Methodically, he walked through each room in the mansion. When he reached the master bedroom, his temple throbbed and his gut twisted. He’d seriously have to hit the ibuprofen when he got back to the security desk. Everything was in order. Balcony doors closed and locked, weird art still overlooking the bed in a creepy way that made him question the Stevensons’ sanity, nothing amiss on the balcony or in the massive bathroom or walk-in closet that was as big as his apartment. His eyes fell on the bedspread.
It was rumpled like someone had sat down or tossed something on top. It wasn’t like that before. During his first walk-through, he’d thought the beds were so tightly made you could bounce a quarter off the top. He frowned. Nothing else was out of place.
At a jog, he surveyed the interior of the house, then locked up tight before inspecting the grounds on his way back to the security office in the guardhouse at the property entrance. He didn’t find anything peculiar. Head pounding, he slipped into the guardhouse and pulled up the video surveillance. The Stevensons didn’t have a camera in the bedroom, but they had one in the hall. Maybe he could see something.
He selected the file and navigated back to the time he’d started his last tour of the property, 1:00 a.m. At 12:59, the hall camera picked up a tightly made bed, as he’d remembered. He kept watching. He should appear at any moment. The picture froze, then blipped. The bedspread rumpled. He looked down at the time. One o’clock. He backed up. Unrumpled. Rumpled.
He checked the other security files. Every room empty but the ones he’d been in. No one had come in or out. Another stab of pain pierced his frontal cortex.Fuck, this was ridiculous. He pulled open a drawer and dispensed a dose of Excedrin into his palm, washing the pills down with coffee he’d left on the desk before he’d walked rounds. It was cold and stale.
While he waited for the fuckers to kick in, he leaned back in his chair and advanced the digital recording slowly back and forth again. Exactly as before. Not rumpled. Rumpled. What the fuck? Did the Stevensons have a cat? A ridiculously powerful air-conditioning unit?
It didn’t matter, did it, as long as the thing he was hired to protect remained. He wouldn’t be able to rest unless he knew for sure that rumple wasn’t a sign of something more.
Nick hustled back to the house, up to the master bedroom, and slipped into the closet, cursing his decision to take this gig. His partner, Soren, had begged him to fill in for him tonight. The guy was celebrating his anniversary and said he couldn’t find anyone else. Nick had wanted to say no but, in the end, caved under the social pressure. Now he held his breath and entered the code for the safe Soren had given him. If the jewels were missing…
A diamond as big as his thumb sparkled from its place on the blue velvet, flanked by a set of matching earrings. All pieces accounted for. He closed the drawer again and rubbed the back of his neck.
That was it. He was officially losing his mind.
Checking that everything was exactly as he’d left it, he smoothed the rumple in the bedspread and returned to the guardhouse. Maybe he was overthinking this. Soren had said this job would be easy money. He was overqualified. All the experience in the field was making him paranoid. Aside from his dog, Nick’s entire life was his career, and he loved the work with everything in him. He’d been overextending himself, burning the candle at both ends. It happened, and based on the hours he’d been putting in, he was overdue. That was it.
With a laugh, he started a fresh pot of coffee and swore he’d give Soren hell the next time he saw the bastard.
* * *
It tookRowan over an hour to undo the mistake she’d made with the detective. Every part of her ached, but then what did she expect given the significant amount of magic she’d had to use to bamboozle his brain? Nick Grandstaff—that was his last name according to the identification she’d found on him—was one distracting man. Once she’d dosed him with Harriet’s elixir, she hadn’t been strong enough to deny her curiosity about him.
She’d been stupid to let her guard down. Stupid to shed her invisibility in the first place. Beyond stupid to thentalkto the man.
The only explanation was that he’d simply set her off-balance. She’d never reacted to a human the way she’d reacted to Nick. It was as if she’d been confronted with a triple chocolate cake after going a day without eating. She’d beenenthralled. Maybe she’d gone too long without the pleasures of a man. Or maybe the stress of faking her death had made her careless. She shook her head. Who was she kidding? It was precisely carelessness that had resulted in her need to scrap that identity in the first place.
The glass doors to Zelda’s Folly, the art gallery in Chelsea she owned and operated with Harriet, was a welcome sight. She turned her key in the lock and was relieved to find Harriet waiting for her in the office, although the gallery had been closed for hours.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” her friend said. She smoothed her expertly coiffed gray hair and leaned back in her seat. Harriet had been working all night but still looked fresh in a rose-colored suit with chunky pearl jewelry. “You must let me know if you are delayed, Rowan. I was worried we’d have to hold another funeral.”
“Sorry. I should have called.” Rowan pulled the lockpick from her pocket and tossed it on the desk. The enchanted object was no longer the shiny silver file Harriet had given her but a crooked, rusty antique with a flat section and a kink, as if it had been placed on railroad tracks like an old penny.
“Ye gods!” Her thin lips drew back. “What happened?” Harriet came out of her chair and rounded the desk to pull her into a hug. Her neck smelled of Chanel No. 5. “Are you okay?”
“I had to use the nuclear method.”
“Oh, Rowan. Caught again? My word, you are a terrible thief.”
She arched an eyebrow. “At least this time I didn’t get arrested. I dropped my invisibility to save energy and a security guard walked in on me. I had to put the full whammy on his brain.”
“How did he even know you were there?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he’s an overachiever who walks the house and grounds regularly or something.”
Harriet frowned. “Did you get the Raindrop?”
Rowan reached into her zipped pouch and scooped the necklace and earrings out. She laid them on the desk. “I left the replica behind. Had to.”
“If the replicas are ever assessed by a professional, they’ll never pass as the real thing. It’s a weak enchantment, layered on top of a set of plastic Barbie earrings and a cupcake pendant. Even an amateur witch could unveil the truth with a snap of her fingers.”
Rowan laughed at the thought of Camilla sporting a cupcake around her overly Botoxed neck. “By the time they learn the truth, it will be too late to do anything about it. I wiped the detective’s mind. He’ll be lucky to remember his name.”
“Detective? I thought you were stopped by security… a rent-a-cop?”
