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it for such a steal—fully furnished.”
    “What’s the story of this house?” I asked, looking up at a painting of a stern-looking yet handsome man on the wall. “How strange that a family would sell all of their heirlooms.”
    Rex shrugged. “From what my mother said, Lord Livingston died in the sixties, and Mrs. Dilloway stayed on to take care of one of his sons. The poor fellow had some kind of complications from a childhood illness. His condition worsened over time.”
    “So he died?”
    “Yes,” Rex said. “Last year, which is when the family put the home on the market. Mum said it was the strangest transaction. The lawyer who handled the estate insisted that all the furniture and art—everything—stay with the house.”
    “Weird,” I said, tracing the edge of the mahogany side table. “You’d think that the family would have at least some sentimental attachments.”
    “I guess not,” he said. “My father said something about one of the heirs.” He scratched his head as if trying to recall the details. “He hadn’t talked to his father in years before he died. Some family feud, I guess.”
    I thought of what the cab driver had said about the house. “Rex, do you think something
happened
here?”
    “Who knows?” he said, grinning a little. “Maybe the housekeeper has a pile of bodies stashed in the basement.”
    “Shhh,” I said. “What if she hears you?” I began unpacking the clothes from my suitcase and setting them inside the dresser on the far wall. “Besides, I feel a little sorry for her. Imagine having to work as a housekeeper in your eighties.”
    Rex shrugged. “Father offered to pay her a generous severance when he bought the house, but she insisted on staying on,” he said.
    I looked around the room, surveying the antique furniture, the crystal chandelier overhead. “She must feel protective of this place.”
    Rex cocked his head to the right. “That, or she’s hiding something.” He pulled out his notebook and jotted something down. “See, it figures. Why else would someone stay in service for the better part of a century, even after everyone in the family has died or moved on? This is novel material.”
    “Now you’re talking,” I said. He had piqued my curiosity too. I walked to the window, looking out over the rolling hills and gardens that led to the orchard. I felt a pang of homesickness then. I’d miss the lupines, the asters, the rare poppies I’d planted from seed a few months back in our tiny New York garden. It would be a symphony of beauty and color for . . . the squirrels.
    I sat down at the dressing table, pulling a comb through my light brown hair. I’d worked so hard to secret my past away, and now, like a rabid, caged animal, it growled and threatened. I twisted my wedding ring around my finger.
    “I think I’ll have a shower,” Rex said, rummaging through his suitcase. “Did you happen to pack my razor?”
    “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t.”
    “Oh well. I’ll just take a car into town and pick one up. Need anything?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m fine. Wait, no—chocolate. I need chocolate.”
    Rex grinned and reached for his coat on the side table. “See you in a few,” he said.
    After he’d left, I looked up at my reflection in the enormous gilded dressing room mirror, wondering how many countesses and the like had gazed at their faces in the very same Edwardian looking glass—curled, corseted, and trimmed in lace, no doubt. I eyed my scraggly gray Gap cardigan and black cotton leggings and felt a shiver of embarrassment. There it was again, that deep-seated fear that had hovered since childhood, the one that whispered, “You’re not good enough.”
    I willed away the thoughts as I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, listening to the latest headlines on CNN. More unrest in Israel. A helicopter down in Iraq. I turned it off quickly, and walked to the large paned window that overlooked the gardens. I tucked back the yellow