Jane looked at the clock. That journalist would be here in no time, now wouldn’t he? Where was Mrs. Alban? Jane rambled from the living room to the library, poked her head into the study—no sign of her employer anywhere. And she certainly wouldn’t be in the kitchen, Jane thought with a hint of a smile.
“Mrs. Alban?” she called up the grand staircase. No response. Jane put her hand on the cherry-wood banister and thought about the dusting she’d do tomorrow.
Reaching the second floor, she scurried down the hallway and knocked quickly on the door of the master suite. She pushed open the door and poked her head inside. “Ma’am?”
And then it settled around her like a cloak, the deafening silence. There was no energy, no noise, no signs of life. This enormous house was empty but for her.
Jane hurried down the stairs and out onto the front patio, spotting the gardener kneeling over a rosebush.
“Mr. Jameson!” Jane called out, rushing toward him down the smooth marble patio steps and into the immaculately manicured English garden that he had coaxed to life in this harsh, northern climate for a half century. She was out of breath when she reached him and took a moment to recover before speaking.
“And what can I do for you, Mrs. Jameson?” Her husband, Thomas Jameson, smiled at her.
“It’s herself,” she said breathlessly, looking into his eyes and putting a hand on his chest. “She went out for a walk on the hill this morning and hasn’t come back. That fool journalist is supposed to be here soon, and …” She stopped as she watched her husband’s expression fade from amusement into worry.
“How long ago, did you say?”
“About an hour. A bit more than that now.”
“Did she have any shopping to do?” Mr. Jameson asked, looking across the rose garden toward the carriage house where Carter, the family’s driver, lived. “I didn’t notice the car pull out, but Carter might have driven her somewhere.”
Jane shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why would she go anywhere when someone was coming here to meet with her?”
“All the same, I’ll check in with him. And I’ll get the lads to help us search the grounds.” He put down his shears and took his wife’s hands into his own. “Don’t you worry, dear. I’m sure she’s all right. We’ll find her. You go back up to the house now and wait.”
As Mr. Jameson strode off in search of Carter and the two young men he had hired earlier that spring to help with the gardens, Jane hurried back up the steps to the house. Where was the old girl? She rushed from one room to another, one floor to another. Forty rooms later, Jane was officially panicked.
She wound up in the green-and-black-tiled solarium, a room full of leafy plants, gurgling fountains, and plush sofas and chairs, where Mrs. Alban always took her tea in the afternoons.
Breathing heavily after all that rushing around, Jane sank down onto one of the wicker chairs and fished a tissue out of the pocket of her apron, dabbing at her brow. But she couldn’t sit still. The feeling, the same one that had taken hold of her moments before when she was upstairs, was stronger now. Nobody else was alive in this house.
“Mrs. Jameson!” Her husband’s muffled voice startled Jane, and she pushed herself up to her feet and rushed out the doors onto the patio where he and Carter were climbing the steps toward the house.
“Well?” Jane asked, knowing the answer by the look on her husband’s face.
“Nary a trace,” he said. “We’ve searched the entire grounds. More than once. Even the cemetery beyond, thinking she might have been visiting the relatives, so to speak.”
Carter shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t like it, either,” Jane said, her voice a low whisper. “Something just doesn’t feel right.”
“Aye,” her husband said, pulling the blue felt fisherman’s cap from his head and twisting it in his hands. “Aye.”
“Tell the lads to search the grounds again,” she said. “I’ll get us some iced tea while we wait. But if they don’t find her soon, it might be time to call the police.”
A few moments later, Jane joined her husband and Carter on the patio with a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses on a tray.
As she was pouring, Jane’s gaze drifted toward the main garden in front of the house, the one with the fountain and the manicured hedges. Her shriek pierced the afternoon’s silence as the pitcher tumbled out of her hand and shattered on the cool cement floor, the dark tea pooling in the crevices like blood.