Page 18 of Cursed

“She . . . suffice it to say she did something that seemed completely unmotivated, other than to make another woman jealous. But after that mission was accomplished, she went back to a perfectly appropriate, business-like demeanor. So maybe I imagined her interest.”

“Business-like demeanor,” his mother echoed. “This is the woman who is haunting Heron’s Point, and you call that business-like?” She shook her head. “What kind of security service are you running, that you lack so much discernment?”

“What are you talking about?” Vince stared at her. “Edeena and her sisters are perfectly safe. We’ve got a full-time team with them whenever they set foot out of the house, we’re tracking all incoming traffic to the house and any electronic hits—which have been non-existent—and we’re even keeping tabs on international travel manifests out of Garronia in case her father decides to take a trip. No one can be any safer than Edeena Saleri right now.”

“But is she safe from herself?” protested his mother. “No. No, she is not. Prudence has not told me nearly enough, but I know that your Edeena worries all the time. That’s no way for a young woman to live, I don’t care who she is. That is what you need to save her from.”

“It’s her life, Mom,” Vince grumbled, but that only merited him another scoff.

“It is not her life. It’s the life she is choosing to live because she has no other alternative, because you are not helping her. Go!” his mother ordered. “Go and let that poor girl relax for whatever time she has left of her own. In fact, bring her to dinner tomorrow night, yes? Dinner at our house, with our whole family. She is not Greek but she is close enough. We’ll take care of her.”

“Just her, or do you want her sisters, too?”

“Her,” his mother said emphatically, surprising him. “I’m sure her sisters, they are lovely girls. But this is about Edeena. You bring her tomorrow, and before that you take her somewhere, anywhere. Get her out of her own head.”

Vince was still shaking his own head an hour later, as he found himself trotting up the wide white staircase of Heron’s Point. The place was quiet, but he expected it to be quiet, the two younger sisters off for a day of shopping in Charleston.

Still, a sense of vague uneasiness slipped over him as he crossed the front porch to the door. Having arrived here every day for the past two weeks, Prudence had finally convinced him simply to enter and announce himself, so he unlocked the door and slipped inside the house, drawing breath to call out.

And then he heard a sound that nearly chilled him to the bone.

Hysterical sobbing.

---