He nodded. “I wanted you precisely because you are not an expert. You are a researcher. You don’t pretend to have answers. You go out and find them.” He chuckled. “Sid said you could be like a dog after a bone. What I like about you is that you will persevere and not rely on what is supposedly known or what is considered the accepted wisdom. You will dig. You will hunt.”

He was talking in riddles. What was this secret?

“There is one other reason I chose you, Carolyn.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And why is that?”

“Because you’re a woman.”

She laughed. “How does being a woman qualify me?”

“Because you will understand how a woman feels. How a woman loves.”

She considered his words. “So this project-this secret of yours-concerns a woman.”

He nodded. “Possibly.”

“But how do you know that I will understand how a woman loves? Perhaps I have not experienced what she has…”

“Oh, but you have.” His eyes were hard now. “I needed to know something about you before I met you. So I learned a few things.” He paused. “Such as your relationship with David Cooke.”

A short expulsion of breath escaped her lips.

“I know all about him, Carolyn.”

Once again, Carolyn felt on the defensive. Her lips pursed tightly. “Well,” she said, “you’re a regular FBI investigator yourself.”

“A wealthy man can find out anything he wants,” Howard Young said. “Believe me, Carolyn. I don’t bring up his name to cause you any pain. I will not use the information to hurt you or harass you. It is just to say that I understand you-and I hope you will bring your own understanding and compassion to this project.”

David. Even here-even in this strange house, on this faraway rocky coast-his name came back to haunt her. Would she never be free of him? For a second, all the old pain came flooding back-the lies, the tricks, the deceptions, the fear. Mr. Young was right about that much. Carolyn knew how a woman loved. She had loved all too well and been burnt for it. A day didn’t go by that her heart didn’t still ache for David-despite all he had done to her, all the terrible things she’d had to endure.

Not least of which was losing her savings and everything she owned. She was still paying off the debt David had racked up in her name. He had been one very shrewd operator. So the offer of a million bucks, especially with all of the obligations Carolyn had…there was no way she could pass that up.

Still, she didn’t like that Howard Young had delved into her past. She didn’t like being reminded of David. But hadn’t she researched peoples’ lives, uncovered secrets they’d rather not have her know? So she held her tongue. Carolyn let her emotions subside as they sat there in silence for several minutes. Finally, the old man spoke again.

“A wealthy man can find out anything he wants,” he repeated, “except, sadly, the one thing that has eluded me now for all these years.”

She managed a tight smile. “Which you aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

He just looked at her.

“You’re expecting me to discover it on my own,” she said.

With great difficulty, Mr. Young rose from his chair, steadying himself on the arm. Carolyn stood along with him. He straightened his twisted back the best he could and looked over at her, crooking a finger to follow him.

“I might not tell you,” he said, “but I will give you some very important clues.”

He shuffled forward, out of the parlor and back into the foyer. Carolyn thought it odd, but she stood and followed him. Once again they crossed the great marble floor, their footsteps echoing in that vast space. At the far end of the foyer there was a door. Mr. Young pulled it open. There was a whiff of mustiness from the darkness within. Then Carolyn discerned the steps going down.

“The basement?” Carolyn asked.

Mr. Young said nothing, just took his first tremulous step down.

He moved down the stone steps with a purpose, even if he seemed at all times ready to topple over. The only light came from small narrow rectangles cut high into the walls of the basement. At the bottom of the steps was a stone floor. The dim pink light allowed Carolyn to make out crates and old furniture, a dressmaker’s dummy and a steamer trunk. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and draped with cobwebs. Mr. Young didn’t pause to look at any of it. He just kept moving as fast as he could, which was not very fast, across the floor. Carolyn followed.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

At the other side of the basement was a rusted iron door. Mr. Young was fumbling with some keys that he had taken out of his pocket.

“This was the servants’ quarters when I was a boy, in the years right after the First World War,” he told her. “Of course today we are far more egalitarian, and we let the servants go home at night to their own homes and families.”

Carolyn tried to smile, but the darkness and mustiness made her uneasy. She had the distinct sense of being watched. It reminded her of her experience with George Grant, the man she believed had been turned into a zombie. Carolyn had been truly unnerved when she’d turned around to see him looking at her. Sid would later try to say he was just a con man trying to spook her. But Carolyn sensed something more. Grant’s eyes had been glassy, his skin cold and clammy. For weeks afterward, she had slept with the lights on, thinking George Grant was there somewhere, watching her.

With a shaky hand, Howard Young managed to unlock the door. It swung open with a creak into the darkness within.

“This is where the secret lives,” he said.

“Are you trying to frighten me, Mr. Young?” Carolyn asked.

“In your line of work, I imagine you are hard to frighten.”

He didn’t look back at her, just walked inside. Whether she was spooked or not, Carolyn couldn’t tell; it was true that, after episodes like the one with George Grant, she didn’t frighten easily. But she could see clearly that Mr. Young was afraid. The old man was trembling now, so much so that it seemed as if he might fall over. Carolyn watched as he steadied himself against an old sofa covered with spiderwebs. He let out a long breath.

“So what is it about this room?” Carolyn asked. “What do you mean the secret lives here?”

Howard Young seemed lost in thought. “I remember coming down here as a boy. I’d sit up on this bed and listen to the stories she’d tell. We all did. She was the best storyteller.”

“Who is she?”

Mr. Young was still trembling. Carolyn was now seriously concerned that he’d fall down and break his hip. That frightened her more than some unknown thing in the basement.

“I could not have imagined then what this room would become,” the old man intoned. “When I was a boy, this place was filled with laughter. With happiness. With good cheer.” His voice broke. “With love.”

Carolyn glanced around. A small window high on the far wall had been boarded over. The light was very dim, hardly allowing her to see. But she scanned the walls and the floor. Except for the old sofa and a broken table, there was nothing in the room.

“Mr. Young,” she said. “Where is the secret?”

“Here,” he said plainly.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

They stood in silence a moment.

And then she saw it.

The words on the wall.

They were not there when they first came in. She knew that much. The words on the wall had just suddenly appeared.

ABANDON HOPE.

And no matter how dim the light, Carolyn could see they were written in blood. It was still wet and dripping down the wall.