Page 287 of Taken Away

Tonight, it looked different.

Not easier.

Not softer.

Waiting.

Bennett parked near the front walk and came around for her again.

This time, Aubrey took his hand before he offered it.

Inside, the house was quiet.

No staff moving through the hall.

No voices from the kitchen.

No footsteps overhead.

Only the old boards beneath their feet and a silence that belonged only to Blackwood.

Aubrey paused at the foot of the stairs.

Bennett looked at her.

“You all right?”

“No.”

He nodded.

She took a breath.

“But I want to see.”

He led her down the hall to Harold’s study.

The door was already open.

Bennett had left it that way.

Aubrey stepped inside and stopped.

She had been in the room before.

But not like this.

Not knowing.

The study felt different now.

The tall windows held the last blue light of evening. Dust drifted in faint silver threads. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with ledgers, histories, and old books. Harold’s desk sat near the window, broad and scarred, as though it had carried decades of weather, worry, and work.

Aubrey slowly crossed the room.

Her eyes moved over everything.

Photographs covered one shelf.