So, though Samara was the head housekeeper and had worked at this place every day for twelve years, she hadn’t seen a Freeman in over three weeks. In fact, most of the people who worked for the family barely saw Marv Freeman at all. Even Conrad, his driver, had been put out to pasture; the last time Samara spoke to the older chauffer, he’d said that he hadn’t driven Marv anywhere in a month.

  She stepped in through the service entrance. In most homes, this area would be spartan and lacking glamour, but in Castle Paradiso, every last inch of the place was gilded and adorned to the extreme. The hall itself was wide and arched, like something out of a gothic cathedral. Even her rubber-soled shoes made noise on the dark, terra-cotta tile floors. The walls were covered with bright mosaics, nature scenes from all over the state. Everywhere, there were column-like pedestals with bright-gold statues of cavorting, naked imps. Gold sconces and chandeliers hung overhead, creating bright flashes of orange light on the otherwise dark hall.

  Gaudy. That was the first word that always came to mind as she stepped inside. Marv had ensured that no expense was spared, and every surface, no matter how unimportant, was adorned. He’d designed this place explicitly to be counted among other notably opulent landmarks, like Versailles and the Vatican.

  Shocking? Yes. Breathtakingly beautiful? No way. Samara felt almost disgusted every time she stepped in. No one person on Earth had the right to have so much wealth, to spend it so wantonly on such frivolous things.

  Which was why she didn’t feel even the slightest bit of remorse for what she was about to do.

  She reached the massive kitchen, where there were usually a few of the food staff milling about, preparing meals to satisfy Freeman’s rather odd tastes. Peering in, she could smell the horseradish and vinegar, the tang of blood from the extremely rare meats he liked to consume, and it made her stomach turn. She looked around for the cook.

  “Rachel?” she called, the word echoing in the vast space.

  No answer.

  Quickly, she went inside to the pantry and slid open the silverware drawer. The set had been once enough to equip a hundred tables in the grand ballroom, not that Marv Freeman ever had balls that large. In fact, she’d never even seen a small dinner party. His entertaining days were over years ago before she started this job.

  Last time, she’d selected a soup spoon. She always did it this way—fork, knife, soup spoon, teaspoon—so she wouldn’t accidentally take too many of one thing. She lifted the sterling silver teaspoon out of the case, admiring the scrollwork on the handle. Though it hadn’t been used in ages, it had little tarnish on it. Apparently, the priceless set had belonged to a famous actress in the forties, and Marv had inherited it from her.

  They don’t make them like this anymore. That was what the man at the pawn shop across the street from her apartment had said when she’d showed him the delicate, intricately crafted piece.

  Slipping it into the front pocket of her uniform, she slid the drawer closed and hurried back the way she’d come, smiling to herself. With this, she’d have just enough to make a set of eight. The man at the pawn shop had said he’d pay her a thousand dollars for it—a fraction of what it was worth, to be sure. But she didn’t care. A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars, and she had rent to pay.

  She hurried down to yet another unused wing of the house. The main house of Castle Paradiso was laid out like a star, with five “points” or wings. The one at the head, the main one, was Freeman’s, at the front of the house. But there were four other points, each one with dozens of rooms arranged in a dizzying way, like a labyrinth. Even after all these years, she didn’t know half the rooms.

  But she knew this wing, the lower right wing in the back of the house, as she’d travelled this path many times. The terra-cotta tile gave way to a dusty chessboard of black and white marble squares. Here, things weren’t dusted or kept in the way that they were in the main wing. What was the point? There was too much for the staff to do, and the owner never even came down here, much less used the wing. What Marv didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  As she swept past, cobwebs swayed from the tarnished gold sconces and chandeliers. She saw footprints in the dusty floor—of course, her own. It was darker here, dreary. All the heavy oak doors were closed. It reminded her of a haunted mansion in an amusement park.

  She turned right, left, right again, until she was out of breath when she got to the very place she’d wanted to be—the conservatory. She wasn’t sure why Freeman had had this room created, with its two grand pianos and excellent acoustics. He didn’t play, didn’t even like music. Then again, what mansion was complete without a conservatory? So, he’d had one built, but it was likely the first to fall into disuse.

  She slipped into the room and closed the heavy double doors behind her. Even her breathing, heavy and ragged, seemed to echo here, in this high-ceilinged, massive auditorium. She walked among the chairs and sofas, all covered in sheets, to the enormous piano in the center of the room. Pulling up the sheet, she found the bench and slipped aside the tufted seat to reveal her treasures. They gleamed back at her, even in the minimal light, as if to say, You did it. You’ve completed the full set. Now, time to get paid.

  A noise came from the hallway. Samara looked back at the door, wary, closing up her cache and tucking back the sheet. Probably just the settling of the house, but she couldn’t be too careful.

  She froze there for a moment, listening. Hearing nothing, she rose to her feet and made sure the sheet was back in place. I will come back for you after my shift.

  As she was about to turn to the door, she noticed something in the far corner of the room. Among all the white sheets, there was something else. Something new.

  A dash of bright red.

  She walked close, curious, knowing she had never seen such a thing before in all the time she’d been a housekeeper there. There was so much gaudiness around that she was surprised it had caught her eye, but nevertheless, it had. Had someone else come in here? No. It was impossible. No one ever came this way. She’d taken for granted that her footsteps were the only ones in the dust outside.

  The closer she got to it, though, the more she confirmed that her eyes were not playing tricks on her. There was red there, shockingly bright and jarring. A smear of it and drops of it on a sheet. It looked like . . .

  She didn’t want to think what it looked like. She swallowed, hesitating as she neared it. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the sheet itself didn’t look like it was covering an ordinary piece of furniture. No . . . it could’ve been . . . a person.

  But that’s impossible. No one ever comes down here. Samara let out a shaky breath as she reached it, determined to prove that her mind was just playing tricks on her. Or someone else in the place was. But if they were, that meant they knew what she was up to . . . and if they knew that, then she hadn’t been as careful as she’d thought.

  She wasn’t sure what was worse.

  She reached forward and gripped the sheet in her hand, feeling numb and dizzy. Locking the fabric of the sheet in her grip, she took a deep breath and pulled.

  Marv Freeman was there, slumped in the chair, his pock-marked, bald, droopy head resting on his shoulder. His skin was the color of dough, his eyes wide open, his expression one of horror. Protruding from his chest was one of those priceless bits of silverware—Samara recognized it at once from the intricate design on the handle.

  The owner of this castle was dead.

  She let out a squeal of shock and threw the sheet back over him, trying to scrub the terrible image from her mind. Backing away, Samara’s first instinct was to run all the way back to the main part of the house, screaming for help.

  But then the back of her knees hit the sheet-covered bench where her treasures were being safeguarded, and it hit her, just what the police might think. Her thoughts whirled. The footprints, hers. Fingerprints, hers.

  The silverware . . . not hers.

  Jumping to her feet, she reached for the nearest sheet and got to work.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Under the hot Caribbean sun, somewhere off the coast of Jamaica, Daisy Fortune adjusted her visor and read the article that had brought her out here for the fiftieth time, searching for clues:

  Parents Plan to Sue in Case of Missing NJ Teen Mariah Anton.

  WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The mother of a teenager who disappeared while boating in the Caribbean filed suit Tuesday against the owners of the yacht, for negligence.

  The mother of Mariah Anton filed the suit against the family of Todd Mackey. Both children were 16 when Anton went missing from the boat one evening, launching a massive search. Anton’s body was never found.

  Carol Anton alleges Mackey’s parents, Seline Mackey and Vernon Mackey, should have taken greater care with her daughter’s life.

  “My family cannot just move on, put this behind them, or let it go,” she said. “A favorable result of this lawsuit cannot bring my daughter back, but it might force the Mackeys to take some responsibility in this case. So far, they’ve taken none. They haven’t even reached out to me to provide an explanation or condolences. I feel like they’ve been attempting to bury this, and so far, it’s working.”

  Buried. The case of Mariah Anton had been buried, just like the case of Charlie Fortune, her brother. Both had disappeared years ago, during separate fishing trips with the all-powerful Mackey family, and both crimes had yet to be solved.

  Unfortunately, though she’d come all the way out here to Falmouth, Jamaica, the last place her brother was seen, Daisy had made very little headway.

  She’d contacted Carol Anton, Mariah’s mother, only to receive a response from the woman that she did not want to talk. Had Carol Anton been paid off? Threatened?

  Whatever the results of this lawsuit were, she didn’t know. It was the last she’d seen of it.

  She knew the Mackeys were behind this, somehow. But every thread she tried to pull wound up in a tangled knot. Since her brother and Mariah had disappeared more than a decade ago, few people remembered the crimes. The entire Mackey family hadn’t even been heard from in years—no one seemed to know what became of them.

  Daisy sighed as the yacht pulled up to port on the small island. She imagined her father, the great detective Edward Fortune, tracing these same steps over a decade ago. He’d come up with nothing, and that had been right after Charlie went missing. Which brought her to the same question that kept filtering through her mind:

  What hope did she have?

  Edward Fortune was thorough. She doubted he’d miss anything. But then again, there was a chance . . .

  And so, Daisy was here. She’d come to Falmouth, Jamaica, almost straight after solving a case in the Seychelles, hoping to finally get some answers.

  Little good it had done. So far, she’d only met one fisherman who remembered the Mackeys, and he’d been so drunk that she could barely communicate with him.

  He’d suggested she come out here, though, to Booby Cay, which as she remembered, was the final place the Mackeys visited before Charlie disappeared. Her father had written it in his notes, along with: Not much to see here. Dead end.

  Not very promising, but maybe he’d just hit it at a bad time. There was still the off chance that someone would know something.

  She stood up in the glass-bottomed boat as the other tourists disembarked and looked around the small island, feeling exactly what her father had meant. There wasn’t much to see there. She tried to imagine Charlie walking the long dock, his shaggy hair in his face and his pale shoulders burned and freckled. She tried to think of what he would do first.

  Ten years ago, she could imagine it perfectly. Now, with the passage of time, she’d forgotten so much. In her mind’s eye, she imagined him catapulting off the dock and into the blue waters. No . . . that was him when he was thirteen. When he was eighteen, right before he disappeared, he was too mature for that. He’d gotten angry at her when she tried to cannonball in their backyard pool and splashed his then-girlfriend, what’s-her-name.

  But he’d never gotten tired of fishing. He loved that.

  She scanned the area and decided that if Charlie was going to do anything, he’d have gone lobster trapping. So, she went to the stand that was offering lobster traps and smiled at the man with the sunglasses and long dreadlocks, who said, “Can I help you pretty lady? Lobster for you?”

  “Actually, I had a question for you. You look a little young . . . it’s about someone who was here twelve years ago.”

  The man chuckled and lifted his sunglasses to reveal eyes that had wrinkles around them, showing he was quite a bit older than he’d originally looked. “I’ve worked this booth every day for twenty years. What can I help you with, young lady?”

  Daisy’s skin prickled. If this man remembered Charlie, then it wouldn’t be a dead end, and she’d have officially advanced the case further than her father had. “I’m looking for information about a young man who disappeared from a yacht twelve years ago.” She pulled out her phone and showed him the picture. “I was wondering if you remembered him?”

  He nodded. “Ah, yes. I remember young Charlie.”

  She blinked at the sound of his name. “You do?”

  “That’s right. You’re not the first person to ask about him, I’d say.”

  “Who else?”

  “It was a long time ago. A man came asking about him. His son, he’d said. I was not here; I missed him and heard about it later. I was out on the boats. I am a father too. I wanted to speak to him, but no one took his number.”

  “He’s my brother,” she said softly, her breathing coming faster. “Can you tell me what you remember?”

  “I tell you what I tell the police. What I say to them, I think it might help . . . but they never look into it. So, I thought it wasn’t any help.”

  Daisy had long been wondering whether the police had been covering up for the Mackeys at their request. “Please. Tell me . . . all I know, and all my father knew, was that this was the last place he was seen. That’s it. You spoke to him?”

  He nodded. “I spent the whole day watching him with the lobsters. He and his friend. They were funny. Your brother was a good boy. They were talking to a girl here.”

  “A girl?”

  “Oh, yeah. A blonde. I think the friend liked her, but she liked your brother. I think he didn’t like that. They were arguing as they got back on their boat.”

  Daisy’s mouth opened. “Did you see . . . were there any adults with them on the boat?”

  “No. Your brother told me that the friend’s father, who owned the boat, stayed on the mainland, and let them come here themselves. And they were . . .” He mimed drinking, tilting his hand in front of his mouth.

  “You think they were drinking alcohol?”

  “I know they were.”

  She shook her head, stunned. They’d come out here alone and had been drinking. Not to mention that they’d competed for the attentions of a pretty girl. And somewhere along the line, something really bad had happened. “You told the police this?”

  He nodded.

  “And?”

  He shrugged.

  But Daisy knew. And nothing happened. She’d scoured the files amassed by her father, filled with even the smallest bits of information on Charlie’s journey, like a receipt from where Charlie had bought a pair of sunglasses from a vendor in Haiti and witness descriptions from dozens of islanders who’d seen someone matching his description. But there wasn’t a single word about this encounter in those files. Not a single word.

  And why? The answer seemed obvious. Todd Mackey had been underage, drinking, and had been on the boat by himself. If that wouldn’t put the Mackey family in a negative light, nothing would.

  So, they’d scrubbed it. Somehow, they’d gotten the police to bury it. Just like everything.

  “Thank you,” she told the man, walking to the edge of the pier, the pier where her brother had spent his final days lobstering. She closed her eyes, trying to see him better, walking the dock in just a bathing suit, his lanky frame hunched over so he could bait the traps.

  Then she stared out into the water, and the ships making their way from Booby Cay to the mainland. She felt certain that somewhere, on this stretch of water, something terrible had happened.

  But there was no way of knowing exactly what.

  She was about to go back to the boat when the man called to her. When she turned around, he said, “He was the last. But he was not the only one.”

  Daisy frowned. “What?”

  “I mean that that boy brought others out here. And they also went missing eventually. I only remember your brother because he was the last one.”

  “Others.” She knew of one other. “You mean a girl? Mariah—”

  “No. Boys. Other boys. They all went missing. But your father was the only one to come down and investigate,” he said. “I think that is what stopped them. After that, they never came back here. That family . . . they may have power, and no one wants to touch them, but it was getting too dangerous, even for them.”

  Her mouth hung open. She couldn’t possibly make sense of that. It was one thing for the two boys to get into a drunken argument and have a boating accident. But for it to happen more than once? Was the drinking just part of a ruse? Did the Mackeys get them drunk to lure the victims into a false sense of security? For what purpose? “So, taking them out here was part of a plan. What do you think it was for?”

  He shook his head and looked as if he didn’t want to say, but then he stared out onto the open ocean and said, “There is a need for human slave labor. I am sorry to say that I think sick people in this world will pay good money for someone like your brother.”

 

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