Free The Darkness Gathers by Lisa Unger Page A

the house.
    “Oh …” she said. She stepped back, appearing confused and unsure of herself.
    “Do you know who this is, Mrs. Fitore?” asked the detective, pointing to Lydia.
    The maid put her head down and said firmly, “No. No.”
    “Okay,” Ignacio said quietly, patting her shoulder lightly. “Go get Mrs. Quinn. Tell her it’s important that she see us immediately.”
    Twenty minutes passed as the three stood in the round foyer. Lydia paced a bit while Jeffrey and Detective Ignacio chatted quietly about the detective’s visit to Quantico. She circled the glass and wrought-iron table that sat in the center of the room, stopping to look at a replica of David that stood in a small portico above a fountain on the wall at the base of the stairs. She glanced up the dramatic staircase, which made her think of the one in Tara in Gone With the Wind . She half-expected to see a woman in a sweeping ball gown come dancing down to greet them. An enormous crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. For all the opulence of the foyer, there was no elegance to it. Each object was chosen to communicate wealth, but each competed with the others—the antebellum luxury of the staircase, the Renaissance grandeur of the David . Expensive but tacky. The objects people chose to decorate their homes communicated as much about them as the words they chose to construct their sentences. Whoever had decorated this room wanted people to know immediately upon entering that the Quinns had more money than God.
    “Hello!” Detective Ignacio yelled suddenly, making Lydia jump, then laugh a little. She liked him. “Hello, Mrs. Quinn! Detective Ignacio here. I need to speak with you.” The maid rushed out from the hallway, frowning, her finger to her lips.
    “Shh, Detective. Just a minute. Mrs. Quinn come in just a minute.”
    “What kind of woman takes twenty minutes to come to the door when a detective arrives to tell her that he has a lead in her missing daughter’s case?” Lydia whispered to Jeffrey.
    Jenna Quinn appeared at the top of the stairs. Radiant in a pink Chanel suit and black patent-leather pumps, her hair expensively frosted and pulled into a French twist, nails and makeup impeccable, Jenna put on the perfect mask of breathless apology upon reaching them. But Lydia could see that it did not reach her eyes, which were as cold and as soulless as stone.
    “I’m so sorry, Detective. I was in the shower. Please come in. Sit down,” she said, leading them into the library, which was to the right of the foyer, and indicating a leather sofa and chairs.
    She was in the shower, but she took the time to dry and put her hair into a twist, apply makeup, choose the Rolex, a diamond bracelet and matching earrings, Lydia was thinking as the detective introduced her and Jeffrey to Jenna. Jenna gave Lydia a weak fingertip handshake, which was one of Lydia’s major pet peeves. Meant, she assumed, to communicate a dainty femininity, it instead communicated guarded pettiness and a passive-aggressive personality.
    Jenna batted her eyelashes a bit and smiled shyly at Jeffrey as she offered him her fingertips. Jeffrey greeted her the same way he greeted everyone, with respect but distance, and a smattering of suspicion. Lydia loved that Jeffrey was impervious to manipulation. When he had no noticeable reaction to her subtle flirtation, Jenna turned her attention back to the detective.
    “Do you have news about my daughter, Detective?” she asked, widening her eyes in a look that Lydia suspected was a bad impression of hope. She then seated herself behind an enormous mahogany desk across the room. On either side of the desk sat two onyx statues of greyhounds, their musculature carefully sculpted, their teeth bared.
    The ceilings must have been twenty feet high. A gigantic brass and frosted glass chandelier hung down from the center of a compass that had been painted on the ceiling. A narrow staircase wound up one wall to a catwalk and a full