It was also kind of neat to have someone watching my back. Literally.

  I turned smoothly, following the flow of foot traffic like I’d never hesitated. We moved through a huge arched doorway and into some kind of receiving room. There were couches and settees arranged around the perimeter of the room, all of them upholstered in the kind of eye-searing white that made me nervous to sit on them, afraid the dye in my skirt would suddenly decide to abandon ship and leave a big ink stain in the shape of my rear.

  There was a huge oil painting hanging on the far wall, over the white plastered fireplace. Magda Erepto glowered down onto the room from within the frame, her dark green eyes seeming to follow me wherever I walked. Enormous vases were set up on either side of the fireplace, filled with white lilies. More floral arrangements filled the room, including wreaths, bouquets, and enough vases to outfit a good-sized florist shop for a year. And all of the flowers were, yup, you guessed it, white.

  Were the extremely wealthy allergic to color or something? I liked a bold monochromatic look as much as the next dame, but I still appreciated a pop of red or daffodil yellow. That’s what kept things from feeling like a hospital.

  I took a glass off a nearby servants’ tray, and almost goggled when I realized it was red wine. Apparently, the Erepto’s liked to live dangerously—what with all the white everywhere. Or else it was a power play, keeping their guests on edge, knowing that any accident or spill would be on lurid display for everyone else to see.

  Sounded exhausting.

  I took a sip from my glass, camouflaging the fact that I was really taking a quick peep around with more than just my eyes. I was still holding out a shred of hope that maybe Magda’s spirit might decide to crash her own wake. I would have, if I’d been able to. If only to see who showed up and what they all had to say about me.

  There was no sign of the old lady, but I did get the cold wind prickle of ghostly energy somewhere in the house, so I mentally crossed my fingers that it was her. Maybe she’d gotten spooked (no pun intended) by the summoning and had just returned home. Being dead was really disorienting. I didn’t even know how long it took me to realize what had happened. Of course, my brains might have been a little scrambled by Frank shooting me between the eyes. The no-good louse.

  Anyway, Sophia Erepto was dressed like a model on a runway in her designer black dress that swung just past her knees. That was completed with a little black jacket edged with beads that looked like chips of mica in the light of the chandelier. She caught my eye across the sea of people between us, and hers narrowed into dangerous slits.

  “So, who do you think it will be?”

  The question, not quite whispered, but pitched low enough to attempt not to be heard, caught my attention. I drifted over to the group of younger people, all of them about the age I was when I’d died, who were dressed like they’d just returned from a Halloween party—I believed the style was referred to as ‘goth’. I, meanwhile, attempted to look like I was examining one of the huge sprays of flowers at the edge of the room.

  “My money’s on Manos. He’s been working for it for decades.” The young man tossed his hair back with a practiced flick.

  The young woman who’d first asked the question laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “Are you kidding? Aunt Sophia would drown him in the pool before she let him take over.”

  Another young man shrugged, tossing back the contents of his own glass. “Who cares? Everything will stay the same either way.”

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that there hasn’t been an announcement?” The second girl gave a nervous glance around. I could feel her eyes on me for a moment before they moved on, dismissing me. “Like, it’s been three days. What are they waiting for?”

  The first man to speak smirked. “I’ve heard the idol is missing.”

  The others all leaned in closer.

  So did I.

  .

  Chapter Five

  “What?” one of the kids said to the statement that the idol had been stolen.

  “No way!” the other replied.

  Other people around me seemed to be taking notice of the conversation, and after a few furtive glances, the kids realized it and decamped to a less busy corner. Phooey.

  Rumors are spreading.

  I took a sip of wine, thinking back at Cain. Seems so.

  At least the wine was good. I didn’t usually have much of a taste for red, but it was rich and fruity, with an undertone of what I was pretty sure was plums. Maybe I’d just been drinking the wrong reds.

  I continued my meandering path, examining artwork and floral arrangements and trying to eavesdrop shamelessly. It was great having Cain with me. He alerted me when someone might have been noticing me, or when he heard a snippet of something that might be useful. I wasn’t sure if Graeae could see ghosts or not. Most supernatural types could, and even some magical humans like Poppy, but so long as Cain was tagging along inside my body, no one around us was the wiser to his presence.

  When I’d finally moved far enough into the room, I caught sight of a table set up against the wall, draped in black linen and positively groaning with plates of food. And not just little sandwiches like the shows on TV. There was everything from canapes to little rounds of what looked like baked brie, white spoons with scallops, and a wine sauce meant to be eaten in one bite. I was practically drooling, just looking at everything. Would it be unprofessional to stake a spot right there and stuff my face?

  I’d always been too nervous to eat at the rich people’s parties I’d gone to when I was alive (the first time). But after a whole lot of years of eating nothing, I’d regretted all the things I hadn’t tried. I had no idea what some of the stuff on the table was, but I knew I wanted to have a bit of everything.

  So, I drifted over that way, like I wasn’t in any kind of hurry, and definitely not like I was going to have to fish out a handkerchief to mop the drool off my chin if I wasn’t careful.

  “I just don’t see what the holdup is. It’s been three days. What are they playing at?”

  Shoot, that sounded important. I didn’t need Cain’s little internal tug to know that. With one mournful look toward the buffet table, I angled my gams over toward two gray-haired matrons who were tutting over glasses of something pale golden.

  “Now, now, Margarita,” one of them said. “She’s only just buried. There’s still such a thing as propriety.”

  Margarita flashed a glare in the other woman’s direction, her eyes bright, and her painted lips pressed thin. “A successor should have been announced before she passed. This uncertainty is destabilizing the family. It is unacceptable, Xenia.”

  Xenia hummed. “True, true. Well, I suppose the one who reins it all in is the right choice for new clan head. Though, Sophia had better get a firm hold. You know how hot headed the young can be.”

  Margarita scoffed. “If she can’t get a firm hold. Manos might be the right one for the job, after all. Sophia has enough to deal with that useless son of hers.”

  “That boy.” Xenia tutted. “Such a disappointment. How he came from Sophia, I’ll never understand. No responsibility in that one.”

  The rest of their conversation devolved into generally catty comments about various younger family members, but I couldn’t stick around to listen. There was only so long you could linger in one spot before people started asking questions and paying close attention.

  So far, other than the kids, no one had mentioned the idol or hinted at it being missing. Maybe the rest of them didn’t know it was missing? That seemed like the kind of thing that would be pretty hot gossip in a crowd like this.

  All this gumshoeing was working up my appetite, so I started drifting back towards the wall, ready to interrogate that buffet table thoroughly, I caught sight of Sophia out of the corner of my eye while she was having a very intense not-argument with a young man.

  She was doing that thing where she was whispering, but it was pretty clear she was yelling. Everyone had drifted away from their vicinity, like the young man was radioactive and if they got too close, he might poison them. I got the impression that no one wanted Sophia’s anger splashing their way, and having been on the receiving end of it myself, I couldn’t exactly blame them.

  I didn’t know what the guy, kid really, had done, but he was the perfect mix of defiance while also wanting to melt into the floor—it was a look that only teenagers could master. I took a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, noting the same brow and nose line, the same dark hair. That must be the disappointing son, then. Poor kid. He looked like he was trying to attitude his way out of a bear trap.

  I was just about to bug Cain for any suggestions when something brushed against the edges of my senses. That icy mint tingle that told me when the dead were nearby. Something, or someone, had just drifted past in the hall, I was sure of it.

  One thing I’d learned over the past hundred years was that if you wanted the hot gossip, or even the lukewarm gossip, you went to the ghosts. Because ghosts see everything that goes on in a house—I mean, it made sense seeing as how ghosts have all the time in the world, and no sense of boundaries. And it wasn’t like you could really blame them. They couldn’t hold a book, so reading was out. And it’s not like they could turn on a television by themselves. So, ghosts did what they do best—they watched people. Obsessively, sometimes.

  I cast one last tragic look at the buffet table and headed as discretely as I could toward the door. Once there, I dipped into the hallway. If I’d been expecting something other than more white paint and niches filled with marble busts, I would have been flat disappointed. Even the hallways looked like a European museum. Hadn’t these people ever heard of the rainbow? It made me want to take my lipstick to the walls. I didn’t, though. I was a professional.

  That minty buzzy feeling turned out to be a pair of ghosts drifting down the hall ahead of me, gray haired and dressed in long gowns that sort of wrapped around their bodies. They reminded me of the ghost version of Margarita and Xenia back at the gathering, except the ghosts’ hairstyles were a bit more elaborate.

  “What is the family coming to?” one ghost said to the other, shaking her head. “Nothing good will come of this.”

  The other ghost sniffed, which was pretty impressive on account of her not having to breathe, or actually having a body with a nose. “This never would have happened in our day. Everything is falling apart. No respect for tradition.”

  “Disgraceful,” the first ghost agreed.

  I made a quick glance to make sure no one was looking before whispering, “Excuse me? Ladies? Could I have a minute of your time?”

  The ghosts glanced back idly, and realizing that, yes, I was actually talking to them, drifted closer, tilting their heads to one side as they both looked at me with puzzled expressions. The second held up a pair of glasses on a little stick, like she was watching the opera or something. Or still had functioning eyes. Old habits died hard. Or didn’t die at all.

  “I was hoping you ladies could help me,” I continued with the smile that had won me my first part back in the day.

  “How are we to do that?” the first one asked.

  I nodded. “Well, I was hired by Ms. Sophia Erepto for a rather, how shall we say, sensitive matter. And you two look like you’ve got a real bead on everything that goes on around here.”

  “Quite right, quite right,” Opera Glasses tutted. “About time someone recognized it.”

  “A sensitive matter?” The ghost with the towering pile of curls gave me a sly look. “Whatever could that be, my dear?”

  I shook my head, still smiling. “Oh, I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, Ma’am. Nothing would get past you. I bet you know everything that goes on in this place.”

  “No one listens to us.” Opera glasses shook her head.

  “What could we possibly know?”

  “That’s the youth of the day,” Opera Glasses said with a little too much vindictive pleasure. “No respect for their elders. Can’t tell them anything.”

  I tilted my head to one side and batted my doe eyes, trying to play it up. I might be square into forty, but other than a few lines around my eyes and mouth, I still had the stuff. “I’d really appreciate any help or advice you could give me. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble,” said Hair Tower.

  “No trouble at all,” agreed Opera Glasses.

  Hair Tower glanced around, like she was worried we’d be overheard. “Sophia is trying to take control of the family, the dear girl.”

  “She’s a cutthroat, that one. Vicious,” said Opera Glasses.

  “That she is, that she is,” Hair Tower agreed.

  “A real blessing to the family,” Opera Glasses continued.

  I didn’t let my smile fall, but it might have gotten a little strained around the edges.

  “But Manos, the dear boy, he’s been angling for clan head since before Magda was even sick. If she hadn’t been so powerful, he might have tried to topple her off the throne himself.” Hair Tower shook her head. “That’s the youth today for you.”

  Opera Glasses heaved a sigh. “No patience.”

  “And now the idol is missing,” Hair Tower said with more relish than was strictly comfortable. “And no one can take over.”

  “Oh, my.” Opera Glasses tittered behind her hand like a little, nervous girl. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

  I jumped in before the conversation went stampeding off again. “That’s what I’m looking for. Do you know who has the idol, or where it might have been placed?”

  “Oh my, deary, not us.” Hair Tower smiled, and the expression had a few too many teeth for comfort. “We’re just a pair of dotty old ladies. What could we know?”

  Opera Glasses tapped one finger to her pursed lips. “Though, if I cared about such things, I might go and speak to Clarice. She’s usually in Magda’s wing. She might have seen something.”

  “Clarice. And who is that, exactly?” I wanted to trust them, but they seemed to be taking a little too much glee in helping me. And that was usually a bad sign.

  “She was a maid here, once, dear. Never moved on, the poor thing. But she sticks to the oldest wing. That way.” Opera Glasses pointed down the hallway. “Take a left at the main intersection. Look for the draperies on everything, you can’t miss them. It’s depressing.”

  “Probably best if the idol is found. We don’t want another civil war on our hands.” Hair Tower sighed, brushing non-existent dust off her dress. “Could get crowded around here.”

  I looked between them, warily. “Is… is that what happened to you?”

  Opera Glasses shrugged. “Technically, it was a coup.”

  “Can’t blame her, really,” Hair Tower said on a shrug. “She needed to consolidate power quickly, and she had more support among the younger set.”

  “Too right,” agreed Opera Glasses. “I would have done the same thing myself.”

  Okay, I needed to skedaddle and find that idol, because it sounded like if I didn’t, there were worse things coming than me probably losing my job.

  “Talk to Clarice, got it. Thank you so much, ladies,” I said cheerily.

  That man has been staring at you for nearly three minutes, Cain growled from the back of my head. No, don’t turn and look. Pretend to admire the shield over there.

  And there was a shield hanging on the wall, a round bronze thing that looked like it had been torn in half and hung on the wall. It was polished to a brilliant sheen, and I pretended to check my makeup in it while glancing at the stranger instead.

  The bronze of the shield blurred things a little, like the street lights in a rain puddle, but there was a man standing in the room, motionless like an island in the sea. He was big, broad shouldered, his hair snow white on the sides with only a bit of black left on the top. He did seem to be watching me intently enough that it gave me the jitters.

  I waited until the crowd blocked the guy’s line of sight, and then I slipped down the hall toward Magda’s wing.

  Chapter Six

  The Erepto manor was, in a word: unbelievable.

  It was more like one of those old English country houses you see in movies—nothing like the mansions I’d seen back in California. The fact that family members could have entire wings to themselves, not just rooms or suites, but wings was absolutely unbelievable to me.

  The ghost ladies had been right, though. It was easy to find what I was looking for, on account of the entire hall being draped in swaths of white cloth. The rooms I crept past all seemed to be in the process of being stripped, belongings and furniture packed up for storage or destined for the Good Will or maybe the trash.

  It all seemed fast to me. I was literally attending Magda’s wake, and half or more of her earthly possessions were already being squirrelled away.

  The clack of footsteps on the marble floor caused my spine to stiffen. I didn’t want to get caught peeking through a dead lady’s stuff, so I ducked behind a statue of a woman in a breastplate with snakes twining up and down her arms, trying to squish myself down as much as possible. It helped that the fabric draping the walls went all the way to the floor. With any luck, I’d just look like a shadow.

  What in the world are you doing? Cain asked, sounding bewildered. Are you planning to just hide here until they go away? That could take hours, you realize?

  I pinched my lips together to make sure I didn’t accidentally answer out loud. No. I’m just waiting until whoever it is gets busy. Busy enough not to notice me.

  A young woman rounded the corner, looking harried. Not a family member, I was pretty sure. They seemed to tend towards dark hair and golden complexions. This gal was tall and fair haired and pale enough that her freckles looked like someone had flicked sepia ink on her face. She was wearing a dark dress with a starched white collar: it looked like someone had tried to glamorize a maid’s outfit and only got so far.