“Are you serious?” Rozie asked.

  “It’s just a game,” Dom said. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

  “Hide and seek in a creepy old mansion?” Rozie’s patience evaporated. Her writers delivered subpar work that morning. It was true. it’s hard find something new to say about hypoallergenic baby lotion. But two celebrity endorsements should have earned the client one more solid day of brainstorming, but she mailed it in. Just so they could try, and fail, to leave early. And race all the way to the backwoods, late for dinner, all so Dom and his chums to play their kids’ game.

  A chair rumbled, teetered, and banged back onto the wooden floor. Rozie whipped back to see at Willow, bent over laughing. Was this even safe after all that alcohol? Dom took advantage of the interruption and grabbed his wife’s hand. He shrugged. His expression—the line of his lips crept toward his chin and his brow furrowed—betrayed the dismissive gesture. She bit back the rest of the thought before it came tumbling out of her mouth. Dread. She had only seen that haunted look on his face a few times during their marriage. Once when he quit his job. Or when they told her parents, they were pregnant. Fonseca wrapped an arm around her husband’s shoulder, guiding him to the front. Dom glanced back, making sure she was fine with it. The dogged look was fading, even as Alfie laughed. She appreciated the gesture and released his hand with a nod.

  Burke led everyone through the entrance hall toward the parlor at the front of the house. Everyone’s energy had risen to a degree that grated on Rozie’s nerves. The smell of alcohol wafting around the group made her skin feel clammy. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen and stood behind the rest of the group.

  “Someone is bound to get hurt,” she muttered. She frowned. Her mother’s words coming from her mouth.

  A thin, feminine hand looped through her elbow. Rozie turned to see Erica smiling at her. Unlike the others, her eyes were sharp and present. Sober.

  “Don’t worry. Stick with me. They gave us a tour earlier in the afternoon. Should be easy enough with these guys.”

  Jonathan and Alfie walked in front of them. “Whenever I walk into a place, I’m still looking for the best hiding place,” he said.

  “That’s not a bad thing. Never know when you might need it. World’s getting crazier.”

  Conrad raised his hands like a conductor calling attention to his orchestra. “Now. The rules are simple. Just the basics. No tag, no bases, just hide and seek. When the seeker finds the last person or gives up, that person is it. And it’s not ‘Ollie, Ollie, oxen free’. We do the original ‘All ye, all ye out and free.’” He stretched out his arms as if to encompass the whole mansion. “You can hide in any of the public spaces. If you find yourself in the staff areas, someone will help you. All the unoccupied hotel rooms are unlocked as well.”

  “That means no refrigerators this time, Highlife!” Dom, yelled at Jonathan Miller.

  “Yeah, stay out of the dumpsters, Dominatrix!” he shot back.

  Rozie shook her head. It was going to be a long weekend.

  Conrad leaned forward and put his hand next to his mouth. “The youth pastor is a bit spooked. So nothing too crazy,” he said in a mock whisper. “Nothing too crazy, gentlemen.” Conrad winked and put his hands together under his chin. “When we played at St. George’s, we would have an hour to hide, but tonight, you’ll only have five minutes.”

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  Conrad pulled a comical egg-shaped timer from his jacket pocket, held it up in the air, and strode down the room. He stalked past the shelves and firmly planted himself in front of the fireplace. He gave the timer a firm, calculated twist.

  “Starting now!”

  There was a silent pause. Everyone stood looking around at each other. Erica tugged at Rozie’s arm into a hurried walk. Then suddenly the other guests surged into a sprint. Erica led her back into the entrance hall and toward the stairs that loomed ahead. The carpeted steps devoured the sound of Erica’s heels.

  In a whisper she said, “He’ll start in the closest places first. They always do. We just need to put some distance between us and him.”

  Rozie heard the breathless excitement in Erica’s voice. She couldn’t match it. Fatigue and the nagging weight of little Lowry had crept past the point of distraction. Hours in the car made her legs stiff.

  As they passed the landing halfway up the stairs, Rozie saw several of the guests scurrying about on the first floor. The men ran about, heedless of appearance, scrambling about in dress shoes, jackets flapping. Willow stopped mid-stride, a hand holding up the front of her dress. Sara stopped alongside her to laugh before they both disappeared toward the hotel rooms.

  The unease deepened in her stomach as she gazed down on the floor below from the podium-like platform. She blinked as the players’ shadows thrashed about the walls. Hide and seek. Too innocent, too sugary, for this crowd. Somewhere below, Sophie whispered, too loudly, a long string of Spanish at her husband.

  Erica’s hand slid down into her own, grasped it, tugging Rozie further up the stairs onto the second floor landing. Arches lined the balustrade, emphasizing the cylindrical circular hall. Beyond the columns, the second level felt disjointed, as if an afterthought, with rooms less elegantly arranged, dependent on the structure of the floor below.

  Erica whipped Rozie around a pillar toward the back of the house. They passed a bathroom, filled with a large white tub, a cube of a bedroom with red granite paneling, and toward a darkened corner. Laughter echoed around them, and the soft bass of heavy feet on carpet rose behind. Rozie barely registered the ancient elevator with its metal sliding grate as Erica pulled her toward another narrow flight of steps.

  “You can only reach the top floors from the back stairs. Or the elevator. But that thing looks like a death trap.”

  Wall sconces battled against the darkness. The endless dark-wood paneling devoured their light. Rozie broke free from Erica’s grasp to clutch at the railings on either side. When she glanced up the steps, she saw Erica beckoning her from the top of the stairs. A wave of dizziness flooded Rozie’s vision, and she felt her nails dig into the wooden banister.

  When she climbed the top step, she slowed to catch her breath. She reached out a hand to steady herself and felt cold metal. Again, she glanced at the metal grate of the elevator entrance. Without the elevator cab, the gate held back the pitch lurking inside the empty shaft. Erica dashed back into view from a doorway just ahead. Rozie sucked in a deep breath and shuffled forward. They flew past another room that had been converted it into a game room. Decades of feet had worn smooth pathways on the floorboards, but they didn’t line up with the furniture now. Erica led her up another three steps into a round room. The top of the turret. A small brass chandelier hung from the center of the conical ceiling above. The harsh orange light threw their shadows about the room over the two semicircular chairs that huddled against the walls. For a brief second, Rozie glanced around, thinking to hide, when the other woman yanked her hand backward. More stairs. A short flight ended at a small wooden door. Erica gave the black metal knob a sharp twist. Nothing.

  “Guess they locked the attic,” she said with a slight shrug.

  Leaving the turret, they turned left this time, entering a small parlor. A long antique sofa—velvet adorned with brass tacking on a frame carved wood—took up one wall. Bookshelves, mostly empty, lined the other with a small fireplace nestled in between. Despite her petite frame, Erica gave the sofa a firm tug forward and gestured for Rozie to hide behind it. Rozie rounded the chair and slumped her way down to her hands and knees and crawled forward behind the piece of furniture. Erica rose to her knees to look over the sofa and dropped back down. They huddled face to face on all fours, waiting as the last minute crawled past. The distant call of a male voice traced through the mansion. The words were indistinct, but the meaning was clear. Conrad began his search.