Read The Family Plot for Free Online

sidelights, and she tried not to think of the business—of the butchery to come. She tried not to calculate how hard or how easy it would be to remove the whole door in one piece with its transom and sidelights, or consider what Music City might sell it for. Ten grand, that’s the price tag her dad would pick. Ten grand, unless they broke something.
    She pushed the numbers out of her head, and pushed Augusta Withrow’s old key into the lock. It stuck, but turned, and the door opened with hardly a squeak. It swayed inside like the arm of a butler.
    â€œHello,” she announced herself as she crossed the threshold, into the foyer. The ceilings were high, and the room dividers on either side had curvy white columns atop them. She breathed in the stale old air like it was sweet and fresh. She came farther inside. “My name is Dahlia Dutton, and I’m sorry about what’s coming. I want you to know, it isn’t up to me. I’d save you if I could, but I can’t—so I’ll save what pieces I can. In that way, you’ll live on someplace else. That’s all I can offer. But I promise, I will take you apart with love … and I’ll never forget you.”
    Her words hung in the speckled, dusty air. The broad, open space was gold with morning sun, filtered through long curtains in the parlor and sitting room, each drape as frail and light as cheesecloth. Dahlia went to those curtains, window by window, and carefully pulled them open. Their bottom hems dragged patterns in the dust.
    Overhead, just inside the front door, a big light fixture stopped short of being a chandelier. Not enough crystals were strung across it, and it didn’t have enough glittering bulk. It’d be categorized as a “large pendant” when it hit the warehouse floor.
    â€œOld, but definitely not original,” she observed, her voice stuck in that reverent whisper she always used in old places when no one was around to hear her.
    She wouldn’t feel so bad about taking the pendant, but much of what she saw was original to the house, left over from the estate’s very beginnings.
    The front door behind her and its leaded windows, those were certainly first run—and now that she was inside looking out, she noticed a rose-like pattern with trailing vines across the arched transom. “Eleven grand,” she updated her assessment. It was one of Chuck’s rules: If it’s Victorian, and it has roses … add a thousand to the asking price. People will pay it.
    The staircase, oh, that was entirely original. Like everything else, it was coated in a thick gray fluff of cobwebs, dust, and the sawdust of insect damage, but the chestnut bones were amazing, and when Dahlia put her hand on the rail, it held without the slightest wiggle.
    The sawdust idly worried her. Termites? Carpenter bees? Ants? Could be anything, but she hoped it was nothing. It didn’t matter, anyway, as long as the bugs had left the wainscoting and baseboards alone. Those bits looked solid enough, and they didn’t budge when she pushed her fingers or toes against them.
    She looked up past the pendant light, and around the ceiling. The whole thing was plaster, cracked with Rorschach lines radiating from both the southern corner and the light’s elaborate scrolled medallion. She knew without checking that the trim would be plaster, too. Unfortunately—it was beautifully shaped, but it’d crumble at the first touch of a pry bar. Oh well.
    â€œCan’t save it all,” she murmured. “Lord knows, I wish it were different.”
    Dahlia stopped at the foot of the stairs and mentally mapped the place. She stood at the edge of a formal common area. Beyond it was the foyer and front door. To her right was a large parlor with a worn, round rug as its only furnishing; but she spied a set of bay windows that might be sturdy enough to come out in one piece. There was a fireplace in there,