Forever and Always Read online

  “Slave,” I said, still half out of my chair.

  “Slave. Yes, like a slave. Well, it got to me. So what did you and Amelia, uh, talk about?”

  “Was that a crack?”

  “Just a little one. Please, Linc, tell me what was said.”

  I hesitated. “Why did you say I spent the night with a woman who wanted to kill me?”

  “Ingrid was the woman who slipped into your house, opened the safe, and took the documents your agent gave you.”

  I sat back down. “She killed Barney?”

  “Yes.”

  I leaned toward Darci. “I’m going to go work out long and hard, and afterward, you and I are going to have a secrets-sharing session. Got it?”

  “Yeah. What did—?”

  I stood up, looking down at Darci. “Amelia is going to meet me tonight in our usual place. I leave it up to you to find out where that is. I’ll see you at dinner.” I left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  Darci

  Chapter Fifteen

  RESEARCH, I THOUGHT. I’D BEEN SENT OFF TO DO RESEARCH. I’m sure Linc meant I was to go to the library at 13 Elms and search the books there, but I had my own plans, so I needed to keep Linc occupied elsewhere. When I’d been looking for Ingrid and putting my hands on the doors, I’d felt equipment inside one of the rooms. At first I thought it was the room for the cameras and microphones, but I’d already found out that that equipment was in a room just off the kitchen (and for the most part, unmanned), so what was in that room? When I glanced at Linc, I knew. It was workout equipment; all lightweight as befit the Barrister sisters’ idea of ladylike behavior—and as befit the state of the old floors. Heavy weights would have crashed through the floor joists.

  It hadn’t taken much effort to give Linc the idea of encouraging the women to work out, which got Narcissa to unlock the door, which made Linc spend the afternoon in the gym. I knew he wanted to spend more time in bed with Ingrid, but she’d left that morning. Since the ornament I’d put in the bowling ball bag had no power, it was difficult to ascertain if she’d taken the bag with her, but I didn’t think so.

  Maybe I should have made an effort to follow the woman with my mind, but I didn’t feel that she knew anything. Her aura was such a dull shade that I could see no passion in her. I’d seen people like her before. They were damaged. I didn’t want to say soulless, but they were close. They felt nothing, not love or hate, not compassion or remorse. She could easily go to bed with Linc one day and kill him the next.

  While I’d been near her I’d done my best to find out what was in her mind—not that I could read minds—but I saw little. I felt no remorse from her for having killed a man when she set fire to Linc’s agent’s office. Whatever she’d done I knew that in the overall story, she wasn’t important.

  Anyway, I wanted to keep Linc busy for the afternoon so I could do some exploring. We still had the rental car we’d used to go to East Mesopotamia so I planned to use that.

  That morning I’d talked to my daughter and my niece in Colorado. I missed them so very much! Their aunt Susan had found an old dollhouse in the attic, something made for the daughter of the original builder of the house. He’d been extremely wealthy and the dollhouse he’d commissioned in the 1890s had twenty-eight rooms on four floors. There were a dozen dolls with the house, each representing members of Kane Taggert’s family, plus four servants.

  “They have lots of clothes for them and we’re playing with them nicely,” my daughter said—and I knew from her tone that she’d done something she wasn’t supposed to.

  “Let me talk to Aunt Susan.”

  “What have they done?” I asked Susan.

  “They seemed to have given the dolls life. I don’t think it was a real life, with personalities and such, but the dolls were moving around in a rather lifelike way.”

  “Creep you out?”

  “Like you can’t believe,” Susan said from her heart.

  “Mike was here so he got the girls to…to take off their spell. The problem was that they didn’t know any other way to play with the dolls, but we taught them.”

  “Susan…” I began, but couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to apologize and thank her at the same time.

  “No problem,” she said, obviously understanding what I wanted to say.

  I did thank her profusely, hung up, then willed my father to call me. He and I had spent so much time together there was a channel between us that was so strong it was as though we had a telecable between us.

  Dad called me minutes later. He was still on the trail of Boadicea’s bag that had contained the mirror. So far, he hadn’t found it but I felt that he would. I couldn’t yet tell if he’d ever find the mirror but I hoped he would.

  He asked about me and what I was doing, but I told him nothing. But then, there was nothing to tell. Linc and I had sent some slave ghosts away, and Linc had managed to create a sexual frenzy among all the women, both living and dead, but all in all, we hadn’t made any progress in finding his son.

  However, the reason I’d cleared the afternoon was so I could visit a few places without the distraction of Linc. The beauty of him, the sheer presence of him, distracted people from talking about what I wanted them to talk about, so I told my father I might have some news soon.

  After I hung up, I went outside to the car. I’d been asking the other guests questions and had even pulled a few words out of a maid, so I’d found out where the oldest local church was, and where the woman who was supposed to be Lisa Henderson had crashed.

  The first place I went was the crash site. As I’d known, it was at the bottom of a hill. I didn’t know whether to be proud of myself or annoyed because I felt nothing more than I’d felt when I’d held the newspaper photo. I stepped into the tangle of growth at the base of the tree to see if any car parts, or anything at all, had been left behind. Maybe if I touched something from the wreck I’d feel—

  “Oh!” I said and jumped back. I’d put my hand on the tree to steady myself and had felt a jolt through my arm. The tree was very angry at having been rammed by a speeding car.

  I drew back and looked at the tree. As Linc had said, it took a lot to discombobulate me, but this angry tree was doing it. As I stepped backward, I looked at the tree in alarm, half expecting it to start throwing apples at me—except that it was an oak tree.

  When the tree stayed just a tree, I was relieved. However, I nearly ran back to the car, then took a moment to calm myself. As I turned the car around to get back on the road, I thought, Give me ghosts and dancing dolls, but let the trees be quiet!

  I found the church I was looking for down a graveled lane. It was set in a little clearing, with a cemetery to the right and behind it. As I got out of the car I listened for a moment to the stillness of the place. There were so many spirits hovering that the birds made little noise. Quietly, I closed the door and walked toward the cemetery. What I hoped to find was Martin’s gave, but I somehow doubted that Amelia’s husband would have allowed the man to be buried in consecrated ground. I felt sure that Martin’s grave was on the land surrounding 13 Elms, and unmarked.

  As soon as I stepped inside the little white picket fence surrounding the cemetery, I was so bombarded by spirits that I put my arms over my face. It wasn’t as though they would hurt me or that I feared them. It was just the sheer volume of them. It was as though they’d been marooned there for a hundred or so years and were dying to talk to someone. Since not many humans could hear them, they ran at me, eager for gossip and news.

  “Have you seen my cousin?”

  “I can’t find my gold locket. My sister-in-law stole it. Can you get it back for me?”

  “You have nice hair. Can I touch it?”

  “Do you have children? I used to have children. Twelve of them, but six—”

  “Ssssh,” I said, drawing in my breath, closing my eyes and willing all of them to calm down. When I felt quiet around me, I opened my eyes. These weren’t ghosts like Devlin