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“Just let me get my robe,” Elizabeth said and was through another door and back again in fifteen seconds as if she were certain Ravinia might rob her or try to kidnap her child if she weren’t watching her like a hawk. “Okay, this way.” Elizabeth shrugged into a thin robe and cinched the belt as she led the way. Once they were in the kitchen area, she leveled her gaze at Ravinia again. “What do you know about the falling bridge?”
Rex sat in the Nissan and gazed at the house where Elizabeth Gaines lived with her daughter. His job was finished, but he didn’t want to leave. His mind was on the elusive, harried woman he’d seen for a few brief moments. She was tough, he thought, or tried to be, protective of her daughter, but mostly she was scared out of her mind. It didn’t take Ravinia’s “gift” to see that.
Something was making Elizabeth very, very afraid though she was trying like hell to hide it.
What?
He was certain she was Ravinia’s long-lost relative. The family re
semblance was strong. High cheekbones, arched eyebrows, blond hair, and pointed chin. Elizabeth’s eyes appeared to be blue, though, he suspected they might change with the light. Similar to Ravinia’s. Something else seemed to connect them, too. Something beyond the physical.
Shit, Kingston, now you’re sounding as crazy as Ravinia.
Not that it mattered why Elizabeth was scared. His part in the bizarre escapade was over. He could probably go home and leave Ravinia to her own devices, but still he sat in his car, parked a block and a half down from the Ellis house. He’d chosen the area because it was in the shadows, away from the vaporous illumination cast by street lamps.
When he and Ravinia had first arrived, they’d found that Elizabeth wasn’t home. Ravinia had insisted on waiting and he’d gone along with it, telling himself that it was just best to get this investigation behind him. While they’d waited, a police cruiser had come by several times and he’d realized he wasn’t the only one watching the Ellis home. A female officer had stepped out and knocked, then when no one answered, she’d gotten back in her cruiser and circled the block. Rex had been forced to move his car, regardless of how much Ravinia squawked; he didn’t want to be questioned unnecessarily. Then Elizabeth had returned and the woman cop had gone to her door and inside. Rex had wanted to ask Elizabeth what that was all about, but she was too skittish. He was surprised, really, that Ravinia had found her way past the door at all.
His natural curiosity was aroused by all of it, and though he should just drop the whole thing from his head, collect his fee, and move on, he couldn’t quite make himself. Seeing Elizabeth Gaines Ellis in the flesh had also woken something inside him. He could feel it, and it kind of pissed him off. What the hell was that about?
God help him, he couldn’t be interested in her.
“Christ,” he muttered, frustrated. Still, while Ravinia was inside the house and probably telling Elizabeth her fantastical story—and how was Elizabeth going to react to the tale of young women dressed as if they belonged to a previous century by a loving but frightened matriarch who suppressed their natural gifts of ESP and kept them safe from the outside world and maniacal half brothers?—he reached for his iPad, glad he’d taken the time to charge it, and did some research on Elizabeth, looking into her life, her job at Suncrest Realty and as much as he could learn about her late husband, Courtland Ellis.
Elizabeth braced herself and listened in silence to the story that unfolded from the girl.
Ravinia began with, “You probably have an ability to see things before they happen. You saw the bridge collapse.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I’ve met some people from your past, Beth Harper and Bernice Kampfe. They wanted me to let them know how you’re doing. I think they were worried about you, too.”
Beth Harper and Bernice Kampfe . . . Elizabeth felt unexpected tears suddenly burn behind her eyes. People who were always nice to her. There had been so few when she was growing up.
“My Aunt Catherine is your mother,” Ravinia went on. “She gave you away when you were a baby because . . . well, it’s a really long story, but she didn’t think you’d be safe if she didn’t give you up.”
Elizabeth folded her hands, her pulse running fast. Her biological mother. The thought pulled at her heartstrings and she reminded herself that she was vulnerable, that she had to tread carefully in these dangerous emotional waters. Don’t believe this. It’s a ploy, and a damn good one.
Ravinia went on, telling her of the lodge where she’d grown up with her sisters, Elizabeth’s cousins, of which there were many, apparently. When she got to the gifts each of them possessed, Elizabeth felt herself pull back. No. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t.
But she did. Breaking her silence, she asked, “What’s your gift?”
Dead serious, Ravinia answered, “I can look into a person’s heart and see if they’re good or bad.”
“Really.”
“You don’t believe me, but I looked into your heart at the door. You’re a good person. Just scared.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to say that what Ravinia was suggesting was impossible, but she remembered the heat that had suffused her, the sense that something had gone through her.
She was starting to believe there was something . . . a connection to the lodge called Siren Song, a link that sent a cold sliver of fear through her.
“You don’t need to be scared of me,” Ravinia said, reading her.
“I’m not.” But it was a lie, and they both knew it. Elizabeth, nerves shot, grabbed a glass from a cabinet, filled it with water from the tap and glanced over her shoulder at Ravinia. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks.”
Fair enough. Elizabeth took a long swallow, thinking she could really use a glass of wine, firmly convinced that would be a really bad idea about now. She needed her wits about her. Silently counting to ten, she said, “Can you start at the beginning? I feel like I’ve just walked into the third act.”
