My father took one look and closed his eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
Neither answered.
Mara did.
“That belonged to your brother.”
The world stopped.
My brother, Nathaniel, had died when he was seven and I was four. A boating accident, they told everyone. A storm. A tragic mistake. His body recovered two days later. My parents never spoke of it beyond the simplest facts. His room was closed. His portraits remained, but grief had turned him into a museum piece in our house.
I looked at the rattle.
“That was buried with him,” I said.
My mother covered her mouth.
My father said nothing.
Mara’s voice was quiet. “Then someone opened his grave.”
My knees buckled.
This time my father caught me.
For the next hour, Ashford House became something else entirely.
Security doubled. Gates locked. Former intelligence men appeared as if summoned from the walls. My mother disappeared into her office and began making calls in a voice I had never heard before. Calm, precise, lethal.
