Rory ground his teeth. This was weird and he didn’t like weird—he liked safe and predictable.
But he also liked having a roof over his head, and he still had twenty-one letters to scry. He rubbed his eyes behind the glasses. He’d leave the mysteries to people who could afford to care about them and just be grateful he’d make February’s rent.
But as he picked up another letter, he couldn’t shake the heavy suspicion that something about this job smelled wrong. Mr. Kenzie had said he wanted any forgeries found by breakfast.
Whatwasn’the saying?
Chapter Two
The pale winter sun shone through the east-facing windows of Arthur Kenzie’s fourth-floor Upper West Side apartment, painting the wood floors of his study with stripes of warmth. Outside, the white-frosted trees of Central Park glittered as light struck snow, and for just a moment, even Manhattan seemed still.
Arthur, however, did not have time to enjoy the morning.
“Leena Brodigan.” Arthur stood in front of the Monet hanging between bookshelves on the study’s back wall over a small settee. “Owner of Brodigan’s Appraisals, a small antiques appraisal shop in Hell’s Kitchen.” He shrugged off his suit jacket, black like his hair, and shot a sly look over his shoulder at the study’s only other occupant. “I met with her yesterday afternoon, because at least one of us has the good manners to chase leads.”
Jade raised an eyebrow. She was elegantly sprawled in one of the two leather club chairs, her dark curls covered by a cloche hat that matched the gray of her pinstriped men’s suit. On the table at her side was the coffee service Arthur had ordered up, and she set her china cup down on the silver tray. “Yes, and the other of us has the good manners to keep Fifth Avenue in decent liquor.” She crossed her long legs to display an impressively high heel. “Quality gin doesn’t run itself from Toronto.”
Arthur scoffed. “Fifth Avenue deserves rotgut. Half those arseholes call for segregation during the day then have the nerve to slither into Harlem for culture at night. Be nice to bounce those hypocrites straight out of your speakeasy and onto the street.”
“Except they’d return with the police,” she pointed out, “because we’re in America, where the law lets your people street my people, never the other way around.”
He sighed and tossed his jacket onto the arm of the settee. There were many reasons he was unhappy to be back, and Jade had it so much worse. “Why did we leave Paris?”
“Because you said, and I quote,we’ve got to save the thrice-damned world.” It was teasing, a spot-on mimic of his blended transatlantic accent, perfect as any politician or well-traveled private school graduate. “But so as long as we’re in New York, the Magnolia gives my sister a place to sing and you a place to break hearts.”
“I don’tbreak hearts—”
“We hadsixwomen ask after you last time—was that really Congressman Kenzie’s son, was he really a soldier, was he really a Harvard quarterback—”
“I played forYale.”
That earned him a fond eye roll. “Tell me more about Leena Brodigan.”
“We’re meeting at her shop this morning.” He shed his cuff links and set them on the sideboard before rolling up his shirtsleeves. “I’ve hired her for an appraisal, because rumor is hers are accurate to an almost unnatural degree.”
Jade straightened. “Unnatural? Or—?” She twitched her fingers and her coffee cup rose off the saucer and into the air, where it spun in a small circle, as if on an invisible string.
Arthur grinned. Six years on and he still got a thrill seeing magic. “My suspicion is your type ofunnatural, yes.”
She plucked the cup from the air. “That would be a lucky break.”
“We’re overdue for one.” With a grunt, he lifted the heavy Monet off the sitting room wall.
“I could have done that.”
“I’m not using your telekinesis forchores.” He awkwardly maneuvered the painting to the settee then straightened to face the small safe hidden in the wall. “Leena Brodigan ran Brodigan’s Appraisals with her husband for a decade, until he passed from Spanish influenza four years ago. She closed the shop, put it up for sale, and went upstate to be close to her sister, a longtime resident of Hyde Gardens.”
Arthur reached for the combination lock on the safe as Jade averted her eyes.No paranormal should know how to get in that safe, she insisted. “Unfortunately, Mrs. Brodigan’s sister, Lorna McCaffrey, had been battling consumption for years,” he said as he spun the dial. “She lost the battle only a few weeks after Mrs. Brodigan joined her.”
“The poor dear, losing her husband and her sister so close,” Jade said, echoing Arthur’s own sympathy. “Why was her sister in an asylum?”
He swung the heavy front of the safe wide to reveal its contents, a single small ring box. “Apparently Lorna McCaffrey thought she could see the future.”
Jade’s eyebrow went up. “We’ve never met someone with that ability.”
“Of course not. If we had, they’d be on my payroll.” He took the box from the safe, always heavier than it looked from the lead within. “But it’s a coincidence, isn’t it? One sister supposedly can see the future, the other accurately appraises antiques?”
Jade made a contemplativehmm. “You’re thinking precognition and psychometry? One saw the future, the other sees the past?”
