As Merrill leaned over the computer and hit the Forward button, the back door burst open and Kent and Eric came in. Kent threw his gym bag toward the dining room table, missed, but didn’t bother to pick it up before coming over to see what was on his mother’s computer. “Jeez,” he breathed as he gazed at the picture. “Pinecrest? They’re actually renting Pinecrest?”

“What’s Pinecrest?” Eric asked. Then his eyes fell on the computer screen and widened. “Jesus — look at that place!”

Instead of responding, Kent looked up at his mother. “So what happened? Did the owner finally show up?”

Ellen’s eyes bored into her son, and she tilted her head toward Merrill, but it was already too late.

“Show up?” Merrill repeated. “What are you talking about?”

Kent glanced from his own mother to Eric’s, then back to his own, and it was finally Ellen who answered.

“It’s no big deal,” she said. “The house has been tied up for years because the owner simply vanished.” As Merrill started to say something, Ellen held up a hand. “Merrill, I’m telling you, it’s nothing for you even to think about. It’s just that the owner’s boat washed up on shore one morning years ago, and the assumption has always been that Dr. Darby — he owned Pinecrest — had gone out fishing and fallen overboard. But since they never found his body, they’ve just had to wait to have him declared legally dead. It’s not like he was murdered, or even died in the house or anything like that. So before you start getting all panicky—”

Her words were cut off by the beep of the computer announcing incoming e-mail, and a moment later all four people in the Newells’ kitchen were staring at the message from Dan Brewster:

Just called Rita Henderson and took the house. Start packing — we go up the 17th. And I reserved a table for ten at Le Poulet Rouge at 7:30, so call the Sparkses. Might as well celebrate. See you in a couple of hours.