` The engine of Bree’s black Aston Martin cuts through the silence of the ancestral manor like a knife. The headlights sweep across a gate that hangs askew on its hinges, the stone walls dark, every window a dead, black eye. She kills the engine and steps out into the bitter cold. The gravel doesn't crunch under her heels; it crackles like splintered bone.

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` The foyer is a museum of neglect. Dust motes dance in the single shaft of moonlight. The air is thick with the smell of damp and cold stone. The rugs are gone. The portraits are crooked on the walls. A single, small pair of rubber boots lies overturned near the stairs.