Eden's Shadow. Jenna Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ too clear, she thought and let her own hand fall into her lap. “I can see you, Armand. What happened?”

      “Good question. If you’re not hurt, I’ll find us a good answer.”

      “Don’t move,” he called as he disappeared through an ancient set of double doors.

      After a moment, her gaze slid to the side. There, not ten feet in front of her, was all that remained of a rectangular concrete planter. She’d noticed it on the gallery wall when she’d stepped over the headstone in the garden.

      But weren’t those pony walls as wide as the steps below? It should have taken a small earthquake to move the thing. The inside had been filled with dirt and weeds, so it must have weighed several hundred pounds.

      “Eden?” Mary appeared around the side of the house. “What was that crash…?” She appeared shocked when she spied the wreckage. “Whoa. Well, that sure wasn’t here a few minutes ago. Are you okay?”

      “If alive qualifies as okay, then yes.” Eden let Mary pull her to her feet, felt the ground wobble and rested her spine against one of the pergola supports. It would pass, she promised herself. She hadn’t hit the ground that hard. “As a point of interest,” she asked, “did a gorgeous man in a black shirt and jeans fly past you a minute ago?”

      “I was trying to get into the cellar,” Mary replied. “And I haven’t had a sniff of a gorgeous man since the weekend. The only person other than me who’s here is B.J.”

      Eden closed her eyes. “And B.J. is…?”

      “Mostly grunts and muscles. I met him at a party and figured he could help me arrange the vampire scene so to speak. I’d have mentioned him on the phone, but you hung up.” She nudged a fragment of the fallen planter with the toe of her boot. “Did this thing almost flatten you?”

      “Almost.”

      “You have good reflexes, Eden.”

      “I have a tail.”

      Mary eased away from both her sister and the rubble. “What you have, babe, is a curse.” Her arms twitched. “Man, I’m so glad I’m the youngest.”

      Eden left the pergola. The ground had stopped moving, but her head throbbed down to her shoulders. “When did you lose your muscle man?”

      “Twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. He saw a spider.”

      Eden’s gaze rose to the second story. “How strong is he?”

      Mary flexed her bare arm. “He’s got biceps like Popeye and a vocabulary to match. But, hey, you need a tree felled or a door ripped off its hinges, he’s your—” She stopped. “Wait a minute, you’re not thinking… My God!” she exclaimed. “You are thinking.”

      “Not very well yet, but Mary, planters as big and heavy as this one don’t just fall. It was pushed, or levered or something. I heard a grinding sound right before it came down. And don’t talk to me about vindictive ghosts. I went through that with Dolores earlier.”

      Mary sniffed. “Did you go through the curse, too?”

      Eden released a heavy breath. “There’s no curse, okay? People move heavy objects, voodoo rhymes don’t.”

      Mary skirted the dirt mound. “Go ahead and deny, Eden. Dolores will insist it was the curse. Think about it. Even if she does live in the swamp, she’s an educated woman. True, her mind’s a little left of center, but you don’t get a degree from Loyola unless it’s deserved. So, there you are, an intelligent woman believes.”

      “This is a pointless conversation.” Eden returned to the path to view the upper level. She didn’t see a flashlight beam anywhere—assuming Armand had been carrying a flashlight. Pushing on her temples with her fingers, she murmured, “I should have gone to Concordia.”

      “You should go into hiding.”

      “It’s a thought,” Eden agreed, but her reasons had more to do with a certain dark-haired cop than the family curse.

      Mary snapped restless fingers. “I wonder if B.J. went back to the car.” Joining Eden on the path, she tapped her sister’s shoulder. “Uh, about this gorgeous guy you mentioned… You did say gorgeous, right?”

      Had she? On her knees, Eden brushed dirt from the marble headstone. “Maybe,” she conceded. “I didn’t mean to.” Because it was too dark now to make out the worn letters, she abandoned her task and measured the distance between the veranda and the gallery by eye. “That wall up there is at least two feet wide, wouldn’t you say?”

      “No idea. I was in and out like Speedy Gonzales. I don’t need to bump into a ghost with a bone to pick over something one of my ancestors did.”

      Eden let it go. Where was Armand, and why hadn’t he come onto the gallery? “I’ll bet you drive a car with tinted headlights,” she accused under her breath.

      “You’re acting a little weird, Eden,” Mary remarked.

      Eden heard nerves beneath her sister’s irritation and lowered her gaze. “Someone in a car with blue-tinted headlights followed me out here tonight.”

      “Okay, I’ll buy that. Just don’t go S.L. on me.” At Eden’s uncomprehending expression, Mary clarified, “Spooky Lisa. She has moments lately of, you know, going off to Mars. She’s done it before, it’s just that since Maxwell died, one wrong word and, bam, she’s in a funk.”

      Not a prolonged one, but Eden knew what Mary meant. She’d seen them, too, those moments when Lisa appeared to put the world around her on hold.

      Maybe in the end that’s all there was to Lisa’s sudden standoffishness. A major disappointment had led to the death of their natural father and a near murder charge. Who wouldn’t react to something so dreadful? One thing was certain, funk or not, Lisa simply wasn’t capable of committing the kind of violent act that had ended Maxwell Burgoyne’s life.

      “This could be cool.” Dismissing her sister’s problems, Mary returned to the terrace.

      Eden had to squint to see her. She was only twenty feet away, but darkness had pretty much settled. In fact, the shadows had grown so thick under the balcony that little more than Mary’s silver belt buckle remained visible.

      “Coffin dirt,” Mary declared. The buckle dipped as she did. “I’ve lost the light, but you could hold a beam on it. We’ll make a body impression, spread the chunks of cement around.”

      Eden called up to the gallery, “Armand, are you there?”

      Mary’s heels clopped on the terrace tiles as she rearranged the fallen planter. “I’m no good at this. Stop shouting, Eden, and help me here. It’s incredibly… Ahh!”

      Her sentence ended on a yelp. Her belt buckle vanished.

      And a pair of hands seized Eden from behind…

      EDEN’S REACTION was instinctive. She rammed both elbows into the stomach of the person holding her. She heard a muffled “Oomph,” and felt the hands on her shoulders tighten.

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