“I wasn’t exactly in a receptive humor, if you can imagine,” he said with crisp accents and none of his occasionally lazy Scots burr.
She memorized the directions and left him to lunch while she set out to explore the ancient villa. She was used to hundred-year-old houses. Afterthought was full of them, and her cousin Evie lived in one they all used for storage.
The villa, though, was gorgeous, filled with marvelous antiques and art, elegant plaster ceilings and beautiful wallpapers. She gawked in awe and thought this must be what a museum was like, not that she’d ever been in one unless a trip to see dinosaur bones during school counted.
Even the attic was orderly, as attics go. Evie’s was a hodge-podge of boxes and furniture their family had shoved anywhere they could find room. This one was so huge and well curated that Pris could tell each piece had been brought here with the intent to be reused. If she ever learned Italian, she could decorate a restaurant...
As if Italy needed another restaurant.
The carriers were found neatly stored in a box in a corner that almost screamed Infant Department. The box was light but awkward as she eased it down the attic steps. Still, she didn’t want her impressions anywhere on the plastic handles. The realization that Dante might get nosy and try to read her thoughts on anything she touched made her cringe.
As her mind reading probably made him cringe. Swell.
She carried the box into the kitchen and set it down beside Dante’s chair. The twins glanced up in curiosity but returned to watching their movie while chomping sandwiches cut into fist-sized bits. She raised her eyebrows in surprise at his thoughtfulness but said nothing, as always.
While she slapped together ingredients for her own lunch, Dante glared at the box with distaste and reluctance. Pris got that. She didn’t like looking into the messy contents of brains either. The unpleasantness of contact had trained her to avoid reaching out.
Dante extended his hand and clutched a handle. His first reaction was a wince. “My mother had a bad day. Maybe a lot of them.” Then he lifted the carrier into his lap and ran his hands all over, to places people didn’t normally touch.
When he grazed the bottom of the seat, his expression turned to alarm. Pris froze in mid-bite, waiting.
“Terror,” he murmured, obviously restraining himself for the sake of the twins. “Fear. Grief. Fury. Hysterical panic. And a fleeting image of the cave.”
Pris swallowed hard. “Lucia was terrified?”
“Not the Lucia I knew. I don’t know this person.”
Nineteen: Evie
Afterthought,South Carolina
Evie settledon the cottage floor with Ariel’s new pet, a black-and-white kitten that deigned to allow her to scratch his head occasionally. Looking around at the dimly lit front room where Ariel and Roark worked their computer magic, she screwed up her nose in distaste. She’d much rather be outside in the sunshine despite the nippy November wind.
“Pris is convinced there’s something wrong at Lucia’s farm, but she’s saddled with the babies, everyone speaks Italian, and she can’t do her mental mojo. I need a good excuse to poke around the Beautiful People shop and learn more about olive oil. It’s the only place where KK talks.” Other than muttering and complaining, anyway. The ghost was a serious downer.
“Don’t go unless one of us with you, bébé,” Roark warned, not looking up from his screen. “One of dem’s a killer. And looks like dey’re all crooks.”
If she had to tell Jax, she’d never get back in.
“How can selling lotions and creams be crooked? Other than claiming grease in fancy jars can beautify you. That’s more like fraud, and we’d need chemical analysis to prove that.” The kitten leapt up to chase shadows under the desks. KK had cried fraud. Maybe she was onto something.
“Rube got that done.” Roark pointed at his screen. “It needs more work but looks like La Bella’s products aren’t so bella. Cheapest ingredients on the market and no olive oil.”
“That’s why KK keeps complaining and knocking over jars!” Evie glanced around for the ghost, but KK didn’t like the cottage. She’d disappeared.
Ariel scooped up her pet, rubbed him against her cheek, and dropped him in a box on her desk. “Stolen artifacts,” she added. She printed out a list and dropped it near Evie, apparently not into airplane creation like Roark. Evie appreciated that they did paper for her. She didn’t tell them she didn’t read paper any more than computer screens, not if she could ask questions.
“Artifacts? What do they have to do with lotions? I haven’t seen any sign of anything old enough to be an artifact, including the shop staff.” Evie studied the list of banks and cash flow and went cross-eyed. “Explanations, please.”
“Speculation,” Roark contradicted. “We have nothing except Pris’s reports.”
“And money,” Ariel argued.
Evie found the prickly relationship between non-communicative Ariel and boisterous Roark fascinating. She tried to compare it to calm, logical Jax and her instinctive fits and starts, and she had to wonder how anyone ever lasted a lifetime together.
She’d kind of like to have a forever relationship, but she recognized her faults too well. A professional dog walker and ghostbuster had nothing to offer a respectable, soon-to-be wealthy lawyer like Jax.
“What money?” Money, she understood, sort of. She’d never had enough for it to be complicated.
