“Alley-oop!” Xander practically ran up Jameson’s back, then launched himself at the rafters.
As his brother searched above, Jameson turned his own attention to the terrace door. The color of the surrounding bricks suggested that this portion of the villa had been updated—perhaps more than once over the years, given the pattern of wear and tear. The doorway was arched, and beside it hung a bell made of aged copper.
Jameson probed at the bell—first the outside, then the interior, thenthe ringer that hung dead center, the last of which gave Jameson pause, because it wasseamed.
By the time Jameson got the metal balloutof the bell, Xander had finished with the rafters. He leapt down beside Jameson.
“Gimme,” Xander said. Jameson complied only because Xander had always had a way with mechanical things. Turning the ringer over and over in his hands at rapid speed, like he was working a Rubik’s Cube, Xander began humming theStar Warstheme under his breath.
“Got it!” Xander didn’t even try to keep the ringer in his possession once it popped open.
Jameson went straight for the object inside.Copper wires.As Jameson withdrew them, the wires uncoiled, forming a shape.A circle.
“A triangle. A circle.” Jameson was hit with a feeling somewhere between déjà vu and the electric, hair-raising anticipation of an imminent lightning strike.
The two objects he’d found in this villa were almost certainly part of the same game, the game the old man had left for his Alice.
My love, my love, my one and only love.As his grandfather’s voice echoed in his head, Jameson gave into the siren’s call of picturing Avery standing right there beside him. He willed himself to hear her voice.
A copper circle, her voice said in his head, the energy in her tone palpable, the way it always was when the two of them were standing on the verge of something.And a triangular mirror.
They’re connected, Heiress.Jameson imagined bringing his lips within half a centimeter of hers, and then, without warning, the daydream shattered, leaving Jameson staring at the objects, his mind utterly devoid of Avery’s voice.
He didn’t have the luxury of feeling bereft.
A copper circle.Jameson forced himself to think the words.A triangular mirror. Connected.All he had to figure out washow.
Chapter 18
ROHAN
River water hits the dock. The boy can hear it, but he can’t see it—not the water and not the dock. He can’t see anything.Jerking himself out of the dream would have been a sign of weakness, so Rohan instead allowed the nightmare to continue, forced it to continue.The woman holds him close, hums a quiet, soothing song, and in that song, he hears what she is not saying, words she has said before:Don’t cry, don’t cry. Whatever you do, my beautiful boy, don’t cry.
The boy knows: This is her punishment as much as his.
Of their own accord, Rohan’s eyes flew open. He’d slept with his back to the door of the shack, securing the assets inside, even in sleep. The night before, after extracting that promise from him, Savannah had returned to bed, unaware that little sister had heard every word. Rohan, in contrast, wasalwaysaware.
He grounded himself in that awareness now, in the sights and sounds and smells of the bayou just before sunrise, when the world was bathed in a hazy orange glow and the morning air was thick with humidity that kissed the wild grass as dew.
There, Rohan’s instincts whispered. Down below, Knox was barelyvisible and blanketed in brush, awake, perhaps, but still. Andthere—Rohan heard the rustle of some sort of creature roughly the size of a mouse.There—three, nofourbirds.
The water.
A wind through the reeds.
And—there. This time, the word came tinged with adrenaline in Rohan’s mind. There was a person out there—farther out, so silent that Rohan couldn’t have sworn for sure that itwashis sense of hearing that tipped him off, that had his eyes scouring for…
You.Rohan didn’t hesitate. The moment he saw the figure, he vaulted the railing on the platform, rolling to absorb the impact when he hit the ground, then flowing straight back to his feet and exploding into a run.
Someone was lurking.
Someone waswatching.
A female someone.
And now, the chase was on. The difference between Rohan’s size and his prey’s, between the length of his stride and the length of hers, should have given him a significant advantage in speed, but his target was shockingly agile. Rohan had never seen anyone move like this girl did. She wasn’t just fast or light on her feet; she was a blur with a sixth sense for shadow, for the changing terrain.
Tireless.That was the word that snaked its way through Rohan’s mind as he forced his body to forget its limits and began gaining on her.You can run, but you can’t hide, Calla.
