The Burg

Lindsay had been driving for almost an hour before the manor's gate finally appeared through the gray curtain of snow, and by then her knuckles had gone white on the wheel. The weather service had promised flurries after dinner, nothing more, but the sky over the Alleghenies didn't seem to have read the forecast. Snow came sideways across the headlights, thick and fast, and twice she'd felt the back tires of her sedan slide before catching again on the gravel.

She parked behind a line of cars already dusted white and sat for a moment with her notebook open on the passenger seat, the one she carried everywhere now that the new book had a shape to it. Highstone Manor rose out of the storm like something from one of her own chapters, stone and timber and a hundred dark windows, and she thought, not for the first time, that Sarah had built herself a house meant to be looked at rather than lived in.

Chad had the door open before she reached the top step, his coat already dusted with snow from standing outside to greet the cars.

"Ms. Lindsay." He took her coat with both hands, careful the way he always was, like the garment belonged to someone more important than her. "Right through to the parlor. Fire's going."

"It's getting bad out there," she said.

"It is," he agreed, and said nothing else, which struck her as its own kind of answer.

The parlor smelled like woodsmoke and expensive candles, and Jennifer found her almost immediately, two glasses of champagne already in hand, one of which she pushed into Lindsay's fingers without asking.

"Finally," Jennifer said. "I've been standing here for twenty minutes with nobody to talk to who isn't either famous or terrifying."

"I'm neither of those things."

"Exactly why I need you." Jennifer lowered her voice, though the room was loud enough that it hardly mattered. "Tell me you've heard something. Anything. I've been covering high school wrestling scores for three weeks and I will lose my mind if nobody gives me a real story soon."

"I write novels, Jennifer. I don't have sources."

"You have better sources than I do. You just don't know you're using them." Jennifer's eyes flicked toward the door. "Speaking of terrifying. Brandon just walked in looking like he hasn't slept since Easter."

Lindsay turned and saw him shaking snow off his shoulders in the foyer, Chad already reaching for his coat. Brandon looked thinner than she remembered from the summer, the skin under his eyes gone the color of a bruise, and when he came into the parlor he moved like a man arriving somewhere he'd rather not be.

"You look like hell," Lindsay told him, because someone had to say it.

"Thank you. Very kind."

"Pittsburgh?"

"Pittsburgh." He took the glass Chad offered without quite looking at him. "I've spent four months on a case that keeps turning into three other cases. I drove up here tonight mostly because Sarah threatened to call my supervisor if I didn't."

"She wouldn't."

"She would. She's done it before." He drank half the champagne in one go. "What's this about, anyway? She was cagey on the phone."

"Celebration of some kind. Local success, she said." Lindsay shrugged. "You know how she gets when she's planning something. Won't say the real thing until everyone's trapped in a room with a drink in their hand."

Across the parlor, Eddie had planted himself in front of a landscape painting over the mantel, head tilted, lips pressed into the expression he reserved for things he found disappointing.

"This is a very expensive way to own a bad painting," he announced to no one in particular, and then, when Chad passed with a tray, added, "No offense to the house."

"None taken," Chad said evenly, and moved on.

"I mean it," Eddie went on, louder now, drawing Courtney over with her own glass already half empty. "The woodwork in this place is extraordinary. Hand-carved, look at the molding. And then she hangs this over the fireplace like a motel lobby."

"Maybe she likes it," Courtney said.

"Then she has no taste, and I say that as someone who loves her."

"You say everything as someone who loves everyone, right up until you don't." Courtney raised her glass toward him, something sharp in her smile. "Careful, Eddie. Last person who criticized a hostess's walls at a party like this got cut from the guest list forever."

"I'll take my chances."

Kayla arrived last, apologizing before she was even through the door, a white box balanced on one arm and snow melting in her dark hair.

"The roads are a nightmare," she said, pressing the box into Chad's waiting hands. "I almost didn't make it. Please tell me these survived, I spent all afternoon on them."

"They look perfect," Chad said, lifting the lid enough to see the rows of delicate pastries inside, each one dusted and glazed like something too pretty to eat. He carried the box toward the kitchen with the same careful attention he gave everything else in this house.

It was Sarah who finally drew them all together, stepping into the middle of the parlor with a glass raised and that particular smile she wore when she wanted a room's full attention and intended to get it.

"I'm so glad all of you made it through that mess outside," she said, raising her voice over the crackle of the fire. "I know the roads are bad, and getting worse by the look of it, so thank you for coming anyway. Chad tells me the plows won't be up this far until morning."

"Then we're stuck with you," Eddie said, and the room laughed.

"You are," Sarah agreed, smiling wider. "But I promise it'll be worth it. I didn't ask you all here just to drink my champagne, though you're welcome to as much of it as you like." She paused, and something in the pause made Lindsay sit up a little straighter, notebook forgotten in her lap. "I have an announcement. A real one. Something I've been sitting on for longer than I should have, and I wanted the people who matter most to me in this town to hear it together, tonight, before anyone else does."

The room had gone quiet except for the fire and, somewhere beyond the thick windows, the wind rising into a low, steady howl that hadn't been there an hour before.

"I'm proposing a development project," Sarah said. "Something that's going to change Hollidaysburg, and change what this town means to the people in it. I wanted you here to be the first to know, because frankly, every one of you is going to be part of it whether you like it or not."

Lindsay glanced at Brandon, who had gone very still, his glass stopped halfway to his mouth. Outside, the wind slammed against the windows hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame, and somewhere down the long hall, a door banged shut on its own.

"Chad," Sarah said without turning, "check that the generator's fueled. I have a feeling we're not going anywhere tonight."