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Sophia nodded, satisfied. “You’ve done what I asked of you. I’ve already settled up with Blaise Howard.” She nodded to the chair beside her. “Would you care to join me for supper?”
I took one look at the plate of food, cheeses and cured meats and some grapes that would normally have had me tucking in before the invitation was fully out of her mouth, but my stomach shriveled up like a raisin in the sun. I couldn’t imagine sitting here with her, trying to make painful small talk while I nibbled.
“Thank you for the offer, but it’s been a long night. I should be going.” I was exhausted. As it was, I was going to need ghostly intervention to make sure I didn’t end up snoring into my steering wheel.
Luckily for me, Sophia didn’t seem to take it personally. Just nodded, and went back to staring at the idol like someone seeing their baby’s face for the first time.
I turned to beat feet out of there, but paused. My conscience got into a fight with my need to vamoose, and won by a hair.
“Ms. Erepto? I just…” I sighed, feeling her gaze on me like a weight. “Manos doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to just give up easy.”
“He’s not.”
I nodded. “Just... Be careful. Please.”
Sophia smiled, really smiled for the first time I’d met her, and I was so surprised, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Rowe.” Her lips curled, pleased as a cat with a canary feather sticking out of the corner of her mouth. “My uncle and his lackeys won’t be a problem any longer.”
She turned her head to look out over the gardens again.
A bit balled up by her assurance, I followed her gaze to a statue right at the front of the garden. It looked new, almost blindingly white. The craftsmanship was amazing, every line of his face, every crease in his suit done in perfect detail. I just didn’t understand why she would want a statue of Manos, especially one where his face was all twisted up in fury.
It actually took me a couple more seconds to figure it out.
Listen, I’m no dumb Dora, but living in Haven Hollow, you learn real quick that while some legends are true, most are twisted, or even just flat out wrong. So, I really was puzzled for a good, long second before I remembered that the Erepto family were Graeae, and that there was a very good chance that if even one legend about them was true, then that statue probablywasManos.
If people were getting turned to stone, I was extra glad I’d managed to get the idol back and that I’d made Sophia happy. Because the last thing Darla Rowe needed was to be immortalized in stone for the rest of her years.
Let’s get out of here,Cain muttered, tense.
I couldn’t agree more.
“Well, that’s good,” I babbled, getting a wiggle on. “Thank you for coming to Spook Society, and have a nice night, ma’am!”
I didn’t run back to my car, but it was close. I mean, I’d wanted to be immortalized on the silver screen, not in marble. It made me worry about Dimitri and what had happened to him. But not enough to stick around and ask. Hopefully, he’d managed to make his escape.
I’d just gotten the doors locked and managed to get my heart rate back to a rhythm that was more waltz than jitterbug when my phone rang.
And there went my pulse again, because the caller ID told me it was Blaise Howard calling. It was late, after midnight by this point, and bosses didn’t call that late with good news.
I thought about letting it go to voicemail and just dealing with him in the morning when I’d had some sleep, but that might just make him madder, and while he couldn’t double fire me, I still didn’t want a man like Blaise Howard mad at me.
“Mister Howard,” I answered, trying to sound chipper and not shaky. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“I just got a call from Sophia Erepto.” His voice rumbled across the phone line and right into my sternum. “She says that you went above and beyond what she’d hoped for from Spook Society.”
I’d been braced for it, my eyes squeezed shut, so the comment took a few seconds to actually make it through my brain. I cracked one eye open. “She did?”
“She did.” He didn’t sound pleased, he sounded begrudging. And that begrudging sound only got thicker when he finished up with, “Keep up the good work, Miss Rowe.”
Then he hung up.
As for me? Well, I just sat there, listening to the dial tone for too long, feeling numb with surprise.
I still had my job. I still had Cain. I’d gotten praise, however faint, fromBlaise Howard.
If I grinned any harder, it was going to touch my ears.
