A sharp-nosed woman she recognized as a Charleston reporter approached the group at the same time as Pris. The mental tension escalated. The blond lady grabbed a handful of almonds.
“Lady Katherine,” the reporter gushed. “I’m so glad you’ve finally agreed to an interview. Your lotions...”
Pris blocked out the rest of the sycophantic speech. Lowering her tray to offer her appetizer creations, she suffered an intense flash of panic, followed by a familiar image.Dante! What the...
Pulse pounding, Pris shot a quick glance over her shoulder.
Dante couldn’t be here. She’d have known it instantly. The uptight Indiana Jones wannabe gave off masculine vibes so substantial it was a wonder he didn’t cut a swathe through any room he entered. He’d returned to Italy weeks ago.
All she saw was her cousin Evie’s partner, Jax, in a stupid Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat. Related to Dante, he had similar features but not enough to confuse anyone who knew them well. Taller and more suave than his American relation, Dante was an English-Italian archeologist who flew around academic circles. She didn’t think it possible for a fashion model to know him.
Lady Katherine seemed to be gasping for breath, as if in shock from what she was seeing? Still, she released her grip on the pendant and managed to help herself to Pris’s caviar.
Pris realized she should have asked Evie about the strangers’ auras. Out of sheer curiosity, she warily lowered her mental barriers a little more. Someone had very murky vibrations, but she couldn’t differentiate them enough to tell if they were male or female.
Cut it out, Pris, she warned herself.Concentrate. Her future kitchen depended on good reviews.
While the reporter nattered, Lady Katherine took another swig from her shot glass, then bit into her appetizer, practically inhaling the whole thing as if starved. Nothing delicate about this lady.
Pris passed the platter to the gentleman hovering next to the lady.
A rush of excruciating pain—followed by strong bolt of triumph—pierced her mental block. Pris staggered, the agony so intense as to be almost physical. Her tray tilted, releasing all her carefully created confections onto polished shoes.
To her horror, the blonde slumped to the floor, her shot glass rolling to Pris’s feet amid the caviar.
Two: Evie
HALLOWEEN PARTY
Afterthought,South Carolina
“I like the hat,”Evie whispered seductively, tugging on the Sherlock Holmes flap-eared cap Jax wore as his version of a costume. “Where did Loretta find it?”
Their eleven-year-old ward had more money than should be legally allowed and still haunted the local thrift store.
“I think Dante found it for her when he stopped in England. It smells of mothballs. Am I mistaken, or does your cousin Pris look as if she swallowed a prune pit?” In a tailored black suit that molded to his brawny shoulders, Damon Ives-Jackson would fit in nicely with the Beautiful People Pris approached.
That Jax hung out withher, Evangeline Malcolm Carstairs, the town dog walker, instead of the seductive newcomers, proved his rare intelligence. More probably, he was hooked on her nearly transparent genie costume. He had a healthy appreciation of their sex life. She followed his gaze.
Right before their startled eyes, Lady Katherine collapsed in a writhing heap at Pris’s feet.
They both reacted automatically, following their own dissimilar instincts. Evie aimed for her cousin, waving her arm in the family signal for circling the wagons. Jax whipped out his phone while barking orders into his mic to Larraine’s security team. She left him calling Sheriff Troy and an ambulance.
Evie narrowed her eyes as her cousin surreptitiously used a linen napkin to scoop up a small glass rolling on the floor, hiding it on her tray. Pris might look like a gel-haired punk ditz, but she was scary smart in ways no one understood.
While people hysterically shouted for doctors and to give the lady space, Evie’s family angled through the crowd, forming a circle around La Bella Gente’s staff and the pale blonde twitching spasmodically on the polished floor.
“Kit-Kat!” The anguished cry was distinctly British, from one of the shorter, but no less stylish, gentlemen. He fell to his knees at the woman’s side and attempted crude CPR.
CPR didn’t work well with convulsions. Mavis shoved her way in and knelt beside the victim, taking her pulse. Lady Katherine’s eyes rolled back in her head and her twitches of agony halted. Evie didn’t need to see the almost imperceptible shake of her mother’s head to know the lady’s life had just ended with a final shudder.
Evie had never watched a person die. Molars locked and shaking, she waited to see if a spirit rose, but in her experience, it took time for a life essence to coalesce into visibility. Trying to focus on ghosts did not stop tears from running down her cheeks. She didn’t even know the woman, but she’d been alive and seemingly healthy just a few minutes ago. How was this possible?
A slightly paunchy older gentleman hauled the weeping young man back, whispering in his ear. The younger one shook his head frantically and tried to pull away. A taller, darkly handsome man took his other arm and murmured what sounded like reassurances. Evie couldn’t hear what he was saying but she understood auras.
The frantic young man displayed clear red in his root chakra, passionate if not entirely affectionate.
The taller man exhibited a muddy green in his heart chakra—he was jealous or resentful of someone in this scenario. He didn’t strike Evie as caring about the woman on the floor at all. His gaze was fixed on the gaudy necklace around the victim’s throat—but Evie’s family forced everyone back.
