Silent Guests - A.E. Forrest

A young Philadelphia lawyer travels deep into the Canadian backwoods on a routine legal errand-tracing a missing English heir-and stumbles instead into something far more stranger. A mysterious stranger leads him to a remote, castle-like estate hidden behind locked fences and prowling bloodhounds, where well-dressed men serve in silence and a beautiful young woman appears from behind a hidden panel in the library wall.

As the night deepens and his host begins to unspool the history of a man buried under a false name, the lawyer finds himself drawn into a web of secrets, tragedy, and the uncanny. The house seems alive with unspoken grief, and the longer he stays, the less certain he becomes of what-or who-may be watching from the shadows.