No smoke rose from Grayson Manor.
Grayson Manor sat on its hill like an old bruise in the landscape, dark brick and timber staring down at the valley. It was only three miles from town, but the pines and fields between made it feel farther, like the house lived on a different calendar. Most families in Ashford had a story about it. A cousin who’d delivered flour there and never went again. A carpenter who swore the dining room was colder than the cellar. A preacher who insisted the Graysons gave generous donations because even the wealthy feared judgment.
Sheriff Elias Whitcomb rode up with two deputies and four volunteers, more for the comfort of numbers than for any lawful necessity. The path up the hill had been churned into ice, the wagon wheels cracking it like thin glass. The house stood unmoving in the morning glare, every window blind with frost.
They knocked until their knuckles went numb.
No answer.
“Maybe they went to the mill,” a volunteer muttered, but his voice held no belief. Christmas morning at the mill was unthinkable. The Graysons were proud in the way granite is proud.
Sheriff Whitcomb tried the front door. It didn’t budge. He leaned his shoulder into it anyway, then stepped back, frowning at the iron lock.
“Locked from the inside,” Deputy Crane said, as if stating it might keep it from being true.
