“What do you want, Mark?” I asked.

“You know what I want,” he said.

His voice lost its playful tone, turning flat and hard.

“The waiver is sitting on the table in the vestibule,” Mark said. “All it needs is your signature.”

“I am not signing away the Hartwell trust,” I said.

“Then you can stay outside and think about it,” he replied. “The temperature is dropping below freezing. Your coat isn’t that thick, is it?”

The intercom went silent with a sharp click.

The red light on the keypad remained solid.

I pulled my wool coat tighter around my shoulders.

The wind swept across the open lawn, carrying the scent of pine and impending snow.

My ears burned with the cold.

I walked off the porch, my boots sinking into the stiffening grass.

I needed to find another way in.

Hartwell House was old, built in the late nineteenth century.

There were dozens of windows, some of them low to the ground near the basement coal chute.

I walked along the stone foundation, my gloved hand brushing against the rough granite blocks.