I hated more the idea of pretending a child could not recognize fear in an adult’s voice.

Later, Luis found me standing in the doorway of the upstairs bedroom.

He asked whether the new shelves should go along the north wall or beneath the dormer.

I chose the north wall because Sophie needed space for her books and her soccer trophies.

Luis measured the boards and marked the studs without asking another question.

That ordinary kindness mattered.

It reminded me that the house was a home under construction, not merely a scene in somebody else’s unfinished history.

That night, Rachel sent a photograph of Sophie holding three paint samples against her bedroom wall in Knoxville.

She had written a note beneath the picture.

“Don’t pick a different blue without me.”

I saved the photograph and left the paint cans unopened.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER THREE: THE HOUSEKEEPER’S LIST

A week later, Frances located an inventory prepared by Margaret Bell’s former housekeeper, Beatrice Wynn.

Beatrice had died in 2014, but her daughter had preserved a box of calendars, grocery lists, and letters that Margaret had written by hand.

The daughter, Nora, agreed to meet at a diner outside town after Frances explained that the material might help date the renovations.

Nora arrived carrying a shopping bag whose handles had been repaired with silver tape.

She laid an old appointment book on the table and waited while I washed my hands.

I appreciated that she treated the book as something valuable rather than a prop for a mystery.

The entries began as ordinary household chores.

They recorded window washing, boiler repairs, and deliveries from a grocery store that no longer existed.

Then the notes changed during one autumn when a visitor called Mara stayed at the house.

Beatrice had written that the back laundry room was to remain locked after supper.

Another note instructed her to leave dinner on the kitchen counter rather than carry it downstairs.

Nora said her mother remembered a young woman who always wore work boots and asked detailed questions about the town’s abandoned industrial buildings.

She was not certain whether the woman was Mara Voss.

Frances carefully wrote that uncertainty in her notes.

I asked whether Beatrice had ever said the visitor was being held against her will.

Nora shook her head.

Her mother had described the visitor as frightened but determined, and she had never reported hearing a struggle.

On the last recorded day, Beatrice wrote that Margaret paid for a taxi at dawn.