Page 27 of Treasure and Tarot

Iago was scribbling, Mason pulling out equipment, turning on the EMF reader and the spirit box and all the other crap he dealt with. He’d already set up a small command center in the kitchen.

“Okay. Let’s start with a basic history. Colton, Mason—you’re on. Iago, stay in the background a little for this, all right. You’ve got crazy hair, and it’s distracting.” Law grinned from behind the camera.

“Crazy hair?” Iago’s eyes went wide. “Colton?”

“Hush. You need some conditioner or something—that’s all.” That blond mess was a little…frizzy. The dry air here was really making Iago static guy.

“Oh.” Iago patted his hair with one hand and moved behind Law. “Fine. I’ll be the disembodied voice.”

“No one does disembodied like you, man.” Mason couldn’t be drier if he tried.

“Right. Goody. Let’s roll.”

Colton moved to the formal living area. “This is the room where four alphas were found murdered with an axe after their poker game, including the owner of the house, Abraham Belle. Apparently, Belle held a standing poker game here every third Thursday night. This wasn’t a rowdy game. This was snifters of brandy and what amounted to penny-ante poker. It was simply a way for four friends to be together. While there have been many, many suspected murderers, no one has ever found any definitive proof as to who committed the grisly deed.”

“Yeah?” Iago grinned at him from behind the camera and Law’s shoulder. “Who did they suspect, Boss?”

Colton spread his hands. “I’ve heard everything from a random stranger to a disgruntled omega who was dating one of the alphas to the fifth alpha who was supposed to be in the card game who ended up staying home with his sick children, Horus Marken.”

He heard the slam of a book as it hit the floor out of the camera’s sight.

“Whoa, did you hear that?” There was Mason, right on cue. “I did. This is one of the most active homes we’ve been in. Anything loose is fair game.”

“Who else was in the house the night it happened?” Iago asked.

“Abraham’s omega was here, Jeremiah. As well as the three youngest children; there were three older ones who had already left home. One had gone to boarding school, one had departed for college, and one that was off, apparently, gallivanting in Denver in an aimless way.”

“So, the owner of the house is a direct descendant?”

He nodded to Mason. “He is, and so is his child. This house has never not been in the hands of a Belle, and I think we should keep it that way.”

“That’s wild,” Mason murmured in his on-camera monotone. “A one-family house from the 1850s.”

“I know. That’s really unusual,” Colton said to the camera. “This was a mining town, but this house would have been for someone in the administration of the mine. Someone not as well off as say, the owner, but nonetheless, someone of status. So, a major murder like the one committed here would have been a huge scandal.”

Iago made a give-more motion from behind the camera. “Just think about it. This might have been the wild west, but this was the American Victorian era, and it was damn near as important to be proper and scandal-free to these families as it would have been back East. The miners would have been expected to cause issues, but not family men in fancy houses.”

A piece of china rattled on its saucer, and he glared. “You break that, and it’s really going to upset the current owner of the house, buddy.”

The cup stopped in its tracks. Iago gave him a wide-eyed stare, and Law’s jaw dropped open.

Mason, on the other hand, leaned into it. “We do hear you, though, and if you have something to say, speak into this box. That way we know what it is you want from us.”

“That’s it. There are ways to—Ow!” This time the book hit him. “Really?The Great Gatsby?”

The ghosts sure were well-read around here. And pretty pointed in their choices.

Iago burst out laughing, and Law cut the camera, cracking up hard. “Wow, Boss. Are they suggesting you’re a crooked bootlegger?”

“No, but I do think they’re saying I’m less than honest.” He shook his head, glad they’d stopped filming. “Okay, to the next room.”

They all trooped to the dining room, which was so pretty with its built-ins and the Chippendale-style dining table with its burgundy upholstered dining chairs from maybe the 1910s.

A lot of Sebastian’s stuff was…dainty for him. He felt like a great ape wandering around the house. Sebastian had always said if he was going to spend a lot of time in Hot Springs Junction they would have to get him a great big recliner to put in the family room up on the second floor.

He grimaced. “Okay, you lot. No tossing breakables, and no knives or forks stuck into people. Got it?”

“Boss—” Iago started.

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