CHAPTER 5A perfect panic seized me as I realized that Jennifer Reid must never know I’d seen the maimed walls and mangled chimney breast, and the pile of potatoes on the floor of the empty room…not ever in the world. I got up quickly and went to the foot of the stairs as she came down the short flight to the balcony landing, out of sight of the open door and the old colored woman picking up potatoes.
“Shall I come up?” I tried to sound as casual as I could.
“Oh yes, do.”
She seemed a little taken aback at my forwardness. I went up the stairs, trying not to hurry.
“You must have frozen, down there,” she said, looking at me rather oddly. Whether she thought I’d tried to open one of those elaborate locked doors, and failing, had been about to be caught in the act of peering through a keyh
