No proof ever surfaced. No charges were filed. Yet the rumor clung like the ivy on the building, choking his memory. Andrew remembered overhearing hushed arguments as a child—his father insisting Henry was innocent, his mother whispering that innocence didn’t explain such distance, such refusal to ever remarry or rebuild a life.
It troubled him now, pacing through the house’s echoing hallways. Henry had died alone, no children, no companions, and no friends close enough to eulogize him. What kind of man clung to a decaying estate until his last breath, refusing to let anyone inside, as though protecting something more than bricks?