Pris asked one of the questions they’d listed earlier. “Do you know how to find Lucia?”

  They were hoping the spirit would speak through Evie, but KK was still reluctant. Or too stupid.

  “Knock once if you know where Lucia is,” Aunt Felicity suggested.

  The table rattled. Now what did they do?

  “Knock once if she’s in the UK,” Pris suggested. No response.

  Evie’s eyes were scrunched closed. Pris could see she clung tightly to the hands on either side of her. Before anyone could pose another question, Evie’s head fell forward, and she spoke in a voice not her own. “Italy. I am in Italy. I wish to see my bambinos. Where are they?”

  A wailing wind rushed through the room. The candle blew out, and Evie slumped. Pris suffered the full mental impact of the ghost or Evie or both before the pain had her releasing the hands she held to grab her temples. “The twins,” she shouted. “Go to the twins!”

  Chairs scraped and Gracie dashed for the stairs.

  Pris needed to follow, but she could barely stand. With the aid of her mother, she slumped in the papa-san chair while Evie collapsed on the sofa.

  “KK’s really agitated,” Evie said in a whispery voice. “Lucia makes her sad and angry. And she’s. . .” She gestured for everyone to shut their chatter. “KK wants to kill her brother Matt.”

  Pris thought the more important takeaway was that Lucia was dead, unless those were someone else’s bambinos upstairs.

  Worse yet, she’d heard Lucia, and the children weren’t her only concern. She needed to talk to Dante.

  “The women are good, but they can’t do what we can,” Jax asserted, holding a cue at a pool table in the man cave where the men gathered after supper.

  Studying the ancient Pac-Man machine as if it were an artifact, Dante was exhausted enough to accept that statement. He wasn’t entirely certain he believed it though.

  Maneuvering his crutch down cellar stairs had left his leg and shoulder complaining. He hadn’t wanted to tell his host that he wasn’t supposed to use stairs. Pris had been in one of her moods and probably hadn’t even noticed he’d left, or she would have thrown a stink. He hadn’t tucked the twins into bed because he was avoiding stairs. And the twins.

  She had a right to fling daggers at him. He was a horrible excuse for a father. Well, his father hadn’t been much better. Dante had survived the neglect—because he’d had a mother to raise him.

  “Ariel is tracing the shell company deposits.” The Cajun hacker, Roark, had joined them after dinner. “But they’re being transferred from the Italian bank to inaccessible offshore accounts in the same corporate name.”

  Of course they were. Money wasn’t the problem here. The Gladwells had none. Unless the company was making fortunes, they must be stealing from investors. Investigating their shareholders might be more profitable, but Dante wasn’t interested in that either.

  “Is there any chance that Lucia is siphoning Bella while living on some Caribbean island?” Dante threw that out there just to change the course of the conversation. The Lucia he knew wouldn’t do any such thing.

  Of course, the Lucia he knew wouldn’t have lingered in the bright lights of the city or abandoned her children. Or never call or write anything but generic holiday cards. So what did he know?

  But the violence he’d sensed in that household troubled him.

  “Anything is possible,” Reuben the engineering professor agreed. “Probable is a different matter. Why would anyone drain a potentially profitable company is a better question.”

  “Have arson investigators made any progress?” Jax had abandoned the pool table to study a storyboard on the concrete block wall, but it was light on clues and suspects.

  As professional hacker, Roark answered that one. “Fire started in a stack of pallets stored in the kitchen area. They’re uncertain how long they smoldered, but there are indicators accelerant was added later, presumably when the fire didn’t catch fast enough.”

  Jax tapped a photo on the wall with his pool cue. “Rhonda Tart, sales clerk, investor, possibly Vincent’s mistress, was present and had access to the kitchen.” He stretched a string to another photo. “Jane Lawson, previous fire victim, blogger, had access only because Roark picked the lock. But she’d been invited, so she expected Rhonda to let her in at some point.”

  “Neither has any good motive for starting a fire,” Reuben noted.

  “Is there any proof the fire and KK’s death are related?” Dante asked. “Without physical evidence, what do you have?” He sank into a gaming chair and stretched out his aching leg. He’d been operating nearly forty-eight hours without sleep. That might be a new record for him.

  Jax slapped another photo. “Nicholas Gladwell, juvie record for auto theft, had access to the café. He’s also an investor, appeared romantically attached to Katherine Gladwell, who was only a kissing cousin at best. He’s on the company’s board of directors. We have no idea why except he’s family and does their marketing.”

  “Which means he worked with Lucia,” Dante reminded them. His tired mind wondered what Evie thought of Nick’s aura or if Pris had probed the man’s mind. Probably not. He hadn’t used his psychometric abilities either, because they were mostly worthless. Or painful. He really wasn’t interested in people’s dirty secrets—except for the long dead.

  “And finally, Matthew Gladwell.” Jax tapped the last photo. “KK’s brother, Vincent’s only son. He might have motive for murder and arson if KK and Lucia stood in the way of his controlling the company. Or if he’s siphoning funds and they caught him.”

  “But he wasn’t in the vicinity of the fire,” Dante pointed out, sipping warm beer.

  “Right.” Jax made a note under the photo. “You said he was with Vincent in Italy. But maybe he hired someone.”

  “Then Matt’s not final. We have to add Vincent,” Dante corrected. “He could hire minions and is probably in a better position to set up the Italy trip as an alibi.”

  “And that’s still assuming there’s some connection between the fire and KK,” Roark noted. “You’re assuming someone knew the bank deposits had been uncovered and that was the reason for the fire?”

  “No assumptions,” Reuben argued. “Jane could have just gone bananas. She’s on a power trip to drive Larraine out of office. Larraine supported La Bella, hence, La Bella has to die.”

  “And KK, as figurehead?” Jax suggested.

  “In other words, we have nothing,” Dante said in exhaustion. “I have Pris’s belief that Vincent means harm to my children. I have my own theory that Lucia is out of the picture for reasons unknown. I just want to know if it’s safe to take the twins home.”

  Jax held up his phone. “Séance is over. Evie thinks KK wants to kill Matt, but all she’s getting is sadness.” He read a new text coming through. His silence was telling.

  Paging through his computer, not noticing Jax’s sudden stillness, Reuben spoke idly. “Has the ghost finally decided Matt killed her? As far as we can tell, Matthew Gladwell is a gormless turd who does as he’s told and parties with male models. Is that enough for KK to want to off him?”

  “Perhaps if Vincent favored his son over his daughter?” Dante shoved out of his chair and crossed to where Jax sat. “If you don’t mind, it’s been a long day. Jax, before I go up, what else did the women say?” he asked quietly, not fooled by his distant cousin’s sudden silence.

  Jax rubbed his bristly jaw and studied Dante a moment before holding up his phone.

  Evie’s text read: lucias spirit reached out to the twins

  Dante almost staggered. Then remembering this was all shadow play, he steeled himself. “I’ll think about that better in the morning.”

  Spirit? Did that mean Lucia was dead? Or possibly that Evie was feeding off his fears. How could Lucia have died and no one told him? It was impossible.

  As if she’d heard his thoughts, Pris lifted the outside cellar door and called down, “We can throw down an air mattress if you can’t climb out, Dr. Ives. I’ll send the twins down to join you in the morning, shall I?”

  After that text, it would be a relief to bed down here, out of view of the too-perceptive women. He needed time to process. “Do that, Miss Broadhurst,” he called back. “Reuben says he has other places to be. Tell me when you’ve solved the case.”

  She slammed the door. Unaware of Evie’s second text, the other men reached for their beers and belongings and headed out, saluting him as they did so.

  “Welcome to the whacky world of women.” Jax pounded him sympathetically on the shoulder before heading out. “Where would we be without them?”

  Backing up the cellar stairs on his bum, Dante figured. Pris knew damned well what she was doing—tucking him into bed like the twins. She just did it with prickly flare.

  That gave him something better to think about besides the twins’ mother possibly being dead—which explained why Lucia’s hairbrush hadn’t been touched since the twins were toddlers and lent new meaning to the violence in her townhouse.

  Some days, he hated his eccentric abilities. As a scientist, he didn’t trust them—until he had evidence. Talking ghosts weren’t any better. Both just led him to visions of horror and not a single fact.

  Twenty-eight: Pris

  “One way or another, planned murder is all about the money,” Evie insisted after sending Loretta off to school and Jax off to work the next morning.

  “You’re forgetting crimes of passion,” Pris argued, chopping vegetables while her cousin washed breakfast dishes.

  They both stewed over Lucia’s unexpected presence last night, except Pris didn’t want to expose all her thoughts just yet. If Lucia was dead. . . She had to have been buried without anyone knowing of it. Which meant murder, right? Dante had every reason to murder a woman who hadn’t told him about his children until she showed up on his doorstep. Could she believe that he wasn’t there when Lucia abandoned the twins?

  Actually, she rather could. He was never home.

  “Someone else needs to do the statistics, but I’m guessing that men don’t risk the death penalty unless they’re sociopathically possessive, violently drunk, or know there’s life insurance or money. No one was passionate about KK,” Evie contended. “And there was no violence.”

  “As far as we can tell, KK only had stock in nearly bankrupt La Bella. She lived off a generous salary. Do you know if she had life insurance?” Pris checked out the screen door. The twins happily ran around the chilly backyard with her aunt’s golden retriever. Psycat had retreated to the warm top of the refrigerator.

  Dante was still sleeping. She didn’t want to talk about Lucia until she talked to him first.

  “I’ll text Roark about life insurance. Surely the sheriff knows. Anyway, poison isn’t a crime of passion.” After texting, Evie returned to her original thought while she waited for a reply. “It has to be about money.”

  “Poison is a woman’s weapon.” Pris returned to beheading Brussels sprout stalks. “Rhonda is the only woman in this scenario. Put her together with the money—”

  “But Rhonda wasn’t there when KK died. KK smacked her and sent her away, remember?” Evie checked her phone screen.

  “You don’t have film of what happened in the mayor’s office. Rhonda could have poisoned the limoncello while she was there.” Pris had barely met any of the suspects, but anyone hanging around Vincent was corrupt in her book. Dante said he sensed violence in Vincent’s townhouse, and she had read hatred for the twins on the man’s mind. Hate and violence were villainous behavior.

  But KK’s brother Matthew had lived in that townhouse too. He’d been everywhere KK was. And then there was Nick. . . She couldn’t do this.

  Evie madly texted, presumably sending all these questions to her team. “But Rhonda could have died in that fire. She wouldn’t have lit it herself. Did someone know she was KK’s killer and attempted revenge?”

  “Someone didn’t want her telling what she knew? Or more probably, didn’t know she was in there.” Pris dumped the sprouts in a bowl and hunted for seasoning.

  Evie’s phone swooshed. “We don’t have enough to give the sheriff. And if we say poison is a woman’s crime, the finger points at you. At least Lawless Jane isn’t stirring up trouble from her hospital bed.”

  “Did she burn her fingers?” Pris asked sarcastically.

  “Huh, hadn’t thought of that. But phones take dictation. Maybe she saw me in the bistro and guessed I was the tipster? I thought I was pretty well hidden. Maybe I won’t go online to check if she’s back.”

  “No reporters on the doorstep yet.” Pris began dousing her butchered ingredients with oils and potions. Cooking was her witchcraft. “Probably ought to prepare ourselves though.”

  Evie grimaced. “I’ll bring down the gobbler for an early warning system. You check the blog and see if she’s posted.” She took off her apron.

  “You don’t still have that awful thing?” Pris called after her. “It can’t possibly work.”

  But Evie had MIT engineers on hand who could make it work. A giant motion-activated turkey that bounced up and down and gave off the world’s most awful racket was an embarrassment—but the perfect warning system. Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

  And Pris had no jobs lined up. This might be the first holiday since she was sixteen when she wasn’t catering someone else’s festivities.

  Before she could leave the kitchen, Evie’s phone pinged. Reading her text, she waved it at Pris. “KK had the kind of life insurance paid for by the corporation. La Bella Gente benefits.”

  “And Lucia?”

  Evie shrugged. “Probably, but since she’s not been declared dead, the company is still paying for her insurance.”

  Pris gave a grunt of disgust and began battering dough with a rolling pin.

  Evie’s cell rang again as she carried a three-foot stuffed monster turkey down the stairs from the attic. “Get that for me, will you?” she cried while she wrestled the creature into the parlor.

  Pris picked up the phone and hit play after the call went to voicemail.

  Mayor Larraine Ward’s calm drawl covered a lifetime of fury. “Lawson is claiming I burned down my building for the insurance and to cover La Bella Gente’s misappropriation of funds. She claims she has evidence. Can Jax smother that woman in her hospital bed?”

  Dante had tossed and turned on the air mattress in the cellar half the night, despite jetlag and exhaustion. Adjusting to the possibility that the woman he’d cursed these past years might have been dead instead of enjoying the nightlife of London. . . didn’t come easily.

  But by morning his leg had sufficiently rested to climb out of the cellar with only a modicum of difficulty. His fist merely dented the metal crutch bars.

  When he entered the yard, the twins raced up, giggling, and a giant hole yawned in his midsection. They might really and truly be motherless, and a worthless father like him might be their sole provider. He almost hated that more than fearing Lucia might come back for them. He apparently still harbored the illusion that she might care about them.

  Time to wake up to reality. They were his and his alone. Somehow, he had to show that he could love them twice as much as one person.

  He couldn’t catch the twins while gripping a crutch. He settled on the porch stairs so they could hurtle into his lap to show him their treasures. That they came to him was an overwhelming experience in itself. When Nan held out an odd-shaped rock and asked “Is this an arrow?” he almost fell over at her interest as much as the fact that she’d talked.

  “It could have been,” he said carefully, trying not to discourage her. “But it isn’t chipped enough to work. Arrows are hard to make.” How did she even know about arrows?

  The screen door opened and Pris stepped out carrying a blessed cup of coffee. “Evie has an arrowhead collection in the attic. You should ask her about it.”

  The twins instantly scrambled from his lap to run inside. They didn’t shout excitedly, but they’d have to say something at some point if they wanted to see arrows.

  Dante took the offered mug. “They need people around to force them to communicate, don’t they?”

  “Yup. Your mother is fabulous, but like any exhausted mother, she lets them entertain themselves. At least it isn’t with TV.” She leaned against the porch column. “We need to talk. Want to eat first?”

  “I’m never going to sleep again, am I?” With a sigh, Dante handed back his mug and pried himself upright.

  “If you’ve been sleeping the sleep of innocence all these years, then I’m guessing you don’t have as much to worry about as the Gladwells do.” She held the door until he was inside.

  She suspected he might have murdered Lucia? Of course, she did. At least she wasn’t accusing him. . . yet.

  “We’re almost on the same page then. I didn’t kill her.” He propped himself on a counter stool and sipped his coffee, heating the morning chill from the inside.

  Under the Siamese cat’s watchful eye, Pris began removing ingredients from the ancient harvest-gold refrigerator that might qualify as an artifact in a few years. “Yeah, I was kinda counting on you not being a passionate fool.”

  He would have laughed had the situation not been so serious. Grimly, he swigged his caffeine. “I really can fix my own food. I’ve just never tried it one-handed. This crutch is like having a broken arm as well as leg.”

  “That’s okay. I talk easier if I’m occupied.” She threw bacon on the griddle and dipped bread in a bowl of eggs. “And yeah, I imagine we’re on the same page. It never made sense that a healthy mother would abandon her babies except under duress. And with all that land, she wasn’t poor or starving.”

  “I should have investigated then, but I was too furious. And scared. I was working a dig in Crete while finishing my doctorate. I knew nothing of babies. I called lawyers.” He sipped his coffee and spoke one of the fears he’d conjured last night. “I should have had Lucia’s domestic situation investigated, but I was more concerned with my own.”