Chapter 2

The marble floors of the Richmond estate gleamed under a crystal chandelier so large it made Abigail feel like she had walked into a church.

Hank was already gone. A woman in a severe black suit stood at the base of the grand staircase with the expression of someone who had been told to do an unpleasant task and had decided to do it as quickly as possible.

The housekeeper didn't introduce herself. She gave Abigail's clothes a slow, sweeping look, then turned on her heel.

Abigail followed, walking on her tiptoes to keep her sneakers from squeaking on the marble. Her calves burned. She felt like an exhibit in a museum - something to be examined and quietly pitied.

The room at the end of the second-floor hallway was enormous. It was also completely sterile. No pictures. No books. No trace that anyone had ever existed inside it. It felt less like a bedroom and more like a very expensive waiting room.

"Dinner is served at exactly seven o'clock," the housekeeper said, and pulled the door shut with a definitive click.

Abigail stood alone in the silence.

She dropped her canvas bag on the floor, walked to the large window, and pressed her forehead against the cool glass. Below, a perfectly trimmed hedge divided the Richmond property from a neighboring gothic-style estate that loomed dark and angular in the gray afternoon light.

Then she heard it.

A violin. But not music - not really. It was violent and frantic, a sound like someone dragging a bow across the strings with both hands and all of their rage. It seeped through the double-paned glass, barely contained.

Abigail pushed the window open a crack.

The sound flooded in. On the second-floor balcony of the neighboring estate, a boy stood in a loose white button-down shirt. Dark hair. Disheveled. He was playing the violin the way some people threw things - with his entire body, jerking with every savage stroke of the bow.

It was destruction in musical form. And it didn't stop.

A figure marched across the lawn below. Hank.

The perfect, untouchable Hank Richmond threw his head back and screamed something up at the balcony. His face was red, his composure shattered. He looked like a completely different person than the boy who had met her at the station.

The boy on the balcony stopped. He looked down. A slow, deliberate smirk spread across his face - the kind that meant he had been waiting for exactly this reaction.

He set the violin down on a wicker chair like it was worthless.

He picked up a large glass pitcher of ice water from the patio table.

Abigail's hand flew to her mouth.

He tipped it. All of it. The water and ice crashed down from the second floor in a perfect arc and hit Hank directly on the head.

Hank wiped his face with both hands, pointing, screaming words the glass muffled into silence. The boy just laughed - open, manic, completely unhinged - the laugh of someone who genuinely did not care what came next.

Abigail had pressed her palm flat against the cold windowpane before she even realized she'd moved.

The boy's laughter stopped.

His head turned. Not gradually - it snapped to the side like a predator catching a scent. His eyes locked directly onto her window with a precision that made her blood go cold.

He couldn't possibly see her. She was two estates away, half-hidden behind a curtain.

But his gaze didn't move.

It was dark. Sharp. Hostile in a way that felt less like a warning and more like a promise.

Abigail stumbled backward. Her heel caught the edge of a side table. A small porcelain figurine tipped over and hit the carpet with a dull thud. Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her teeth.

She crept back to the window and peeked through the curtain slit.

The balcony was empty. Hank was still on the lawn below, aggressively wiping down his ruined blazer.

Three sharp knocks hit her door.

"Miss," the housekeeper's flat voice called. "It is time to meet your parents."

Abigail stared at the empty balcony for one more second.

She had the unsettling feeling that whoever that boy was, he had already filed her away somewhere in his mind. And not somewhere good.