LENA,

The third key was warmer than the other two.

Lena felt it the second she tipped the cigar box into her palm. Two keys landed cool and ordinary, the kind you forget on a hook by the door. The third sat in the middle of her hand like it had been held a minute before she found it. Brass. Heavy. A bit of green at the teeth.

Owen stood in the attic doorway with a box of books against his hip.

“You going to tell me what that face is,” he said.

“Come here.”

He set the books down and crossed the bare floor. The house still smelled like...