Page 13 of The Rainbow Recipe
“You came all the way here and don’t even know for certain that the death wasn’t natural? Not buying it.”
She washed her hands, then eyed him skeptically. “You’re talking. Do you only do that when interrogating people?”
He crossed his arms, glared, and waited.
She glared back. Unlike her impish cousin Evie, Priscilla did glares very well. He still wasn’t impressed.
A malevolent gleam lit her cat eyes. “She thought about you while terrified and just before she keeled over. Someone else, quite possibly male, shouted in mental triumph. Someone killed her, no matter what the coroner says.”
Even through his pain, he caught that.Mentaltriumph? “You read minds?” he asked in incredulity.
Nine: Jax
Afterthought,South Carolina
Jax tookthe stairs down from settling Loretta into her attic eyrie, rubbing his hand over his over-long hair. In his carefree bachelor days, he’d always made time for haircuts.
He had to face it—despite his single status, he was no longer a carefree bachelor.
He encountered the second reason for that in the cluttered Victorian parlor. Looking like a particularly scrumptious sunset-haired genie, Evie sat cross-legged on the hearth, examining a Ouija board. Given her difficulty focusing, she’d be calling in her family next, except it was a school night, and her sister was a teacher with a kid to put to bed.
He was even starting to think like a parent. With Evie’s aid, he didn’t mind. Evie soothed his often rebellious soul, allowing him to reason clearly instead of punching something.
“All right, go over this again.” He dropped in the recliner he’d added to the décor. No more balancing on hippy papa-san chairs or Victorian horse hair for him.
That he had bought his own chair for Evie’s home warned him he was on a precipice.
“I’m being followed by a moon shadow?” she suggested in wan amusement. “A very confused one who alternates between fear, anger, and worry. Communication is still iffy. I’m used to ancient spirits. I’m still learning about fresh ghosts.”
“You’re assuming this is Kit-Kat?” He’d reach for a beer, but he needed a clear head to deal with Evie’s weird problems. He hoped it was progress that he now accepted she had problems odder than most.
“She’s the only person I know who died recently, and she seems to respond to names Kit-Kat knows.” She leaned over the Ouija board to touch the planchette.
“OK, I have to get this out of the way—will she be coming to bed with us?”
Evie shot him a look he couldn’t interpret. “Want to try taking her back to London?”
“Pricey, but if that’s what it takes...?”
“I think if we give her a little time...” Evie shrugged when the planchette didn’t move. “I wish Pris was here. She’s a better sensitive than Grace or Iddy.”
Evie’s cousins were far weirder than her sister Grace. Together...Jax shifted uncomfortably. “So we play this one by ear until you can bring your family together?”
“It’s frustrating, but realistically—in my experience, ghosts don’t remember names or even how they died. Maybe if it had been prolonged torture...She really doesn’t know any more than we do.”
“Can you ask her where Lucia is?” That seemed like a dangerously missing piece.
Evie rubbed her temple and searched the room. “I don’t even know if she’s here.”
That couldn’t be good. Jax shuddered at the idea of a ghostly rainbow appearing over their bed at an inconvenient moment. “If I touch that Ouija thing, would that help?”
She shrugged. “We can try. If there’s any clue in Pris hearing Dante’s name before Katherine died, then maybe another Ives will help form a connection.”
“You realize family names are artificial, and that genetic links to any distant ancestor are ephemeral, don’t you?” Jax sat on the floor across from her.
“You can look at my family and call our genes ephemeral?” she scoffed. “Now hush, clear your mind, seek outside yourself.”
Feeling like three kinds of fool, but accepting that for a woman as rare as Evie, he’d play clown if necessary, Jax set his big hands on the bamboo planchette. Evie had an old board, of course, no plastic for her family. The triangle didn’t move.
