Page 34 of The Love Bandits

Sure, he may be trying to jump-scare him. There are people who find that sort of thing funny, and it wouldn’t shock me if Jake has a juvenile sense of humor, but it’s still strange.

Anthony glances both ways when he reaches the door that leads down to the cavernous, half-finished basement—a place childhood nightmares are made of. His gaze completely misses Jake, who stepped behind a hideous statue of some long-deceased Smith, and me, tucked behind the corner of a skinny hall that leads to a room so useless Mrs. Rosings uses it to stow boxes from her online deliveries.

Jake watches as Anthony creeps down the stairs, his focus almost predatory. He waits. He listens. He looks. And then he follows him down the stairs, moving so carefully I can’t even hear the scuff of his shoes against the stone—a bold maneuver, although there areplentyof places to hide down there.

Jake can’t be a therapist. There’s no way. He’s much too good on his feet, too fit, to be a man who sits on a couch all day. And I absolutely cannot picture him spending all day asking people, “And how did that make you feel?”

He’s not empathetic enough, and he’d go out of his mind with boredom. Iknowhe would. There’s a…wildness in him, for lack of a better word.

Of course, there are plenty of people who aren’t good at their jobs. Maybe he’s one of them, and he’s feeding his need for excitement by going all in with hide and seek. Following the man who’s supposed to find everyone might be his strategy. It’s feasible he’d have one. I absolutely believe he’s a man who likes playing games—and dominating in them.

Heat flashes through my body, lighting me up, as I remember being pressed up against the side of the house, hidden by the shrubbery.

I crush down the thoughts and consider the wisdom of following Anthony and Jake.

Not yet.I decide to wait for a solid minute before making a move, tracking the time by counting in my head. But before the minute’s up, there’s a clicking sound. The lights cut out, leaving me in a pitch black hall.

Adrenaline floods my system as a few shouts go up from various locations in the cavernous, three-stories-tall house. The guests have spread out far and wide—I can tell based on the distance of some of the voices. One person shouts, barely audible, “The lights just went off!”

As if this could possibly be news to anyone.

The other guests will start filtering their way downstairs, of course. But most of them aren’t accustomed to maneuvering in the dark, let alone in a house this big and cumbersome. It’ll take several minutes, maybe even half an hour, for everyone to converge.

“Everyone meet me in the front room,” Anthony bellows from the basement stairs.

I knew this was going to happen;Jakeknew it was going to happen.

The question is what he plans to do about it.

My mind whirrs over everything—

The fake necklace, the three-week friendship with Anthony, following Anthony now…

It all goes back to the Heart of the Mountain.

Jake said he got the fake made for Anthony so he could give it to Nina as a present, but how long would it take for someone to acquire a fake that good?

At least a few days, and it seems doubtful the jewelry genius who made it lives in Asheville. So add on at least a day or two for shipping.

I’m guessing Anthony wouldn’t ask a man he’d met only once to make a fake necklace for him, so the request would have come recently—too recent for Cleo to have seen the necklace on Jake’s dresserlast week.

It all clicks, finally, and I see it clear as day, the epiphany filling me with vindication.

Jake Jeffries didn’t just “find” Anthony’s wallet—he pickpocketed him and then gave it back, like me bringing Marjorie her hand bag.

Jake Jeffries is a con artist like my parents, likeme, and he wants to steal the Heart of the Mountain.

This is the key to every strange circumstance that’s unfolded over the past week.

The universe is giving me a chance to stop him and redeem myself.

The logical thing to do would be to call the police, or at least alert Mrs. Rosings to my suspicion, but I don’t have any proof. And I know in my heart, my soul, that this is his big chance. If I leave him unsupervised, he’ll take that necklace, and he’ll disappear in the wind—as surely gone as the asshat who abandoned Professor X.

Only I’m not going to let that happen.

My heart pounding, my body lit up like it’s filled with liquid gold, I lie in wait.

Anthony’s dark, shadowed figure comes up first. It’s too dark for me to see his features well, but my eyes have adjusted enough that I can make out the slight smile on his face. He foiled his mother. Maybe that would sound like a minor accomplishment to some people, but I know Mrs. Rosings pretty well by now; it’s not. He heads toward the front room with purpose.

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