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“I’ll think about it,” Derek said. Now he just looked confused. He definitely hadn’t expected generosity. “Well, I hope you settle in here.”
He hustled off, taking his unsettled expression with him. I rolled my eyes and went back to the engine.
I’d just finished with the car and was washing my hands when the real man of the estate made his appearance.
“Gabriel!” Mr. Hallowell’s baritone rang down the garage’s inner hall. He ambled over as I swiped my hands on the towel by the mechanics’ sink. “Or should I call you Mr. Lorde now?”
I’d known I wasn’t happy about how Rose’s dad had kicked mine to the curb all those years ago, but I wasn’t prepared for the rush of anger that shot through me at those words. I had to pause and swallow before I could say in a steady voice, “Gabriel will do. Mr. Lorde was my dad.”
“Of course,” Mr. Hallowell said, his voice dropping respectfully.
That only made me want to punch him more. I slung my hands in my pockets instead. “I hope you don’t mind—I’ve already started getting acquainted with the staff and the cars.”
“That just makes my job easier,” Mr. Hallowell said. “You always were a gregarious one, weren’t you? By all means, make yourself at home.”
Was that a jab at my friendship with Rose? Her dad was a hell of a lot harder to read than her supposed fiancé.
“It’s not hard to do,” I said. “It was my home for longer than I’ve been away.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you back on staff,” he said, with a slight emphasis on the wordstaff. “It was good timing that Rose ran into you when she did.”
I nodded. “Good to see she’s doing well,” I said vaguely, as if it didn’t actually matter to me that much either way. That was what he wanted to hear, I was pretty sure—any indication he could get that I had no interest at all in his daughter beyond the job she’d hooked me up with.
“Yes,” he said. “She is. Are you finding everything here without a hitch? Did you need any direction?”
“So far so good,” I said. “I remember the maintenance routines. Just holler for me if there’s anything special you need taken care of, and I’ll be right there.”
I gave him my best happy employee smile. Mr. Hallowell smiled back, but I couldn’t tell how much he meant it. What the hell was going on behind those muddy hazel eyes?
Ifthisguy was planning to turn Rose into some kind of slave, how the hell was I going to help her stop him?
Chapter Seven
Rose
The town museum wasn’t much compared to some of the huge ones I’d visited on our occasional family vacations. Once a house, donated to the town’s historical society by its original owners, the main floor had been opened up into one large room with the most interesting old photos, newspaper clippings, and local artifacts. One or two volunteers, usually pretty old themselves, would always be puttering around offering their opinions on whatever you happened to be looking at.
Down in the basement, where the historical society kept their archives, I could work mostly undisturbed. But calling that dim, dusty-smelling room with its haphazard stacks of unlabeled boxes an “archive” was pushing it. I was trying to be generous, but it was hard not to think it more closely resembled a trash heap.
And not just because of how it looked.
“Have you discovered anything in that one?” Philomena asked, leaning over my shoulder. I was sitting on a hard plastic chair at the room’s sole table in the middle of the room. The table was so small there was only really room enough for one of the boxes and a little space in front of it where I could paw through the contents I’d lifted out. This was much to the apparent consternation of the skinny gray-haired man who’d joined me down here about ten minutes ago. He huffed as he peered into one of the boxes by the wall. But hey, I’d gotten here first.
“Not so far,” I said to Phil—in my head, because if I started talking to my imaginary best friend out loud, I’d really be in trouble. “I don’t even know why they held on to some of this stuff.”
I rubbed my gritty fingers together, my nose wrinkling. The last stack of papers I’d taken out had included not one but ten copies of a sale announcement from a hat shop, a school notebook that contained nothing but childish handwriting practice of various simple words, and a random piece of old leather so aged it had gotten tiny crumbs all over everything beneath it.
Phil gave a shudder, her voluminous skirts rustling. “Yes, I’m quite glad I’m incapable of literally digging my hands in—as much as I’d love to offer my aid. What are we lookingfor, exactly?”
“Any reference to the Hallowells.” I stood up to dig another armful of material out of the box. “Our estate has been here as long as the town’s been around. Maybe one of my long-ago relatives had some kind of, er, relations with one of the unsparked townspeople. Or was reported as having multiple lovers. Or something. If I can give my father—and the Assembly—some proof it was done before, it’ll be easier to convince them it’s okay that I’m doing it now.”
But so far I had nothing. I wasn’t even one tiny step closer to making sure witching society accepted my consorts. Therehadto be something. I couldn’t let them down.
The room’s other occupant brushed past the table with a mutter under his breath and a jerk of his hand over his chest. The sign of a cross. Oh, so he was one of those. My jaw tightened.
Philomena frowned at him as he prodded the boxes behind me. “What on earth wasthatabout?”
I’d only started picturing her in my life while we’d lived in Portland. She hadn’t had much time to see the varying reactions our family got in the place where we were best known.
