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As if it had been listening to our conversation, the wall phone started to ring as Dax disappeared down the flagstones that led across the frozen garden.

I stopped a few feet away, listening to the voice being recorded.

“Hi, Mr. Bredahl. This is Matilda Seger with theCopenhagen Herald. I was hoping we could chat for a few minutes. I know you must have a lot to say about your recent incarceration and subsequent release after your sister confessed to the crime. It’s a story that a lot of people want to hear. A story that needs to be told...”

I went into the bedroom and closed the door.

Chapter Three

Dinner at the Big House.

No pun intended.

Back before the asteroid hit, AKA Tom Peyton’s murder, I used to have dinner with Astrid and Malcolm every Sunday afternoon. That kind of thing was really important to Astrid. Did I love having all my Sunday afternoons booked from here to eternity? Of course not. But I loved my sister, and also, Mrs. Bolt, Astrid’s housekeeper, was a fantastic cook.

When I was a kid, Sunday dinners were always followed by game night. Once I started working for the company, Sunday dinners felt a little more like informal staff meetings, but it was only a few hours out of my week, and I’d have happily donated those hours for the rest of my life if I could have still had my sister.

I won’t pretend I didn’t make myself a couple of drinks before I walked up to the house. Astrid and Malcolm drank, but their tastes ran to the strictly traditional. Astrid drank old fashioneds and Malcolm liked whisky neat. Neither drank to excess, and Astrid found my love of flavored martinis concerning.

At ten to seven, I shrugged into my coat and walked up to the main house. The moon shone brightly in the purple-black sky. It was like walking through an ice garden. Shrubs and low walls were covered in the fresh powdery snow, turning them into whimsical ice sculptures. LED lanterns shone from trees and benches. Up ahead, the house was brightly lit, cheerful light glowing from most windows.

I refused to let myself think about anything beyond the crunchy slide of my footsteps on snow, my sharp breaths as I drew in and out the cold night air. If I started thinking, remembering, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep walking. I told myself it had been a long, difficult day and I was too tired to be able to think logically, productively. A good meal would help and hopefully a good night’s rest.

I kept walking, one foot in front of the other, and at last I reached the white Federalist style front door with its giant evergreen wreath.

I had a key, of course. I’d grown up in this house. But with Astrid gone… I rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Bolt opened the door almost immediately. Samantha Bolt had been our housekeeper my entire life, but she had aged more in eleven months than in all the years I’d known her.

“Hi, Sammie,” I said.

Her impassive expression melted. There were tears in her eyes and her voice shook as she said, “Casper. Welcome home.”

We hugged. Her thin arms wrapped around me so tightly I could feel her heart hammering. I did my best not to crush her.

She whispered, “I’m so sorry about Miss Astrid.”

Astrid was only “Miss Astrid” to me. I think that was because Sammie and I were the only ones who remembered the period before Astrid had married Malcolm, when, after our parents died in a plane crash, she had taken on the huge twin responsibilities of raising her kid brother and running the company. She had been twenty and I was six.

“Thanks.”

Sammie drew back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Mr. Melber is in the drawing room.”

“Okey-dokey.”

I squeezed her shoulder and headed for the drawing room. The house looked like a magazine layout for the holidays. That’s how it always looked this time of year. Astrid loved Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving the house always magically transformed into a Christmas castle. This would be the last year.

The double doors to the drawing room were shut. I knocked once, opened the left door, poked my head in. Malcolm sat staring into the fireplace, drinking whisky. He looked up and twitched a smile.

“Caz. You made it.” He rose. “What would you like to drink?”

“Anything’s fine.”

Malcolm went to the drinks cart. Absently, I listened to sound of clinking glasses and pouring bottles as I gazed around the room. Astrid had redecorated the house a few times since she’d become lady of the manor. But a lot of the pieces in the room—the portrait of my great-grandfather over the fireplace, the vintage painted duck decoys sitting on the bookshelf, and even the Regency-style cocktail cart were the original furnishings.

The house appeared unchanged, but without Astrid there, it felt like a foreign country.

It wasn’t just Astrid’s absence.