“You need anything?” the secretary asked. “Coffee? Water? I’m just about to lock up and leave for the day.”

“Nothing, thank you,” Lowe said, sounding weary and empty. Was he already in character? Now she wished she would’ve spent the ride over pressing him for more information on his plan instead of pining over him like a lovesick girl. As soon as the secretary closed the door, Lowe leaned closer and whispered, “You don’t feel anything?”

“I don’t want to talk about that here,” she whispered back. “Later.”

“What?”

She glanced at him. “What what?”

“I meant the amulet crossbar. Do you feel its presence?”

Her cheeks heated. “Yes, I believe so. But it’s hard to tell. This place makes me anxious.” She took off her hat and fanned herself.

The door to the office opened, and a portly blond man wearing an ill-fitting suit entered. He looked Hadley’s age. Maybe younger. “Good evening, Mr. Smith,” he said to Lowe, extending his hand. “I’m Bill Trotter.”

Lowe shook and said, “This is my sister, Ruby.”

Ruby? His nightclub floozy? What in the world was he playing at?

“Miss Smith,” the young funeral director said, bowing his head. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” He didn’t sound all that sorry. If she didn’t know any better, she might think he was looking her over. That didn’t happen often. Maybe he recognized a kindred spirit whose life work also centered on death. “Won’t you please sit down? I’ll try to make this as easy for you as possible.”

The man’s chair creaked as he lowered himself into it. “Mr. Smith, I believe you told my secretary that your sister passed two days ago?”

“Poor Esmerelda,” Lowe said. “We came home to find her bludgeoned on the parlor floor.”

“Robbery?”

“Nothing was taken, so we don’t really know why it happened. Only that she wasn’t a well-liked person, to be honest. Always shooting her mouth off. There was no love between the three of us.” He grasped Hadley’s hand on the armrest; she had to fight every instinct not to jerk it back. “Ruby and I are close. We felt an obligation to take care of Esmerelda, even though she’s only our half sister. But I won’t lie—it’ll be more pleasant around the house now that we can keep her contained, so to speak.”

Good heavens. Lowe was telling the man a version of his own father’s myth—Hugo Trotter’s siblings were bludgeoned and stabbed.

“I hope you don’t find my honesty off-putting,” Lowe added.

“Not at all, Mr. Smith. Not everyone who walks in this door is wracked with grief.” He gave Hadley another glance. Or her legs, at least. She crossed them in the opposite direction and rearranged her dress over her knee.

Lowe cleared his throat. “Since I don’t want to waste your time, I’ll get right to the point. Esmerelda’s body isn’t viewable, which is why we’d like her cremated. But she did leave us a great deal of her father’s fortune, so we’d like to”—he gave Hadley a secret smile—“shall I tell him, dear?”

“Please do.” She had no idea where he was going with this ruse.

“Well, we’d like something extravagant to hold Esmerelda’s ashes. A showpiece—not your usual fare. Something we can put on a shelf and raise a glass to now and then. Money is no object, God rest her soul.”

Trotter brightened. “I’m sure we can find something to meet your needs. I have several unique pieces in stock. Would you like to see them?” He gave Hadley a hopeful smile. And another glance at her legs. Maybe he really was smitten with her.

They followed Mr. Trotter into a small showroom that featured a variety of urn options lined on shelves. Small paper placards provided pricing. A few of the urns were gaudy, but no strange energy, and no canopic jars.

“These are nice,” Lowe said, running his hand along the marble of the most expensive urn on the wall. “But what we had in mind was something exotic. Maybe something Roman or Greek. Something classic.”

“Something sculpted,” Hadley added.

Trotter’s brow lifted. “You know, my aunt Hilda’s urn sounds a little like that. Only, it’s sculpted in an Egyptian fashion. I—”

“O-oh, Egyptian,” Lowe said, as if it were the most intriguing thing in the world. “That’s very exotic. What do you think, Ruby?”

What she thought was that she wanted to brain him over the head with the marble urn he was stroking. “Egyptian would be perfect.”

Trotter chuckled. “Well, I can’t exactly dump out her ashes and sell it to you.”

“Of course not,” Lowe said with a smile. “But would it be too much trouble for us to take a look at it? Might give us a better idea of what we want. As I said, money is no object.”

Trotter jingled change in his pocket as he rocked back on his heels. “Well . . .”

Lowe elbowed Hadley discreetly. She looked up at him and elbowed him back. He made an urgent face, dramatically flicking his eyes toward the funeral director when the man wasn’t looking. She took a guess as to what he wanted her to do.

“Oh, please, Mr. Trotter,” she said, trying her best to sound like a fetching young girl with nothing inside her head. “It would mean so much to us. So much to me.”

Two pink circles blossomed on the man’s cheeks. “The urn is downstairs in the basement, though. It might be upsetting to see my work area. Maybe I should bring it up.”