I go to bed that night, but I don’t sleep. My thoughts are a whirlwind, and I can’t make them settle down.

After tossing and turning for several hours, I rise and go to my desk where my notes are scattered in every direction. I read through them a dozen times, trying to make sense of the few clues I’ve managed to gather so far. Still, I’m no closer to finding out who killed Harrison Squire, or why.

I can’t say when it happens. At some point, I fall asleep bent over my desk, face pressed against the cool ebony wood.

When I wake again, a faint light illuminates the edges of my curtains. I sit up groggily, stiff, head throbbing slightly. I rise and start to shuffle towards my bed when I hear the sound of an argument outside. Curiosity aroused, I move the curtain slightly to peer down into the yard.

There’s a secluded space here, beneath my window, sheltered by tall shrubs on three sides. A good place for a private meeting, it’s where Ben pulled me before at Louise’s party to interrogate me about Jackson. And now, he’s here with Jackson himself.

They’re quarreling, though I can’t hear well enough to say about what. If I thought I could get away with opening my window, I’d do just that, but there’s no way they won’t hear it.

The sound of their argument is cut short as Ben suddenly shoves Jackson, who stumbles backwards, nearly going down. Recognizing my opportunity, I take advantage of the chaos below to creak my window open just a bit.

“I said you’ll have your money!”

“When? I won’t wait around forever, Benny.”

“Just give me a few more days, and you’ll have it. Every penny.”

Their voices lower, and Jackson delivers what sound like a few words of warning. Then he strides off into the morning mist. Perhaps sensing he’s being watched, Ben looks up at the window. Our eyes meet.

I duck behind the curtain, heart racing.

I rush back to my desk to scribble down notes on all I just witnessed. Finished, I stare at Ben’s paper, trying to make sense of it all.

Jackson asked my brother for money at the party too. Ben said he owed him some after losing a card game, that he had enough to pay him, and he was stalling on principal. Then he disappeared, and I didn’t see him again until after I’d found Harrison’s body. He was wearing a different suit. Susan told me later he’d torn the crotch out of his trousers. And now Jackson comes again, demanding money…

A curious sequence of events, but what does it mean?

I think it’s time I started looking into it…

The servants don’t like Ben. They’re quick to complain to me about his behavior when I stop them with innocent sounding questions about my brother.

“He’s a pervert! Put his hand up my skirt, he did!” a pretty young maid tells me. “And laughed in my face when I confronted him!”

“He strikes me and swears at me,” one of the male servants confides in me, alone at the end of the hall. “Calls me the most awful names, especially when he’s drunk. Crashes around like a great brute.”

“I’m the one that has to clean up after his orgies,” I hear from Susan later after lunch. “And the dirty magazines and the lewd photos he leaves lying about… you wouldn’t believe the filth I find in that young man’s room… If you’ll pardon the observation, Miss Frances.”

It’s not a surprising picture they paint of my brother; I’ve known all this about Ben for some time now. It makes him out to be wretched, entitled human being, certainly, but a murderer? I don’t know about that…

“He was such a bright young boy,” Mrs. Agate muses as she rests in her chair in the down time between lunch and dinner, her hands folded atop her protruding stomach. “Not sure where he went wrong, exactly. Such a clever, active little scamp. Like a monkey, he was, always climbing something, getting into this or that. I recall when he was only five years old one morning I found him on the top shelf in my kitchen, eating the peanut brittle. Still have no idea how he got up there…”

“He’s still climbing,” our butler Spencer remarks from where he sits at the table with his coat off, polishing the silver. “Someone saw him in a tree just the other day.”

“What day?” I ask. “During the party?”

“That’s right. One of the valets mentioned something about it.”

“Did they say where he was climbing?” I ask excitedly.

“I think he said it was out by the annex.”

I’m already off. Not for the annex, but for my room upstairs. Quickly, I change out of my skirt and into a pair of baggy corduroy trousers and suspenders, swapping my house shoes for sturdy boots while I’m at it. Then I make my way outside, and over to the annex.

There are several trees here on every side of the lonely building. I walk around slowly, examining them all one by one, grateful for the nice weather after yesterday’s storm. This isn’t a job I’d want to do in the rain.

I’m thorough in my search and patient, and after twenty minutes, my effort is rewarded.

Here, just below a large branch, there’s a scrape in the bark, gouging so deeply it reveals the wood beneath. I step back to view the tree. That first branch is a little high, but I’m tall and strong. I think I could make it.

It takes me a few tries, and I have to get a running start, but in the end, I manage to haul myself up onto the first branch. I look around for more signs of a recent climber.

The next mark is a bit more difficult to find, just the faintest scuff in the bark. But it gives me an indication of the direction Ben was climbing.

Like this, I follow in his footsteps, reaching, stretching my legs to make the next branch. If my trousers weren’t so baggy, I can easily see how the crotch might tear.

After I reach a certain branch, the scuff marks stop. I look for some time, but the trail’s gone cold.

So this is where he stopped. But why?

I look around. Through the leaves I can see I’m looking at the second floor of the annex. Shimmying out on the branch, I get a better view of one of the bedroom windows. I can somewhat see inside, though there isn’t much to look at. Just a bare wall and the corner of a short dresser.

Like this I lie here a while, considering my discovery and what it means, but I can’t begin to see how this piece fits in my puzzle. At length, I decide the best course of action is to log this in my notes, and see if it makes any more sense on paper.

“What the hell?”

As I’m considering the best way down the tree, I become aware of a familiar voice below me.

“Sam?” I peer through the leaves “That you?”

“The hell are you doing up there?!”

“Investigating,” I say, swinging down to the next branch. It bends slightly beneath me, causing me to nearly lose my footing. I yelp a little, but manage to keep my grip. Beneath me, Sam swears.

“Frances! Get down from there before you break your neck!”

I hurry to do just that, sliding down the final branch straight into his waiting arms. I’m a little startled by his tense, somewhat frantic expression, but not so startled that I’ve forgotten what’s just happened.

“You called me Frances.”

Sam’s mouth falls open, and for the first time in our acquaintance, I get to see him looking just a little out of sorts. He releases his hold on me and takes a faltering step backwards.

“Forgive me. I…” he swallows. “I wasn’t expecting to find you in a tree. It threw me off, I apologize.”

“I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to call me Frances.”

Is it my imagination, or do Sam’s eyes look just a little pained?

“I’m sorry, Miss Porter. I… don’t know that we should shed the formalities.”

“Why not? Is there… some special reason?”

“My reasons are my own. Please, do not be offended, Miss Porter.”

I can’t understand him. But I think he does not wish to hurt me. That’s what his eyes tell me, anyway.

I suppose for now I’ll let it go.

“Anyway, Sam, I’m glad we ran into each other. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. You don’t mind if we sit down and talk for a minute?”

He leads me to the garage, to a little room inside it where Earl used to make his home. I see it’s not much changed since the previous occupant left. There’s still the little bed in the corner, the small gas stove and rickety table and chairs, all illuminated by a single swinging light bulb in the center of the room. 

Sam takes a sooty metal pot off of the stove to pour me a cup of strong black coffee.

“Not exactly fare I should be serving an heiress.”

“This is perfect,” I assure him, glad for the shot of caffeine after the nearly sleepless night and busy day I’ve had.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Sam takes the seat across from me and starts to light a cigarette. “Sorry, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all. I’m starting to like the smell.”

Sam’s eyes, so dark in this little space, flit to me briefly just as he touches the match to the end of his cigarette. Feeling my face warm, I look down to my coffee.

“About that man who attacked me the other night. I know you and Father hid the body without calling the police.”

I glance up at Sam who does not answer, but watches me intently through a curling line of smoke.

“It doesn’t matter why you felt you needed to do it. I just wanted to know—did you go through his pockets? Did he have anything that might have identified him as a Kertzrift national?”

“What makes you think he came from Kertzrift?”

“You heard it too, didn’t you? When you first tackled him, he swore in Kertz.”

Sam sets his cigarette on the edge of his ash tray and takes a drink of the lukewarm coffee.

“I’m surprised you remembered that, with all that was going on.”

“And you’re not happy about it,” I realize.

“What gave you that impression, Miss Porter?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling…”

I sit across from Sam, waiting for him to talk, but he says nothing for a long time. Then at last, he asks, “Why does it matter where he was from?”

“I just want to know what reason he might have had for wanting me dead. I should have no enemies in the southern land—I’ve never even been to Kertzrift. So it makes no sense that I should be attacked by a Kertzrift national.”

“I’m sure you’re reading too much into this incident. That man was just a drifter, a bum. He happened across the estate, saw the opportunity to kidnap the future heiress to Porter Chocolates, and he took his shot. That’s all.”

“But he didn’t look like a drifter. His clothes were plain but clean. He was shaved and his hair was neatly combed.”

Sam shakes his head with a faint chuckle. “Nothing escapes you, does it?”

“Please, Sam. If you took anything at all from that man’s pockets that might identify him, I need to see it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeat, incredulous. “Because it might impact my investigation into Harrison’s murder for a start.”

“Squire’s death and this unknown man’s attack are two completely unrelated incidents.”

“How do I know that?” I demand. “That man tried to kill me, Harrison was holding a sniper rifle when I found him—how do I know I wasn’t his target?”

Sam’s eyes narrow on me.

“I thought you said Harrison Squire was your friend.”

“I thought he was!” I slap the tabletop in my frustration, leaving my palm stinging. “I thought he was my friend, but I’m starting to realize I don’t know anything, anymore. Not a damn thing, not about Harrison or about my family, hell, I don’t even know myself. I never have. Who I am, who my parents are, none of it has ever made any sense!”

“Miss Porter—”

“You know what my siblings call me?” I ask him, and I realize a tear has escaped from my eye to run down my cheek. “Cowbird. A different species raised in the same nest, she doesn’t belong there. Doesn’t belong anywhere, because her own parents wouldn’t build a proper nest for their egg, and forced another bird to raise their young.”

Sam looks a little helpless. I get the sense he wants to comfort me, but doesn’t know how.

I rise abruptly, thinking I’ve humiliated myself, spilling my guts like this out of the blue. Sure, we might have gotten a little closer in the past couple of days, but he’s still practically a stranger. What am I thinking, saying something like this to a man like him?

Wiping the tears from my face with a furious scrub of my sleeve, I stride out of the room before I can make an even bigger fool of myself, leaving Sam alone at the table with a smoking cigarette, and two half empty cups of coffee…