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Belle Vista stood empty for three years, until a bachelor oilman named Harmon Drew Firestone, undeterred by the history of violence, purchased the great house at a bargain price. He spent a fortune to restore it to its former grandeur. By World War II, Belle Vista had become the center of the city’s vibrant social scene. Old Harmon Firestone died quietly in his sleep, of natural causes, in the spring of 1972.
    Firestone’s estate sold Belle Vista to a property-development trust that converted the building into twenty-three condominium apartments of various sizes. The high ceilings, the lavish and well-crafted architectural details, the hilltop views, and the elegant public spaces ensured that the units sold out quickly in 1974, for the highest per-square-foot cost in the history of the city. Thirty-seven years later, a couple of the original owners still lived in their apartments, but other units had changed hands more than once.
    Only the previous day, Silas learned that the Pendleton’s history of bloodshed didn’t end in 1935, with Nolan Tolliver’s killing spree. Not only had there been more recent violence of a bizarre nature; apparently, the incidents also occurred with a predictable regularity, every thirty-eight years, give or take a day, which suggested that another atrocity might occur soon.
    Margaret Pendleton and her two children, Sophia and Alexander, disappeared on the night of December 2, 1897.
    Thirty-eight years later, on December 3, 1935, the Ostock family and seven members of their household staff were murdered.
    In 1973, thirty-eight years after the Ostock tragedy, no one hadbeen living in Belle Vista because it was being remodeled into highend apartments; no residents died. However, in late November and early December of that year, tradesmen and craftsmen working on the conversion had experiences so unsettling that a few quit their jobs and for all these years kept silent about what they witnessed. One of them, Perry Kyser, was meeting Silas at five o’clock.
    At the coffeemaker, he refilled his mug. He hadn’t put away the brandy. After a hesitation, he decided not to spike the brew again.
    As he capped the bottle, he glimpsed movement from the corner of his eye, a dark and fleeting something. Heart quickening, he turned toward the open door to the hallway. Light from a pair of crystal ceiling fixtures revealed cream-colored walls, a Persian-carpet runner, a gleaming mahogany floor, but no trespasser.
    His recent discoveries had pulled his nerves taut. If the Pendleton was destined to be a death house once more, as in certain other Decembers, time might be running out. This was Thursday, December 1, 2011.
    Silas wasn’t in a mood to dismiss the fleeting figure in the hallway as a misperception. He put down his coffee mug and ventured out of the kitchen, head cocked, listening for an intruder.
    The dining room lay to the left, the study and a half bath to the right. All were unoccupied.
    Beyond the dining room lay the large living room with its cast-iron firebox and elaborately carved limestone surround that extended to a fourteen-foot-high ceiling ornamented with reeded and egg-and-dart moldings. Directly opposite the fireplace, snakes of rain wriggled down the tall windows.
    At the farther end of the living room, in the foyer, both the deadbolt and the security chain were engaged on the front door.
    Across the hall from the living room, no one lurked in the bedroomor in either of the two walk-in closets. The quiet seemed deeper than usual, an expectant hush, although he might have been imagining the uncanny quality of this silence.
    As he approached the half-open door to the spacious bathroom, a domain of gold-veined white marble and large expanses of mirrors, he thought that he heard susurrant voices or perhaps the slithering noise that had arisen within the wall during the night. But when he crossed the threshold, the bathroom also proved to be hushed—and deserted.
    He stared at the room in