They started up the back stairs that led from the kitchen to the attic when Thane realized she wasn't behind them.
"Hey," he said.
They turned back down the stairs and found her hanging her coat on the mirrored coat-rack and umbrella-stand in the front hall.
"Up we go," she said, lifting the larger of the carry-on bags, leaving the smaller one for Thane.
They did not remember ever having been up the front stairs. Now they saw it was carpeted and had a wooden balustrade, black and shiny with carving, but the window at the top of the first landing was covered with a drape, and the rest of the stairwell disappeared in murky darkness.
Consuelo turned a switch and an elaborate modern chandelier of hanging steel tubes and glass rods that seemed illuminated within cast light on the stairwell
