The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

yellow glow of the streetlamps outside didn’t reveal a single personal item to Jane’s eager stare. She blinked again, hoping her magic eye shadow would do something – anything – but her vision remained unchanged.
It’s a huge house,
she reminded herself. But four sterile, empty guest rooms later, she began to have real doubts. Lynne was conscious of the past, but she wasn’t especially sentimental: the Lowell Hotel was homier and more personal than the mansion’s vacant rooms.
    A creaking noise sounded somewhere in the maze of dark hallways, and Jane whipped open the closest door and jumped inside. She pulled the door most of the way closed, avoiding the snick of the latch. Her heartbeat pounded so hard she felt dizzy, and she rested her head against the painted wood of the door until it began to slow. She didn’t hear any new noises, and she exhaled all of the air in her lungs. She glanced around quickly at the room she had hidden in. It was much smaller and plainer than the others, with a window no wider than Jane’s shoulders.
Sofia’s room, or someone else on the staff,
she realized. With a disappointed sigh, she slipped back out of the little bedroom.
    I’m thinking about this wrong,
Jane decided.
Lynne plays the media like a fiddle, but her real self is super-private; she wouldn’t leave Annette’s things out for just anyone to see. Malcolm felt like he had to hide his own memento away in a bank vault.
She groped her way back along the hallway towards the wooden door that led to the stairs.
But she still might have kept hers close by.
    Jane knew – theoretically – where Lynne’s bedroom was on the sixth floor, but she had never been inside. She held her breath as she turned the polished-brass door handle, but it didn’t give off so much as a squeak. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dark interior of the room. A king-size four-poster bed resolved itself first, and eventually Jane was able to make out a few chairs, a low table, and a massive armoire.
No windows – does she combust in direct sunlight?
    She closed her eyes, listened hard for any nearby minds, and flicked on the light switch. The room was almost as spare and cold as in the dark: the wallpaper was a steely charcoal colour that reminded her of the twins’ flat pewter eyes. The pattern on it showed twisting vines of the same colour, winding their way towards the ceiling but never reaching it, and the depressing theme was repeated on the bedspread and pillow shams.
The devil has pillow shams.
Jane shuddered, but even with the warm light of the wall sconces to supplement the spell on her eyelids, nothing in the room seemed the slightest bit out of place. There was, however, a door in the far wall that Jane hadn’t been able to see in the dark.
    It’s just a bathroom,
she tried to tell herself, even after she noticed the open door to a grey-marbled bathroom off to her right.
It’s nothing.
But her black Swarovski-studded peep-toes were moving as if of their own accord, carrying her towards the closed door. The honey-coloured floorboards creaked faintly when she was halfway there, but it was too late: no one was listening and no one came to stop her, and within moments her hand was on the doorknob.
This is a terrible idea,
her brain told her as she pushed the door open.
    All of Jane’s senses heightened as soon as she flipped the lights on in what could only be Lynne’s private office. A massive teak desk squatted in front of the deep-set window, and a couple of teak-lined file cabinets stood against the left-hand wall. Jane’s gaze ran along the walls, whose paper matched the bedroom’s, looking for a cliché along the lines of a painting hiding a wall safe, but there was nothing. Lynne apparently liked a thoroughly spartan working environment; her desk was as uncluttered as her walls.
She’s obsessed with her family’s history; I
know
she is,
Jane thought anxiously, tugging at a drawer of one of the file cabinets. It opened easily under her hand, and she shut it again with a little more force than she needed, reaching for the next one before it was fully closed. The second drawer wasn’t locked, either, and Jane worked her way quickly around the room. Nothing stood out, and nothing was locked.
    Who the hell is this woman?
    Jane’s breath sped up. She couldn’t stay away from the party for ever, but what was she supposed to do now? Her whole plan had been based on the assumption that something of Annette’s must still be