Unable to think of anything else to ask, Evie departed. Kit-Kat did nothing more than mutter. Of course, listening to one’s funeral arrangements might be a trifle disconcerting, even for a ghost.

  Back out front, she inquired, “Do you know when the bistro will open? I’d like to buy gift cards for a few friends.”

  “You can buy cards to be used at any of our operations.” The clerk brightened and reached under the counter. She must be paid on commission, poor sucker.

  “No, I’d rather wait for this one to open, thank you. My friends don’t travel much. Do you know anything about Miss Gladwell’s funeral arrangements? The committee would like to send flowers.” Kit-Kat’s aura prowled the store, not paying attention to Evie’s awkward questioning. She hoped the ghost might impart a little more, given time. Or better yet—attach herself to the boutique. Being haunted wasn’t all it cracked up to be.

  “I believe they’re having Lady Katherine cremated and returned to London. It’s all so sad, isn’t it? She worked all her life to reach the peak of her career, and then her heart gives out.”

  Cremation, because it was cheaper to ship the remains and the company really was that cash poor? Or to cover up any further evidence?

  The clerk pushed a long lock of blond hair behind her ear. “It doesn’t say much for working hard, does it?”

  “If one enjoys what one works at, it shouldn’t be stressful.” Evie couldn’t resist adding, “And they’re saying the heart attack was brought on by poison, so it might say more about whose toes she stomped on her way up the ladder.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened. KK’s aura flashed angry enough for Evie to see it without trying. A pyramid of boxes spilled to the floor.

  “Oh!” The clerk fled from the counter to fix the display. “These are Lady Katherine’s favorite scent. If she was murdered, do you think she’s haunting us? That would explain so much. . .”

  Evie crouched down to help her. “This town has always been haunted. It’s possible. What other things have happened?”

  “The inventory keeps disappearing,” the clerk whispered while they were both under the table. “We’ve had complaints about the gift cards, as if a magnetic presence wiped out the balances. Little things that make no sense.”

  “Phone batteries going dead? I’ve heard that happens around ghosts.” Usually only when Evie was around and channeling them, but everyone’s batteries went dead sooner or later. She hoped a little suggestion added encouragement.

  “Really?” The clerk straightened to restore her decorative pyramid. “No wonder my battery is always down! Oh, my.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I can’t tell Mr. Gladwell about a ghost! He’ll fire me.”

  “No point in telling him. There isn’t anything he can do.” Untroubled that she was scamming the innocent, Evie produced another business card. “Let me know if the problem becomes more troubling. I know people who might help.”

  Like herself. That wasn’t a scam, except KK didn’t show any signs of wishing to move on to the next plane. Of course, KK wasn’t causing disappearing inventory and empty gift cards either.

  The clerk slid the card into her bra. “Thank you! I’ve invested in this company, and I want to see it work.”

  Oh, baby, Evie hoped she hadn’t invested much. A fool and their money. . . But she couldn’t walk away without saying anything. “Have someone knowledgeable check the company’s financials before you invest more. And call the number on the card if you have questions. I know people who read the future.”

  “Nick wouldn’t lead me astray,” the clerk said confidently. “But I might call if I don’t get the raise they promised.”

  “Nick? Miss Gladwell’s cousin?”

  The clerk nodded eagerly. “Isn’t he gorgeous? I’m hoping he’ll stay here in Matt’s place.”

  The pyramid went flying again.

  “Oh, dear, I have to go.” Evie fled her new best friend, trailing a furious ghost.

  Thieves the destructive spirit hissed. Kill them all.

  “Can ghosts kill?” Jax repeated absently that evening as he perused legal websites for information on business licensing while listening to Evie’s tale.

  So far, he’d learned that the state didn’t require a business license. It left licensing to counties and municipalities. Afterthought was the county seat and didn’t—yet—have licensing laws on the books and neither did the county. More digging required.

  “Maybe, with enough energy.” Evie bit her plump bottom lip, diverting Jax from his research.

  He forced his gaze back to his laptop to avoid distraction. “Like, when Clancy went berserk and threw stuff across the room and blew out the electricity? If we’d been standing on a cliff, he could have shoved us off?”

  Evie just needed a sounding board. It wasn’t as if he could help her with ghosts.

  “Possibly, but I’m pretty sure ghosts can’t locate cyanide and drop it in a glass. They’re mostly the energy remains of thoughts and emotions brought on by unfinished business. KK might have the same anger issues as Clancy did, but she was younger and hadn’t built up the same level of bitterness and fury, perhaps. It took Loretta’s parents months before they generated half of Clancy’s energy. I should get rid of Kit-Kat before she grows more destructive, but she refuses to listen.”

  “Burn sage? Hold a séance?” Jax read ordinances from nearby towns.

  “I hate séances. But maybe if we can find out more about her—” Evie leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for half listening. You’ve been helpful.”

  “Anytime.” He pulled her closer for a more satisfying kiss. “I’m sorry I can’t be more useful.”

  “You’re far more useful doing lawyerly things than listening to my problems. I wonder if Sheriff Troy would take me to the coroner and let KK see her own body?” She pulled away and was gone before Jax fully grasped her question.

  He started to jump up, then sat down again. Troy was far too sensible to take Evie anywhere.

  Bored with research, he opened an email from Roark, who’d been hacking the sheriff’s files for Evie. He’d attached a file labeled Jane Lawson.

  The first item in the file was a newspaper article detailing how Jane’s parents had died from breathing cyanide from smoke in a mattress factory fire while Jane was just a teenager. She’d been working part-time at the factory and had escaped the blaze.

  Sixteen: Pris

  Italy

  * * *

  Emma Rossi bustled into the kitchen the next morning, her brow furrowed in worry. “I’m so sorry. I was talking to my sister.” She took the plates from Pris and distributed them on the table in front of Dante and the twins.

  “Which sister?” the Insensitive Clod politely inquired, while continuing to peruse his morning email on his notepad.

  Emma was giving off mental hysteria in two languages. Three, if one considered Gaelic slang derivatives a language. Pris blocked out her alarm and added a stack of toast to a plate. Taking it to the table, she snatched the device from Dante’s hands and carried it away, forcing him to pay attention.

  Evie often accused her of rearranging things. Pris called it doing what needed to be done.

  “Your Aunt Margaret, dear.” Emma poured a cup of coffee and filled Dante’s. “She’s in hospital.”

  Apparently too lazy to gather up his crutch and chase after his computer, the Clod cut toast for the twins. “How serious?”

  Refusing to become any more involved in his family’s dynamics, Pris sliced up the omelet she’d made and doled it out on the twins’ plates, then returned to the stove to start another. She could tell from Emma’s anxiety what was coming without reading minds.

  “Heart surgery. She’ll be going in tomorrow. Your Aunt Agnes can take over the bookshop for a while, but someone needs to be at the hospital until your cousins arrive. I think they’re in Australia now.” Emma sipped her coffee.

  “What about Cousin Matilda? Isn’t she a nurse?” Dante still sounded unconcerned. He really hadn’t comprehended what was happening here.

  Pris silently slapped an omelet on his mother’s plate and contemplated kicking Dante. How could a man with so much education be such a total idiot?

  “Matilda is in Africa. I’m not sure it would even be safe for her to leave the hospital there. There’s a plague or something. She’d have to quarantine. Margaret practically raised me. I hate to have her go through this alone.” Emma crushed her napkin, then absent-mindedly spread jam on Nan’s toast.

  “If it were my sister, or even one of my cousins, I’d be on the next plane.” Pris knew this was malicious meddling, but sometimes, a big stick wasn’t enough.

  “You don’t have a sister, do you?” Dante finally abandoned his food to look up.

  Pris almost heard him making a mental connection before he shut off. Interesting. He had emotional blocks? “Your mother has a sister. That’s what matters now.” She waited expectantly.

  “You need to go to Scotland?” he finally asked.

  Pris could swear there was terror in his question. She glanced at the twins, but they were busy shoving jam up their noses. Surely he couldn’t be afraid of a pair of five-year-olds?

  “Oh, I couldn’t leave you in the lurch like that,” Emma protested. “It’s hard enough to keep up with the twins with the use of both legs.”

  “I’m supposed to be back in the classroom next week. How long would you need to stay?” To give him credit, once he tuned in, he was completely focused. Like most men, though, he was goal-oriented and oblivious to nuance.

  “You’ve been pampered too long, Conte.” Pris dug into her omelet at the counter. She wasn’t sitting anywhere near the testosterone-addled professor, but she’d give him a good shove before Emma tore herself right down the middle. “Your mother has been holding up the fort all your life. You’re a grown man now. Suck it up.”

  Emma clasped her hands and looked panic-stricken, glancing back and forth between her son and Pris. “Would it be too much to ask? If you’re staying a few weeks, I can be back quickly. . . .”

  Pris raised her eyebrows at Stupid Man. This wasn’t her problem. It was his. She could almost hear him swallowing, hard.

  “You need to go and stay as long as you like,” he reassured her in a tone that almost flashed Big Fat Lie. “I can’t travel right now, so I’m here. I’ll find someone to help out.” Turning to Pris, he actually grimaced as he produced his next words. “If you’ll give me a hand until I can find a nanny?”

  That had cost him. Good. She shrugged. “I offered earlier, in return for room and board. For a while. I do have to return to keep my business afloat.” If there was anything left of it after the cyanide rumors spread—just what she needed, real poisoning to escalate the gossip.

  Emma anxiously studied her son. “You can’t be running after the children. You need to rest that leg so it will heal. I shouldn’t go. We can’t ask a guest—”

  “I’ll tie the bambinos to chairs. Priscilla isn’t a guest. She’s almost family, right?” He shot her a loaded look daring her to contradict him. When she didn’t, he gallantly blazed on. “I’m sure we can entice a nanny or two to do the legwork if Priscilla will do the cooking. We’ll be fine. Go, pack. Hug the aunts for me.”

  When he was good, he was very, very good. She couldn’t argue when he was saying what needed to be said.

  Emma’s frantic mental waves quit beating against the doors of Pris’s mind. She almost visibly wilted in relief. “Thank you, thank you both. I’m so worried about Margaret, but the twins. . .” She kissed their curls and slid from the table. “They’re so precious. It will be lovely for them to have time with their daddy.”

  Pris could almost read the evil gleam in their childish minds as they looked up to watch the only mother they’d ever known flee the table. Clueless daddies with crippled legs meant freedom.

  “Do either of you know your letters?” she asked the instant Emma left the room.

  Wide-eyed, they shook their heads.

  “There ya go.” She sipped her coffee in satisfaction. “Daddy can start teaching you. Wash up when you’re done eating and go find your favorite books.”

  They scrambled eagerly from their bench, stood on the stool she’d placed at the sink for their benefit, and scrubbed jam off their hands. In instants, they were gone.

  “They are your kids, aren’t they?” Pris asked, possibly spitefully, possibly out of curiosity at Dante’s stricken look.

  “DNA tested.” In disgruntlement, he finished off his omelet. “I would have married her. Dumping them was beyond cruel on so many levels.”

  “Vicious, actually. Or desperate. And you haven’t heard from her since?” Pris mentally composed an email to her ghost-busting Cousin Evie.

  “Birthday and Christmas cards so impersonal they probably come from her secretary’s mailing list. She’s a wealthy woman now. She’s not desperate.” He drained his cup and looked for his crutch.

  Pris refilled the cup because he’d never ask. He flashed her a look that might have been gratitude, although he wouldn’t express that either. She could almost appreciate his taciturnity. It wasn’t as if she communicated any better. Birds of a feather, flocked together. . .

  Flocking wasn’t exactly on her mind while he sat there looking handsomely stricken.

  “There are many kinds of desperation. Did you ever go to London and hunt her down?” Pris really wished she knew people in London. She’d love to knock on doors. But she had advantages that Dante didn’t—unless he really could read emotions on objects. Still, that wasn’t as helpful as reading what was in someone’s mind as they thought it.

  Which she couldn’t do most of the time. . . She probably should have practiced more, but most people didn’t have thoughts worth the headache of listening.

  “I went right after Lucia dumped them. Her business was just starting up, and she didn’t have secretaries then. Vincent claimed Lucia was on a business trip to the Netherlands. Katherine refused to talk with me. I left my card on every desk I encountered with a plea for her to call when she returned. She never did. I was too furious to linger. I found one of her business cards on a desk and tried calling the number on it but only got voice mail. Katherine returned my call, said Lucia didn’t want to speak with me again.”

  “I understand Katherine had no children. I wonder if she left a will? May Lucia have inherited her share of the company?” Pris usually left sleuthing to Evie and her weirdo friends, but this was her neck on the line this time. She had to start considering all angles.

  Money was the root of all evil, right?

  Dante rubbed the back of his neck. “I know nothing about Katherine, but I imagine Lucia has a will. Her father’s lawyers would have made her sign something when she inherited all that land. But of course, at the time, she didn’t have the twins and didn’t like her half-sister very much, so Leo is probably the beneficiary. That might change if Lucia inherits the company. I didn’t know Katherine, but a sensible businesswoman should have some plan for incapacitation or death. Someone in the company should have insisted on it.”

  “You and Leo have good reason to hire a lawyer. Lucia might be a rich woman now. She has a responsibility to the land and to her children. Your lawyer can talk to her lawyers. That’s what lawyers are good for.”

  He grimaced. “I don’t want a dime of her money. She relinquished her rights when she abandoned them. I don’t need anything from her.”

  The twins raced in carrying armloads of books. Pris raised her eyebrows again.

  He wasn’t so dumb after all. Pris could tell when he got the message—the twins might need the land someday.

  She left him to ponder that while she washed up the breakfast dishes.

  Dante settled the twins at the library table. Drawing the first letters of the alphabet for them to copy, he flipped pages on the rest of their book stack while mulling over the conversation with Devil Woman.

  He’d been warned Priscilla was a manipulator. One of her cousins had even mentioned that Pris had a habit of rearranging things to her satisfaction. She had as much as said herself that she could read minds. Somehow. Sometimes. Maybe. He was starting to suspect that what she did was manipulate thoughts.

  She’d certainly twisted his into pretzels.

  Lawyers, she wanted him to hire lawyers to chase down Lucia. Probably because Priscilla wanted to sic her nosy family on her, but that was understandable if people were being accused of poisoning Katherine. She was also right that he needed to think of someone besides himself.

  If anything happened to him. . . It would drop an enormous burden on his mother and the twins. And his fractured leg proved he wasn’t invulnerable. He finished off his coffee, couldn’t easily stand up to fetch another, and had no one to do it for him.

  And now he could see what she was saying when she called him conte—he’d been treated like a prince all his damned life. The ancient title meant nothing, but he had land, the villa, and a position that granted him respect. As the only son and heir, he’d never had to ask anyone for anything. It had always been provided. He’d come to expect his life to fall in place—because everyone around him made it so.

  No wonder Lucia had left him. She wasn’t the type to fall in line easily.

  Now, he had to provide his children with what he’d been granted. His children. Not just squalling nuisances he had half a mind to give back one day. It wasn’t that he disliked infants. He knew nothing about them. He’d been raised an only child in this hill fortress with only adults around him until he was old enough to leave for school. Babies were foreign objects.

  But they weren’t babies anymore. Holy terrors, maybe, but not babies.

  Apparently having scoured the nursery, Pris returned with a box full of alphabet letters: magnetic ones, building blocks, learning toys of every sort.

  Dante sorted out the first letters of the alphabet and set them out for the twins to touch. They shoved them off the table and returned to scribbling on the paper he’d provided. Their letters looked less and less like A’s and more like boomerangs and bats.