The Ghost Auction

The clock on the mantelpiece in the grand foyer struck seven, and the sound was wrong—too deep, too slow, as if the bronze hands dragged through honey. You stood in the center of the Ashworth marble, feeling the cold seep through the soles of your boots, and you didn't need the cameras to know every eye in the room was on you. The last of the Ashworths, come home to beg.

Julian Vane circled you with a glass of amber whiskey, his smile a blade wrapped in silk. "Nervous, Miss Ashworth? Your great-grandmother fainted in this very spot. Right before she sold the silver to pay the cook."

You didn't flinch. "She fainted because the cook was poisoning her. Family legend."

His eyes glittered. "Ah. Then you know the house keeps its secrets close."

Behind him, the Caretaker emerged from the shadows of the staircase, her face a map of old sorrow. She looked at you like a woman watching a ship sail into a storm, and said nothing at all. The other contestants—seven of them, strangers with hungry smiles—already fanned out toward the corridors. The rules were simple. Last one standing at dawn wins the deed.

The front door boomed shut on its own. The cameras kept rolling. Somewhere deep in the house, a child began to sing.