The rain was hitting the tall windows of the Lake Forest mansion.

I squeezed the damp rag in my hand, the scent of lavender and bleach filling the empty hallway.

It was three in the morning.

I wiped the dust from the heavy silver picture frames on the console table.

Claire Whitmore smiled back at me from the glass.

She had bright eyes and a soft, tilted laugh caught in time.

Now, she was gone, and this massive house felt like a tomb.

From the end of the corridor, the crying started again.

It wasn’t just one baby.

It was four of them, a chorus of sharp, desperate wails that echoed through the high ceilings.

I walked toward the grand staircase, my soft-soled shoes silent on the marble floors.

Ethan Whitmore sat on the bottom step.

His head was buried in his hands.

His expensive white shirt was wrinkled, the top three buttons undone.

He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks.

Beside him on the step lay an empty baby bottle and a crumpled blanket.

“Mr. Whitmore?” I said softly.

He didn’t look up at first.

When he did, his gray eyes were bloodshot and vacant.

“They won’t stop, Grace,” he whispered. “The night nannies quit at midnight. Everyone quits.”

He sounded completely broken.

The wealth in this house meant nothing right now.

His wife had been gone for three months, leaving him alone with quadruplets.

I knew that look in his eyes.

It was the hollow, heavy stare of someone who had lost their anchor.

“May I try?” I asked.

He let out a dry, humorless laugh.

“We’ve tried everything. The doctors, the white noise, the expensive rocking chairs. Nothing works.”

“Please,” I said.

I set my cleaning bucket down near the banister.

I walked past him, up the stairs toward the nursery at the end of the hall.

He hesitated, then slowly rose and followed me.

The air in the nursery was warm and heavy.

Four identical white cribs stood lined up against the blue-gray wall.

In each one, a tiny baby was red-faced and screaming, their small fists beating the air.