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news, Detective, so out with it.”
    Frank hadn’t yet decided whether to obey or not when the doors opened again and a woman appeared. She was a fragile, birdlike creature dressed in a filmy gown with flowers printed all over it that swirled around her and made her seem almost ethereal. She must have been a beauty in her day, but that beauty had faded with the years, along with her once-golden hair which was now almost entirely gray. Her pale cheeks were sunken, her eyes hollow, and her skin had turned crepey, even though she probably wasn’t even as old as her husband, who was still a fine figure of a man.
    “Cornelius, what’s going on? Bridgett said the police were here, something about Alicia.” Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused, and at first Frank wasn’t sure she even noticed he was in the room. Then he realized she was simply not acknowledging him. She looked at her husband, waiting for him to explain.
    “Alicia? Don’t be ridiculous, Francisca, go back to your room. I’ll take care of this,” he told her sternly, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child.
    “I think this is something you should both hear,” Frank contradicted him, watching as Mrs. VanDamm finally looked directly at him. Even her eyes were faded, to a washed-out blue, and they watered slightly as she blinked at him curiously. Maybe she was just short-sighted, he couldn’t help thinking.
    She turned back to her husband. “What could he have to tell us about Alicia? She’s at Greentree. If anything had happened, Mrs. Hightower would have sent word.”
    Her husband spared her only a bored glance. “Of course she would. This isn’t about Alicia at all, and don’t say I didn’t warn you, Francisca. All right,” he said to Frank. “What have you come to tell us?”
    Now Frank was the one who was confused. Obviously, VanDamm was expecting bad news, but not about Alicia. If she’d been away at this Greentree place, maybe he didn’t even know she was missing, although that seemed difficult to believe. And if he was expecting bad news about his other daughter, he didn’t seem too upset about it. Ordinarily, a parent in this situation would be bracing himself for something horrible, but VanDamm didn’t seem to require bracing.
    The woman knew nothing, of that Frank was certain.
    “Maybe you better sit down, Mrs. VanDamm.”
    The vagueness in her eyes turned to confusion. “I do feel a little strange,” she admitted. “It’s that weakness I was telling you about, Cornelius. It comes on me at the oddest times, I never know when. And then sometimes I can’t get my breath—”
    “Sit down, Francisca,” VanDamm said firmly, this time the way you’d would speak to a slow-witted child. Frank understood about that only too well.
    “Well, if you think it’s best,” she murmured as she moved like a wraith to the nearest of the several ornately carved sofas in the room and perched on it, back ramrod straight the way a proper lady was taught to sit. Her hands fluttered restlessly in her lap, though, as if she thought she should be doing something but couldn’t remember exactly what.
    VanDamm simply stood where he was, arms down to his sides, hands relaxed, showing Frank no more than common courtesy. The way he would if Frank had come to sell him tickets to the policeman’s ball. Or the way he would if Frank’s news wasn’t going to be a surprise. But whatever VanDamm was expecting to hear, Frank was pretty sure it wasn’t what he’d come to tell them.
    “Mr. and Mrs. VanDamm,” he began, looking at each of them in turn. “It is my sad duty to inform you that your daughter Alicia has been the victim of a crime. I’m sorry to tell you that she has been murdered.”
    VanDamm’s face went chalk white, but he never so much as flinched. “Murdered?” He repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before. He may have been expecting something, but Frank was pretty sure this wasn’t it. “Alicia? Are you certain?”
    “I’m