The estate looked smaller than Caro had expected.
After everything Peter had said about it, she had pictured something monstrous, a house built to intimidate. Instead, it was quiet, almost ordinary, the kind of old stone building that might have belonged to anyone, if not for the way every window seemed to be watching them as the car came up the drive.
"They know we're coming," Peter said quietly, reading the message again before pocketing his phone. "Which means whatever we find here, they've had time to prepare for it."
"Then we don't give them what they're prepared for," Caro said.
Peter glanced at her. "Meaning?"
"Meaning they're expecting Peter Shey. The man who hasn't set foot in this house in eleven years, coming back angry, demanding answers." Caro met his eyes. "What they're not expecting is for him to bring someone they've already underestimated twice."
Something flickered across Peter's face, the closest thing to a smile she had seen since they left the office. "You want to go in first."
"I want to go in like exactly what I am," Caro said. "Your wife. Newly arrived. Curious about the house my husband grew up in, with absolutely no idea what any of this means." She touched the pendant at her throat. "And I want to be wearing this where everyone can see it."
Peter studied her for a long moment. "If Isabella's intelligence is as good as it's been, they'll know within minutes that this isn't an accident."
"Good," Caro said. "Let them spend the next few minutes wondering what we know, instead of deciding what to do about us."
The housekeeper met them at the door, an older woman with sharp eyes that widened slightly when they landed on the pendant. She said nothing, but her hand trembled faintly as she opened the door wider.
"Mr. Shey," she said carefully. "We weren't told you'd be bringing... company."
"This is my wife," Peter said, his voice perfectly even. "Caro. I believe someone matching her description may have visited earlier today, asking after the east library."
The housekeeper's composure cracked, just slightly. "I... yes. A woman. She didn't give her name."
"Is she still here?" Caro asked gently, before Peter could press harder.
"No. She left almost immediately." The housekeeper's eyes moved between them, something pleading in her expression now. "Mr. Shey, I should tell you, before anyone else does. Someone called ahead an hour ago. Told the staff to expect a... family discussion. They said you'd understand what that meant."
Peter's jaw tightened. "Where is everyone now?"
"The drawing room," the housekeeper said quietly. "All of them. Waiting."
The drawing room had not changed in eleven years, Peter realized the moment he stepped inside. Same furniture, same portraits, same cold formality. What had changed was who occupied it.
Three people rose as they entered. Caro recognized none of them by face, but she recognized the posture immediately, the particular stillness of people who had spent a lifetime being watched and had learned to perform for it.
"Peter," said the oldest of the three, a man with silver hair and eyes that reminded Caro uncomfortably of Isabella's. "It's been a long time."
"Mr. Voss," Peter said. His voice was perfectly controlled, but Caro felt his hand tighten briefly around hers. "I wasn't aware this was a family gathering."
"Wasn't it always going to be, eventually?" Voss's gaze moved to Caro, lingering on the pendant for a long moment before returning to Peter's face. "You've brought something interesting with you."
"My wife," Peter said.
"Of course." Voss's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Though I notice she's wearing something that hasn't been seen in this family for eleven years. I assume that's not a coincidence."
"It isn't," Peter said. "I came here to ask a question, and I'd like an answer. Where is Lena?"
The room went very still.
One of the other Voss family members, a woman closer to Peter's age, shifted slightly, her eyes darting toward the older man before she caught herself.
"Lena," the elder Voss repeated slowly, "has not been part of this family's conversations for a very long time."
"That's not an answer," Peter said.
"It's the only one you're going to get," Voss replied, his tone hardening. "Your father made an arrangement. That arrangement was honored. What happened afterward is not your concern, and frankly, Peter, I'm surprised you'd bring your new wife into a conversation this far beneath her."
"Beneath her?" Caro said, before she could stop herself.
Every eye in the room turned to her.
"With respect, Mr. Voss," Caro continued, keeping her voice level, "I think you're confusing beneath someone with something they're not allowed to ask about." She let her gaze move slowly around the room, the way Peter did when he wanted people to feel exactly how thoroughly they were being read. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks less like a private family matter, and more like something everyone in this room is very carefully not looking at directly."
The younger Voss woman's composure flickered again, more visibly this time.
"You don't know what you're talking about," the elder Voss said, but something in his voice had changed, the certainty thinning.
"Maybe not," Caro agreed. "But I know that a woman matching Lena's description visited this house two hours ago, and that everyone here was told to expect a family discussion the moment she did." She tilted her head slightly. "That doesn't sound like a closed matter to me, Mr. Voss. That sounds like a family that's been waiting eleven years for someone to ask the right question, and just realized today that someone finally has."
The silence that followed was different from every silence before it. Heavier. Charged.
Then the younger Voss woman spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.
"She's not dead," she said quickly, before the elder man could stop her. "Lena. She's not dead. She's just not... here. Not anymore."
"Sera," the elder Voss snapped.
"They deserve to know, Father," Sera said, her voice shaking but holding. "Eleven years is long enough."
Peter's grip on Caro's hand tightened.
"Where is she?" he asked again, quieter this time.
Sera's eyes moved to the pendant at Caro's throat, and something in her expression broke.
"She left," Sera said softly. "Three years ago. We don't know where she went. But before she left, she asked one of the staff to deliver something, if anyone ever came asking about that pendant." She glanced nervously at her father, then back to Peter. "I have it. I've had it for three years, waiting."
"Sera," the elder Voss said again, sharper now, a warning.
But Sera was already moving toward a side cabinet, pulling out a small sealed envelope, her hands trembling as she held it out toward Peter.
"It's addressed to you," she said. "Both of you, actually." Her eyes flicked to Caro. "She wrote it after she heard about the contract marriage. I don't know how she heard. But she said, if the woman ever wore the pendant, to make sure she got this too."
Caro's breath caught. Lena had known about her. Had known about the contract, the pendant, all of it, years before Caro had ever signed anything.
Peter took the envelope slowly, his hands not quite steady.
"Don't open it here," Sera said quietly, glancing at her father's darkening expression. "Whatever's in there, my father has spent three years trying to find this exact envelope. If he sees what's inside before you do, I don't think either of you will get the chance to read it at all."
Peter's eyes met Caro's, and without a word, they both moved toward the door.
Behind them, the elder Voss's voice rose for the first time, sharp and furious.
"Sera. What have you done."
It wasn't a question.
The drive away from the estate was silent for a long time, the envelope sitting unopened on the seat between them. Caro could feel Peter's eyes returning to it again and again, as though he were afraid of what might happen the moment he touched it.
"You don't have to open it now," Caro said quietly.
"I know." Peter's hand finally moved, picking it up carefully, turning it over. The handwriting on the front was the same elegant script from the letters in the library. "I just keep thinking about something Sera said. That Lena heard about the contract marriage years before it happened." He looked up at Caro, something unsettled in his expression. "Caro, this contract was drafted less than a month before your family's company collapsed. How could anyone outside this house have known about it years in advance, unless—"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Caro felt something cold settle into her chest, the same feeling she'd had standing in the library, the same feeling from the moment she'd first asked Peter who "she" was.
"Unless the contract wasn't written for whoever signed it," Caro said slowly. "It was written for someone specific. And I just happened to be the one standing there when it was time to use it."
Peter's hand tightened around the envelope.
"Open it," Caro said quietly. "Whatever this is, I think it's the only thing that's going to tell us why."