college and the FBI and explained she was now running her own independent investigation agency. She left out everything about Mom and Andrea and, of course, David. But her words had been enough to pique Douglas’s curiosity nevertheless.

“Here I was thinking you were some actuary or accountant,” he said, “working with Uncle Howie on the family investments or whatever. But you’re a private eye?”

She laughed. “I guess you can call me that.”

“The FBI, huh? You actually worked for the FBI?”

“That I did.”

He had stopped walking. They stood on the top landing of the staircase. “So what kind of project does Uncle Howie need a private eye for?”

“I’ll let him explain all that,” Carolyn said. “It’s not my place.”

“Very strange,” Douglas said, eyeing her. Then he winked and crooked his finger, indicating that she should follow him down the hall.

“This is my favorite spot in the whole house,” he said.

At the far end of the corridor was a door. They stood outside the door, and Douglas grinned over at her. His eyes were wide like a little boy’s. She couldn’t help but smile in return.

He opened the door. Beyond was a small, steep staircase leading up.

“The attic,” he said. “But that’s not what is so special.”

He gripped her hand. Carolyn followed as they bounded up the steps. At the top, to the left, was a small door that led into the attic. But to the right was a bay window. There was a small seat in the window, where one could sit and look out over the cliffs and the ocean.

“Oh, my,” Carolyn said.

“Look,” Douglas said, his arm now around her shoulder. “You can see the whole estate. The barn. The tennis courts. The road going down to the village. And over there, you see, is the village itself. You can even see the highway through the trees.”

“Yes,” Carolyn said. “It’s a breathtaking view.”

“You see there, along the cliffs? You can see the start of the path that leads down to the village. It’s a shortcut, but rather steep and a little precarious. It cuts through the family cemetery. If you look closely you can make out the headstones.”

“Oh, yes,” Carolyn said, but looking at the cemetery made her uneasy. All those dead Youngs buried there…the ones who had died in this house. She preferred to glance out over the cliffs to the blue ocean beyond, the sun reflecting off its whitecaps.

“I would come up here as a boy and sit for hours, daydreaming that I was a king and this was my castle,” Douglas said.

She smiled over at him. “You had a lively imagination.”

He nodded. “I also came up here on the day my father died. They couldn’t get me to budge. I just stayed here that whole day.”

She reached down and squeezed his hand.

“Douglas,” she said, her heart breaking. “I think your uncle would like to talk with you.”

He nodded.

Heading back down the stairs, Carolyn thought about the little boy who had sat in that window, grieving for his father. She had been up quite late the night before, reading through the histories of all who had died in that basement room. Douglas’s father had been a good man. A public defender. An advocate for the disadvantaged. He had died by suffocation. His hands had been tied behind his back and a plastic bag secured over his head. What kind of vileness lived in that room? What monstrous force could so do such a thing, especially with his young son sleeping in the same house?

Douglas insisted he stop back in the dining room for his waffle before heading out to talk with his uncle. He was still hungry. He asked Carolyn if she’d join him, but she demurred. He told her he’d see her outside then, and reached down and gallantly kissed her hand. Women loved when he did that.

He watched Carolyn head out through the French doors. He liked her. He was surprised by how attracted he was to her. She wasn’t like the girls he usually found himself going after. Sure, she was pretty. But she didn’t have the va-voom quality that Brenda possessed, the obvious, raw sexuality his girlfriends usually displayed. In the past, the girls on his arm had been one step up from bimbos: shapely bodies, big hair, loud laughs, not a lot of education. Carolyn Cartwright was very different. Smart. Crafty. A private eye, for crying out loud! Sitting back down at the table and licking his lips at the crispy Belgian waffle that was placed in front of him, he figured he’d need to watch himself around Carolyn. There would be no hiding anything from her!

That’s why he liked her, he realized as he took his first bite. He was here, after all, to get his life on track. To get serious. A woman like Carolyn, then, held tremendous appeal. Beautiful-but serious, too.

Douglas peered out through the French doors to catch Carolyn looking back at him. He waved. She waved back.

Oh, Carolyn thought. He saw me looking.

She was being silly. Acting like a schoolgirl. And acting like a schoolgirl had gotten her in big trouble before. She had vowed never again to trust a man on first impression. Douglas Young might seem charming and sincere, innocent and fun. But so had David. She repeated that mantra as she headed out toward the cliffs. So had David.

She found Mr. Young sitting on a stone bench looking out over the ocean. She could hear the surf and even taste the salt on her tongue. The old man turned his yellow eyes up at her.

“I see you are making the acquaintance of my nephew,” he said.

Carolyn smiled and sat down beside him. “He’s very sweet.”

“Mm.” Howard Young looked out again over the sea. “He tends to go through women like other men go through undershirts.” He was smiling, “Just a friendly word of caution.”

“Oh, I’m not-” Carolyn found that her denial of any romantic interest was faltering, and that she actually stammered. “Mr. Young, I’m here on business, not personal pleasure.”

“And speaking of that business, you were up quite late last night reading all the material I gave you.”

She nodded. “It was absorbing.”

“Were you frightened?”

“Of course.”

He nodded. “If you had claimed you weren’t, I’d have known you were lying.”

“I went into the room this morning, with the key you gave me.” She looked over at him, but he kept his eyes on the sea. “I could find no trickery, no hint of any kind of contraption in the walls that would have produced the bloody words we saw.”

“Well, at least you can retire your skepticism.”

Carolyn smiled. “Not entirely. That’s not how an investigator operates. You discount nothing. You keep an open mind to all possibilities.” She leaned in just a bit closer to the old man. “That’s why I need to speak with Jeanette.”

“Speak may be a rather high expectation,” he replied, still looking out over the waves.

“She survived that night. And yes, I know, survive may be hardly the word to describe what happened to her that night. But she is alive. The only one to make it through a night in that room.”

“Of course you can visit Jeanette. The others did as well.”

Carolyn was aware that she was following in the footsteps of many others who had tried to do what she was doing and failed. “Kip Hobart is a friend of mine. When I leave here, I plan on going out to see him.”

“Dr. Hobart was very bright and gave us all incredible hope.” Howard Young slowly turned his face to once again look at Carolyn. “But then poor Douglas’s father went into that room and showed how foolish we all were. What did the words say? ‘Abandon hope.’”

“But you haven’t abandoned hope if you contacted me.”

He sighed. “I needed to make one last try. Ten years from now, at the next reunion, I won’t be here.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Carolyn said, offering him a small smile.