Um. . .

  Well, at least she must have the right house. Taking a deep breath, she opened her mind again and studied her surroundings.

  The villa had probably once been spectacular. The marble entry led to an impressive—dusty—marble staircase. A fading fresco adorned one wall, an aging wooden cabinet with painted figures filled the opposite wall. Peering in, she found an old overcoat and a modern nylon downy jacket.

  Deciding she probably ought to be certain the children weren’t murdering each other or someone else, she stepped deeper into the huge foyer, glancing into the spectacular front room with windows overlooking a valley dotted with distinctive Tuscan cypress.

  She didn’t have a great deal of experience with children, except for avoiding them when she had to work in private homes. Her cousin had a six-year old who was mildly competent. Evie had an eleven-year-old ward who was too old for her age. But they had Malcolm heritage, and Pris acknowledged that made a difference. As a Malcolm herself, she knew weird when she saw it. She couldn’t count on these children having anywhere near the understanding of her psychic family.

  No one interfered with her progress. She’d expected servants in a place this size. Shouldn’t a busy man with a title and a fabulous house have a few servants scattered about? But no one emerged to ask what she was doing as she checked out the downstairs.

  Not hearing any more shouts and rather enjoying the freedom of exploring without interference, she took her time. The library was all dark wood shelves, velvet draperies, parquet flooring, and better tended than elsewhere. Someone spent time here. An electric fire burned in the grate, keeping the books dry against the early November damp.

  She stumbled into an immense kitchen of modern appliances and fell in love. Running her hand over the gleaming six-burner stainless steel stove and admiring the colorfully tiled walls and counters, she studied the amazing view out the aging French doors. A stone veranda with ancient urns filled with topiary led down to a terraced garden still green with herbs and late autumn vegetables. Chickens pecked in the fading sunlight.

  Here was the heart of the villa.

  Why play hide-and-seek with invisible children when she knew how to lure them out?

  With satisfaction, she opened the enormous stainless-steel refrigerator and gathered her ingredients.

  Six: Dante

  Italy

  * * *

  Painkillers wearing off, Dante grimaced and swung his crutch up the crumbling stone stairs. His mother worriedly followed, chattering about suing Leo, fretting over the dinner she hadn’t cooked, and the nanny he’d supposedly sent. His mother was one of the many reasons he traveled for a living. She was a non-stop worrier. And talker.

  The moldering villa he hadn’t the funds to repair was another reason. He hated the reminder of his incompetency at repairs and inability to earn fortunes in his chosen profession. But right now, opening the aging front door to air redolent of garlic and tomatoes, he almost—almost—appreciated his crumbling home.

  Catching the scent at the same time he did, his mother exclaimed and bustled down the hall, leaving him to fend for himself. He smothered a grin at that familiar impression of abandonment. Being an only child in an empty villa led to strange fantasies.

  And then he remembered the job he was supposed to leave for in the morning, and he growled in irritation. How the hell could he climb a mountain on a crutch?

  He didn’t think he could even climb the stairs to his room. Maybe he’d sleep on the enormous kitchen counter he’d spent a year’s wages on to pacify his mother. That had been the year the twins had arrived. She’d needed a lot of pacifying.

  The twins were another reason he never came home.

  Clumping along on his crutch, he couldn’t expect to catch the fake nanny by surprise. If she was cooking, he hoped it wasn’t poison. There were plenty of people who wouldn’t mind finding him dead.

  The scene in the kitchen froze him without need of imaginary toxins. What the friggin’ Hades?

  Sitting on tall counter stools, the twins bent their dark curls over a pastry board. At age five, their hands were still pudgy and inept, but they earnestly rolled out rounds of dough with tiny wooden rolling pins. But it wasn’t the twins causing him to blink twice.

  The she-devil in wiry, striped hair was expertly slicing up the pasta dough his mother had probably left standing before rushing out to pick him up at the hospital. The intruder wielded a wicked knife and an expert arm, flinging the noodles into the boiling water with the ease of experience.

  The last time Dante had seen her, she’d been wearing ominous red stripes in gelled hair. Today, the stripes were silver and the hair was a puff ball of mouse-brown frizz. He recognized the intense focus on her usually impassive features—she was ready to kill. He’d last seen that expression after he’d told her she was insane if she thought he wanted anything more to do with her eccentric family—after she’d nearly got him killed and/or arrested in a potentially career-destroying escapade.

  That she was here now. . . gave him cold shudders. Insulting witches was probably a bad idea.

  She glanced up, shot him a look that should have shed blood, and flung the remainder of the noodles into the pot. Ignoring him, she helped the twins press down on their dough until it was flat enough, then sliced it into noodles and added them to the pot.

  Dante figured they’d all die of food poisoning from the twins’ dirty fingers. He swore they could wash their hands all day and still be dirty.

  “Sit, sit,” his mother cried, gesturing at the centuries-old trestle table she’d insisted on keeping. “I will bring the salad.” She plopped a bottle of wine on the table with an opener and glasses.

  “If he’s on painkillers, he shouldn’t be drinking.” The demon woman spoke for the first time—not a greeting but her usual dire warning.

  “Do you even know how to say hello or how are you feeling or any of the normal things one would say after taking over a person’s home?” Spitefully, Dante popped the cork and poured himself a glass.

  “Waste of time.” She nodded at the children. “Go wash your hands again. Soap and water make everything taste better.”

  The twins obediently climbed down from their tall seats and ran to the sink to climb up on a stepstool. They never went anywhere without running.

  They never followed orders.

  After splashing about in the water, Alex jumped down, hands still dripping, and loped over to wipe them on Dante’s trousers, causing him to wince at the assault on his cracked shin. The boy dashed off, giggling at his boldness. Nan politely dried her hands on a towel and ignored him, much as the fake nanny did.

  Well, he probably deserved that. They hardly ever saw him, after all.

  Politeness was a waste of time? Fine nanny she’d make. But he already knew that the nanny masquerade was rubbish. Taking another fortifying sip, sitting on the high-backed bench his mother shooed him onto, Dante swung his injured leg up on a side chair and debated the reality of stepping through the Looking Glass. If the demon-woman shouted Off with his head, she was out of here.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to properly introduce myself earlier,” his mother chattered, filling the tense silence. “I’m Emma Malcolm Rossi, Dante’s mother. I assume you’ve already met my son.”

  “Malcolm?” The she-devil’s mousy eyebrows shot straight up. She glared at Dante instead of his mother, as if it were all his fault they might have a seventeenth-century ancestor in common.

  “I’m from Scotland,” his mother continued, happily setting the table with her favorite colorful chicken-decorated plates. “Dante’s father was Italian, but he has family in Edinburgh and went to school there. It was kismet.”

  Dante sipped his wine and waited. As long as his mother was around, he didn’t have to speak, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t exactly in a conversational humor.

  “Malcolm-Ives attraction,” the fake nanny declared. “I understand Dante is related to a friend of mine who just discovered he’s an Ives.”

  “Oh, is that how you met! How delightful. Are you a professional nanny? Or just wanting to spend some time here? I assume from your accent that you’re American. Let me finish up, and you take a seat and tell me all about yourself.” His mother grabbed the pot of boiling pasta from the stove and nudged their guest aside.

  “Shouldn’t the children be sitting at the table? Where did they run off to?” The impostor peered into the other room rather than take a seat near Dante.

  “They’ll come when they’re ready. They don’t see their father often, so they’re probably up to mischief. I’ve given up trying to reason with them.” Emma tasted the sauce simmering on the stove, added a few herbs, and tossed it in with the pasta. “I’m sorry, I left in such a hurry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  Dante normally would have stood up to help his mother with the heavy pots and bowls, but his leg wasn’t allowing it today. He’d need twice the painkiller later, but he was too caught up in this scene to leave just yet.

  “Priscilla Broadhurst but call me Pris.” She grabbed the heavy bowl and carried it to the table.

  He noticed she didn’t use her entire name, Priscilla Malcolm Broadhurst. He appreciated that. His mother would be off and swinging up and down the family tree.

  Intrigued by her family tale of fleeing New England witch hunts in colonial America, he’d already ascertained that any connection to his mother’s family had to date back to the 1600s.

  “Well, Pris, have a seat and tell me all about yourself. You obviously know how to cook.” Emma took the chair on Dante’s right.

  Prissy Pris all but glowered and reluctantly settled at the far end of the table. “I own a catering business. I want to take it to the next level, so I enrolled in a cooking school near here. I asked Dante if I might rent a room rather than pay the exorbitant price the school is charging.”

  Why did he find that hard to believe? Maybe because he’d never received the message to start with.

  “Oh.” His mother looked vaguely puzzled as she dug into her salad. “I thought Dante said he was sending a nanny to help out. I’m sorry I left you on the doorstep.”

  He grimaced and dug into his food rather than answer that. He had vaguely, and in quiet desperation, made that promise eons ago. But who had time to hunt for nannies? Affordable ones.

  “My message must have gone astray,” demon lady said without blinking a lash. “I’m the one who should apologize. The school’s hours are limited, so I could help out in lieu of rent, if that would suit. I have to return home when the session ends in two weeks, but maybe that will give you time to find someone more suitable.”

  Dante studied his salad bowl. What had she dressed it with? Liquid gold? Oil and vinegar had never tasted so good. His mother must have been experimenting with herbs again.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” Emma said with a sigh. “We’re too far out of town for anyone in the village to be interested. And the twins. . .”

  As if they’d been listening, the little brats popped out of the cellar. He would have to buy a better lock for the outside door or they’d never be found again. Once used for wine and olive oil storage, the villa had cellars more confusing than Etruscan ones.

  The she-devil motioned his mother to stay sitting. Without a word, she pushed salad bowls to the twins’ bench side of the table and got up to produce bread sticks. Why hadn’t he been offered a bread stick? Dante reached over and grabbed one. Damn, the thing was fresh. And sweet?

  “The children baked this afternoon. They must have their grandmother’s talent.” She munched a stick, apparently savoring it for the benefit of the twins.

  Witch. He had to remember her family was known as witches for good reason.

  The twins giggled and dug into their food. They were growing up fast. The last time he’d been here, they’d thrown food at each other and him. His mother had said that was how they communicated. They weren’t much into talking—like him.

  Except he talked. That was half his job. He just didn’t talk at home because he had nothing to say.

  Or he had so much to say, he didn’t know where to start. And no one wanted to hear what needed to be said. His mother filled in the silence quite well.

  “If your thoughts get any louder, I’ll hear them,” the demon woman said, forking up her pasta without even looking at him. As if she’d actually heard him thinking.

  His mother looked confused, rightfully so. The twins picked up lettuce in their fingers and shoved it into their mouths.

  “My mother is an excellent cook. She could probably teach you more than the school.” There, he’d said something pleasant.

  “It’s a class on appetizers. That’s what I serve most. I believe an acquaintance of yours accused me of poisoning his daughter with my crab and caviar crisps. I thought I’d up my game on his home ground.”

  Emma gasped. Dante reached for the pasta bowl. “I assume no one else died and that’s why you’re not in jail. Does the acquaintance have a name?”

  “Vincent Gladwell, owns a farm around here, ring any bells?”

  Dante almost dropped the bowl.

  Seven: Evie

  KK’S GHOST

  Afterthought, South Carolina

  * * *

  Roaming Larraine Fashions, surrounded by people in tailored suits and high heels—even the men in some cases—Evie felt like a rat catcher in her T-shirt, corduroys, and sneakers. Maybe she ought to buy more fashionable ghost-hunting duds. Maybe Larraine had a closet of spare clothes somewhere. . . Except Evie was only five-two and couldn’t come close to model thin.

  Trying to imagine herself in a tailored suit, deciding she might rock heels, she wandered the echoing reception hall in search of a misplaced aura.

  After taking an urgent phone call, the newly-elected mayor of Afterthought rejoined her. A worried frown marred her usually complacent expression. “Nothing yet?”

  “She’s here. I’ve seen her.” With Larraine as guide, Evie started down the complex corridors of the sprawling fashion factory. “Ghosts normally attach themselves to people or places, but Lady Katherine didn’t belong here, so she’s not rooted to anyone or anything.”

  “Maybe she went home with her family. Should I hire a European private detective? Reuben is having difficulty cracking databases in Italian.” Larraine frowned worriedly and rubbed at her rings, a sure sign of anxiety.

  Evie didn’t just read auras. She read people. Generous, genial Larraine Ward was more than anxious. Evie feared she’d done this to her by encouraging her controversial run for mayor. “Her friends and family left before I saw her aura. She may be looking for them, but she’s still here. I assume she must have unfinished business. Give Reuben a chance to connect with Italian hackers. Everyone knows the accusations against you are political. Jax will spit in their faces.”

  Well, Jax’s specialty was fraud, but he was local and knew the howling jackals accusing Larraine and Pris of murder on no evidence—especially since the coroner said Lady Kat died of a heart attack. Jane the Lawless, the sensationalist columnist and blogger, kept the snake pit stirred, trying to reverse the election results. If it got worse, Jax knew how to threaten lawsuits.

  Of course, Larraine’s supporters were blaming Pris, except Pris had taken herself out of the line of fire. That meant the heat was turning up under Afterthought’s first transgender, non-white mayor. Evie would blame small town minds, but part of the howling came from state-level politicians and that stunk of politics playing to the lowest common denominator.

  She wanted to be the kind of witch who hexed idiots. Unfortunately, a ghostbuster who stood between earth and the spirit veil needed to be non-judgmental. Maybe frustration made her ADHD.

  Larraine all but washed her hands compulsively. “I’ve had to pester the sheriff for days for an autopsy. And they’re still not certain. Last I heard, they’re just saying they found something weird about her stomach.”

  “Facts won’t faze conspiracy theorists. The state lab tests should be back shortly, so we’ll know whether we have anything to worry about.” After Pris’s warning, Evie was already worried, which was why she was hunting Katherine’s ghost.

  Inconclusive autopsy or not, she had to stomp out the rumors about Pris and Larraine.

  Larraine’s phone beeped and she glanced at it. “Sorry, hon, but it’s city hall. Hank won the case for a recount, and I have to look happy to see it done. You just wander anywhere you will.”

  Hank had lost to Larraine by a dozen votes. In a town of less than a thousand voters, that was a fair margin. A recount meant that more trouble brewed.

  Or as Evie’s mother would say, a black cloud loomed over city hall.

  Evie really didn’t need the hassle. Her Sensible Solutions Agency had its hands full these days. Admittedly, their cases hadn’t yet generated sufficient cash to move Reuben out of the cellar or Roark out of Ariel’s cottage. Not that she thought Roark would leave Jax’s sister even if he won the lottery. Still, if Evie could find the ghost of Lady Katherine Gladwell, it would let Larraine and Pris breathe easier and cement their little agency’s reputation.

  “Kit-Kat, where are you?” she whispered, heading into the gender neutral lounge. The victim had worn designer clothing and fistfuls of cosmetics, so the lounge full of mirrors should be a familiar comfort zone.

  Evie grinned in triumph at the flash of an aura near the full-length mirror. “Hello, Lady Katherine! Or should I call you Kit-Kat? That’s what your boyfriend called you.”

  The aura rippled in a muddy orange with streaks of red. Why did no one ever have a lovely blue, communicative color? Or even a nice friendly earth color? Shadows of black indicated an unhappy, possibly even unhealthy person, but it was hard to focus on chakras when there was no body.