Was she saying she wouldn’t go with him? Of course, she was. “A nanny isn’t enough either.” Using the cane, Dante pried himself up. “I’ll be in the library.”

  Leaving the twins to the women. He knew better. Pris had already stolen them once—proving a point he hadn’t learned the first time. He knew it now.

  How the hell did a man think and take care of children at the same time?

  His work was intellectually stimulating, but what was the purpose of all his education if he couldn’t apply it to make life better for his children?

  Or for a wife and maybe even himself? He needed time to plan. . .

  Thirty-six: Evie

  THANKSGIVING

  Afterthought, South Carolina

  * * *

  “Soup tureen on the dining room table with the bowls,” Pris shouted over the chaos of a dozen voices. “Rolls beside it. Evie, where do you keep your serving spoons?”

  Evie snorted and stacked every plate in the house in the center of the dining table, along with the bowls. “At your apartment and Gracie’s house and Aunt Val’s mansion and. . .” She didn’t waste her breath listing the entirety of people who borrowed from the Victorian’s kitchen. That’s why the house existed.

  Wearing her purple glasses and a sparkly black dress, Loretta grinned at Pris’s shriek and laid out the ancient tableware she’d just washed. “Mom always had Thanksgiving catered. This is like watching a holiday movie of everything that can go wrong, going even more wrong.”

  With an apron still covering her gold, vintage, mini-dress, Evie swatted her ward with a linen napkin. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. This is not wrong. This is totally normal. They know to return the tableware. It happens every year. Aunt Ellen will trot along momentarily with all of it gathered. She knows where we hide our door keys.”

  Small towns had their pros and cons. She’d learned to accept the intrusiveness. Pris, not so much.

  “We’re here, lovies, we’re here!” The mayor’s voice cried from the front door. “Where do we put the sweet potatoes?”

  “With all the others on the chafing dishes.” Mavis passed the dining room on the way to greet Larraine, wiping her hands on her apron and admiring the mayor’s offering. “No marshmallows, thank you! My diet thanks you.”

  Loretta snickered and glanced at the other three bowls of sweet potatoes on the sideboard. “I like marshmallows.”

  “You aren’t a vegetarian like Iddy or on a diet like Mom. Good job, kid. I hereby express my thanksgiving for your assistance and dismiss you to keep an eye on the twins and Aster. I think they’re in your old room upstairs. Send Gracie down. We need all hands on deck in the kitchen before Pris starts swinging knives.”

  Loretta raced into the hall, greeted Larraine and Reuben, who’d apparently arrived together, and made wild horses sound quiet in her dash up the stairs. Loretta loved bossing the youngers around.

  “I have the tables set up in the parlor,” Evie’s cousin Iddy called. “Do we need to set any in the library?”

  Evie grabbed a couple of the small flower arrangements Mavis had contributed and carried them to the parlor tables. She shook her head at her veterinarian cousin, who was soothing her pet raven’s feathers while Psycat sprawled on the sofa back, watching through narrowed eyes. “Shhh. Jax’s sister is in the library. Roark refused to come unless Ariel did. And I think she really wants to be here, so we rashly promised her a quiet place.”

  Iddy set the raven on his perch on the mantel. “With all these men you’ve collected this past year, I’m amazed we’re not all hiding under the beds. I always thought this house too huge until today.”

  “Victorians had large families. And Jax collects the men, not me. He and Roark and Reuben are setting up a security company to travel around, inspecting the machines his father’s company is producing. They want to put their heads together after dinner.”

  “Why not before?” Iddy opened a folding chair to fit in an empty spot at one of the tables.

  “They’re all out back bonding over football and working up a hunger.”

  “Pris threw them out, did she?” Iddy shoved two more chairs under the last table.

  “To be fair, she gave them all knives this morning and let them hack veggies. It’s only after the discussion turned into a food fight that she flung them out. Let’s see how many helpers we can squeeze into the kitchen. I’m starving.” Evie checked that every table had a jar of assorted utensils. Looked like they had enough forks, at least.

  “Appetizers! Pris said she made enough to hold us until the turkey is ready.” Iddy stopped to answer the front door and let in one of the neighbors, who carried a green bean casserole and wanted to talk about her cat. Iddy handed the casserole to Evie and gestured for her to go on without her.

  Balancing the bowl on one arm, Evie snatched a crab puff hors d’oeuvre off a narrow table in the hall. Munching, she passed through the kitchen with all the chatting women mixing and filling bowls, set down the casserole, and continued on out to the yard.

  “Good thing y’all aren’t dressed fancy for dinner,” she called at the men chasing a ball under a bright blue sky.

  Reuben already had Roark in a head lock, which seemed to have nothing to do with the ball Dante and Jax were flinging. Jax had invited Nick Gladwell to join them since his client couldn’t go home until the authorities were done with him. But the Brit in his tweedy jacket and luscious sweater only looked confused by the action, rightfully so.

  “Everyone here yet?” Jax called, letting the ball fly past him toward the distant fence. He and Dante had repaired the missing slats and added crossbars all the way around to make the yard more secure.

  “Far as I know. Clean up and grab some appetizers. One of you might want to take nibbles up to the kids. They’re being very well behaved.” Evie hugged Jax as he reached the porch. “Where’s your jacket?”

  “In Dante’s room,” he whispered, before nibbling her ear. “We’ve got the kids covered. You just magic that food onto the table.”

  “Buffet. We’re doing buffet. Wash up.” Reveling in the closeness, loving the buzzy feeling his attention offered, she kissed his smooth jaw. Then she returned to the kitchen as Pris removed the bird from the oven and set the tofu roast inside.

  “Half an hour,” Pris called. “Iced tea glasses out? Wine for those who want it?”

  Even Mayor Larraine had been pressed into service taking glasses out of cabinets, apparently because she was challenging Pris’s recalcitrance. “Girl, if you don’t open that café, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Zoning, licensing,” Mavis shouted over the racket, adding wine bottles to the glasses stacked in the breakfast nook. “No one’s starting anything until you fix the council.”

  “Ah, honey, that’s all done.” The mayor poured wine and helped herself to an appetizer. “After I let them zone out their competition, they let me set the licensing rules. It’s like negotiating contracts with a school of fish, you gotta cast a wide net.”

  “So the Bella building will be zoned for a restaurant?” Evie asked through an appetizer adorned with curls of carrot. “And I won’t be charged for running my business here?”

  “Knock wood and the creek don’t rise, whole downtown block will be zoned for small retail and restaurants,” Larraine confirmed. “We need shopping, not more offices. And your business is grandfathered in. We’re not touching residential zoning either.”

  “I can do anything I want with the garage? Cool.” Not that she wanted to do anything. . . yet.

  Pris carried an enormous porcelain dish of cornbread dressing to the dining room without comment.

  Evie followed, directing her to the last hot plate on the sideboard. Any more electric burners and she figured the ancient wiring would melt. “Cooking school for kids,” she murmured as she helped settle the dish in place. “Does that qualify as a small business?”

  “Not retail or restaurant,” Pris said curtly. “Still not ready. No money.”

  “Small business loan?” Reading her cousin’s aura, Evie had a feeling Pris was hoping a certain studly Italian would find a way to stay here before she committed.

  They both knew that wasn’t happening.

  The doorbell gave its cranky squeak, followed by pounding on the knocker.

  “I’ve got it,” Jax shouted. He was pulling on his sports jacket as he traversed the wide hall.

  Evie could see Roark carrying a plate of appetizers to the library for Ariel, which made her heart glow. The angry madman she’d first met was mellowing, if only a little. Instead of shaving his tangled black curls, he’d tamed them, concealing his skull tats, and he’d left out most of his metal. Without the attitude, he was one handsome hunk.

  Who knew that Jax’s neurodivergent sister could make such a difference in a few short months? Without speaking more than two words at a time, probably. Love was a marvelous thing.

  Drinking in the scents of turkey and dressing, the happy excitement of friends and family, she was slow to notice the raven’s cry of warning or Jax’s silence at the front door until Psycat prowled through the doorway, snarling.

  Pris looked up, as if receiving a mental alert. “Are we expecting anyone else?”

  “We invited Sheriff Troy, but he was going out of town to visit his daughter.” If the sheriff wasn’t in town. . . Uninvited guests could be hazardous to the health.

  Alarmed, Evie eased toward the passage into the hall. She peered around the corner and saw Jax blocking the entrance, his stance decidedly that of military alert.

  She gestured at Pris. “Find an army to guard the stairs and send the men around front.” She hated playing paranoid games but Jax’s aura screamed danger.

  If Troy wasn’t in the sheriff’s office to prevent Matthew from bonding out. . .

  She knew precisely who was at the door. The question was why?

  Heart pounding, she started to station herself behind the armoire they used for coats, but Pris grabbed her shoulder. “You guard the stairs. This one is mine.”

  Spooky Pris knew something Evie didn’t. Giving her cousin a quick look, Evie dashed to the kitchen to gather her troops. And Loretta thought missing spoons constituted how things could go wrong!

  Pris heard Matthew Gladwell shouting, ““Where’s Nick? I was told he’s here.”

  Arms crossed, Jax blocked the front doorway with his quarter-back frame. Picking up the appetizer tray in the hall, she elbowed him to one side so she could step out on the porch.

  Glamorpuss Matthew wore several days’ beard, dark shadows under his eyes, and a rumpled suit that looked as if he’d slept in it. He didn’t even give Pris a second glance, although she’d removed her apron, wore her very best brown velveteen dress, and had dyed her gray streak red and orange for the occasion.

  Out of spite, she held out the appetizer tray. “Take a chance?” she taunted.

  Apparently startled out of his panic, Matthew finally looked at her and blanched. “What are you doing here?”

  “Poisoning intruders? Getting even with the man who ruined my business?” She waved the goodies under his nose. “Ooooo, maybe witch that I am, I’m channeling Lucia, who wants to punch you in the face, then cut your throat.”

  Behind her, Jax snorted. Pris invaded Matthew’s personal space with the tray, forcing him to back up. Over his shoulder, she could see Roark and Reuben positioning themselves behind the overgrown azaleas at the bottom of the front steps. She prayed Dante had gone to his children. This was the man who’d ruined her business with his lies. The battle was hers.

  Matthew looked decidedly more nervous but held his ground, as if he really didn’t understand what the rumors he’d spread had done to her. “I just need to see Nick, then I’ll leave.”

  He should be very, very afraid, but Pris merely tilted her head and studied Lucia’s killer. “You hit her, didn’t you? I can see it in your mind.” Well, she had KK’s journal to verify her guesses, but he didn’t need to know that. A good con meant keeping the victim on an emotional precipice. “You had Lucia on the edge of that well, and you smacked her, just as your father did you and Katherine. Except he was smart enough not to do it near a dangerous hole.”

  “You’re b-being ridiculous,” he stammered nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Nick isn’t here, just tell me.”

  Pris bit into an olive-adorned chip and set the tray down on the porch rail so she could gesture. “We all know what you did. You killed Lucia. Like the ghoul you are, you’ve been stealing artifacts over her crumbling bones. What I want to know is why you want to kill Lucia’s children? They’re babies! Even if they’d seen their mother murdered, what could they possibly do to you?”

  “I don’t want to kill babies,” he shouted. “You’re crazy. I still think you poisoned Kat!”

  She shrugged. “Kat says otherwise. Witch, remember? We have proof that your father poisoned your sister. We know almost everything else, and the police will soon. But that one tiny thing really bothers me. Your father hates Lucia’s children, why?”

  Wide-eyed and frightened, Matt backed up again. He glanced behind him and spotted Reuben and Roark looking massive and pissed and blocking his exit. He tried to look over Jax’s shoulder, but that wasn’t happening. Jax was built like a brass door.

  “Nick!” Male-model shouted above Pris’s head. “I just need the keys to my office! They told me you have them.”

  “All your stores and offices are off limits,” Jax reminded him. “The police are still examining them for evidence. Did they give you back your passport? I think not.”

  “He has a fake,” Nick called from the hallway behind Jax. “And there’s probably cash in the safe. He’s about to scarper.”

  “Nick, you dick, you’re fired!” Matthew screamed.

  “From what?” Nick called back. “Or are you planning on climbing over Lucia’s bones some more and starting up again? I’ll give Vincent some credit—he at least knew how to hide the money. What have you got?”

  Pris pressed her fingers to her temples in an age-old, meaningless, gesture for psychics that she saved for idiots. “Oooo, I can see it in his head now. Matthew is planning on retiring to the Caribbean on the money he and dear old dad stashed away. And now I think I’m seeing a little more. . . ”

  Matt’s thoughts were so panicked, she figured everyone in the house could hear them, but a little abracadabra always impressed. “I see a will. You’ve seen it too, Matthew, haven’t you? Lucia’s will?”

  “I witnessed it, didn’t I? I didn’t get a shilling off her!” He appeared to be debating escaping through Jax.

  “And neither did Vincent, since he was only her stepdad,” Pris crowed happily. She gestured at Jax and the audience gathering behind him. “That’s what has Vincent furious. Lucia left everything to her children! He needed Lucia alive so they could keep using her farm, stealing her gold.”

  Pris heard the clump of Dante’s cane before his broad shoulders appeared behind the crowd. She’d wanted to drag a confession out of the boutique owner, but Matthew wasn’t cooperating. It was time to stand aside and let Dante do his thing. Towering over Jax by nearly a head, her noble Indiana Jones wore a form-fitting Italian jacket and an open-necked white shirt instead of the movie explorer’s khaki. The fury on his normally equable features would send any sensible creature fleeing.

  Matthew lacked sense. Surrounded by an angry mob, he still admitted nothing.

  “You killed Lucia,” Dante stated ominously. “And then the three of you left her body in that well so you could pretend she still owned the farm?” Fury overcame his normal composure.

  “It’s not as if babies could run it!” Matthew protested.

  Motive for kidnapping, with a capital M. Pris hoped Evie’s security cameras had microphones, but they had plenty of witnesses. Behind Dante, Jax was already holding up his cell.

  “Until the twins came of age, Leo would still run the farm. You could have kept walking all over him,” Dante shouted. “But you left their mother in a well! Did you know she was dead? Did you even attempt to find help?” Fury formed cracks in his rock solid mental façade. Like an Italian volcano, he’d emit steam soon.

  Pris didn’t do reassurance well and had no idea how to calm him as Evie did Jax. When Dante pushed past Jax to get at Matt, she caught his arm to remind him that others were present. A man who swung pickaxes for a living had a lot of muscle.

  Firmly shutting her out from his enraged thoughts, Dante covered her hand and squeezed. To her relief, he set aside the temptation of the sword cane and used Pris for support.

  “Lucia was dead,” Matthew said grimly. “Skull crushed, neck broken, dead. It was an accident. She’d just showed us the crap she’d carted up for you to look at. We needed cash, but she refused to even sell the gold until you could see it. But she fell and ruined everything!”

  “Kinda ruined it for Lucia anyway,” Pris acknowledged dryly. “But it wasn’t just a fall. You hit her when she refused to sell the artifacts,” she added, seeing the scene clearly.

  Dante’s grip nearly crushed her bones, but he didn’t reach out and strangle the selfish twit standing on the edge of the stairs. One good push. . . Pris resisted.

  A silent police car rolled to the curb behind the massive gardenia bush by the sidewalk.

  “Who did Lucia appoint as executor of her estate?” Jax asked.

  Leave it to the lawyer to strip the question to its legal bones.

  From Matthew’s angry glance at Dante, the answer was plain—Lucia had left the farm to her children and named their father as executor.

  Glamorpuss finally whirled around to start down the stairs. The sight of two policemen walking toward him caused him to reach for his pocket.