“You know I’m Frank’s research assistant?” she said after a pause.
“Yes.”
“Soon after he hired me, he had me do exhaustive research on the attorney-client privilege and a deep dig into Archie Stallings’s life. I know Stallings was the key witness in the Alvarez case, and I’m certain that he told Frank something that convinced Frank that Alvarez is innocent. But he clams up any time I raise the subject.”
Sheila’s shoulders were hunched from tension, and her hands had curled into fists.
“That case is tearing Frank apart. If that’s why you’re here, please help him.”
Robin flashed Melville’s assistant a reassuring smile.
“You can count on me to try to bring the task Mr. Melville set for me to a successful conclusion.”
Monroe’s shoulders relaxed, her hands uncurled, and she looked relieved. “Thank you. Now let’s go down to dinner.”
Sheila escorted Robin to a cavernous dining hall paneled in dark wood and lighted by several chandeliers. During the day, the room was illuminated by sunlight that flowed through a set of stained-glass windows decorated with biblical themes that would have been at home in a European cathedral. At one end of the room was a massive stone fireplace where a fire provided enough heat to counteract the chill from the wind that whipped around the outside of the manor house and slipped through cracks in the stone walls.
Robin, Nelly, Sheila Monroe, and Frank Melville ate dinner at one end of a long table that could have easily accommodated sixteen more guests. It was obvious that Nelly wanted to know what Frank and Robin had discussed, but she was too polite to ask. Robin diverted her attention with stories about her experiences as a cage fighter and gossip about the celebrities she’d met.
After dinner, Robin went back to her room. She wasn’t tired, so she decided to continue looking at the Alvarez file. She closed the door and wandered over to the window before going to her bed where she’d spread out the police reports. Clouds blocked whatever moonlight might have shone down on the estate, but a little ambient light from a few windows let her see trees swaying in the wind from the storm that still raged outside.
Robin started to turn from the window, but she stopped halfway. When she was very small, there had been a brief time when she wouldn’t go to sleep without a night-light because of a feeling of dread that possessed her when her room turned dark. She hadbeen certain that some unnamed thing materialized in her closet or under her bed or in the corner of her room when the light disappeared.
The wind was making the howling sound she’d heard before. It was muffled by the thick stone walls of the manor house, but, for a moment, Robin thought the pitch changed, and that nameless dread from her childhood filled her. Was she hearing the wind or the howling of a wolf?
“Damn Loretta,” Robin swore. All that stuff about werewolves had primed her to misinterpret the sound. It was definitely the wind, she told herself. There were no wolves on Solitude Mountain and no werewolves anywhere.
Robin returned to the Alvarez case file and continued reading until her eyes grew heavy. She had made notes while she was reading, and she had jotted down two legal issues that needed to be researched.
It was only ten, and she thought Loretta would still be up. Robin got out her cell phone, but there were no bars. She looked around the room for a phone. When she didn’t see one, she pressed the button on the intercom.
“Mrs. Raskin,” she said when the housekeeper answered, “I have to call my associate in Portland, but I’m not getting any cell service. Is there a landline I could use?”
“There’s a phone in the library,” Mrs. Raskin answered. “Do you know where that is?”
“No.”
“Walk down to the first floor. It’s next to the dining room.”
“Thanks.”
Robin walked into the hall. The elevator was waiting on thethird floor, but Robin remembered how certain Mrs. Raskin had been about the inevitability of the car crashing, so she opted for the stairs.
It was eerily quiet in the great house, but that wasn’t surprising with only a handful of residents in a mansion that could double as a hotel. The lighting on the first floor was very dim, and there were shadows everywhere; shadows that could conceal anything. Robin shivered. Then she slapped her cheek.
“Man up,” she chided herself before making a mental note to sue Loretta for emotional distress.
The library was a small room dominated by floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, many of which appeared to have been read. At the far end of the room was a fireplace with a carved wooden mantel. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the room was very cold. Armchairs stood on either side of the fireplace, and an end table stood beside each chair. There was a phone on one of the end tables.
Robin sat down and dialed Loretta’s cell phone. Her associate picked up on the second ring.
“Did I wake you?” Robin asked.
“Nah. I’m binge-watching a really cool thriller on Netflix.”
“Pause it. I’ve got a few things I need you to research. Do you have a pen?”
“Give me a sec.”