“My real estate agent got an email. He told me.”
“And you just swooped in and bought it?”
“I wanted to live here,” Blaine replied. “This was the only way I could do it.” He shrugged. “I plan to fix it up.”
“You’ve owned it for eight years,” Galen pointed out.
“Did you really come here to talk about my decorating skills?” Blaine asked dryly.
Galen shook his head. “I want to know if any of Declan’s things were left here when you bought it.”
Now genuine confusion had Blaine knitting his eyebrows. “I bought it fully furnished.”
“I’m not talking about the furniture,” Galen replied. “I’m lookingfor personal items. Did you find any mail? What about jewelry? Maybe an article of clothing or something.”
“Nothing like that.” Blaine held out his hands and shrugged. “If that’s all … .”
He was lying. He wasn’t even good at it. He couldn’t make eye contact.
Lilac strode forward with so much swagger I couldn’t help being impressed. Her hand caught fire and she brought the crackling flames close to Blaine’s face. He cringed from her but there was nowhere to go.
“What did he leave behind?” Lilac demanded.
“Nothing,” Blaine repeated.
“I’ll arrange things so that you have to rebuild this bar from the ground up if you lie to me again,” Lilac warned.
Blaine swallowed hard. Hate glittered in his eyes as he regarded Lilac. He might have been a misogynistic jerk but Galen was right; he was more worried about himself than anything else.
“There’s a journal thing,” Blaine replied. “It won’t do you any good, though. It’s locked and everything I’ve tried to get it open has failed. It’s impossible.”
“Why don’t you give it to us and we’ll see if we can get it open?” Galen suggested.
Blaine balked. “It’s mine.”
“It belonged to Declan Wilkes.”
“I bought this place and everything in it. That includes the journal.”
“He thinks there’s some map to buried treasure or something in there,” Aurora guessed. “He thinks you’re stealing from him.”
Galen’s sigh was long and drawn out. “If we find buried treasure thanks to the journal we’ll give it all to you,” he said.
Blaine sputtered. “Like I’m going to believe you.”
“I don’t really care if you believe me,” Galen fired back. “Weneed that journal.”
“There’s no map in there,” Lilac said. “It belonged to a monster. You can’t make money off it.”
“How do you know?” Blaine challenged. “There’s a market for serial killer stuff.”
“Blaine, you won’t live to spend a single dime if you don’t give me that journal right now,” Lilac seethed. “Give me that journal and stop flapping your lips.”
Blaine seemed to consider it for a long time. Ultimately, his shoulders slumped. “Fine. But I don’t like being bullied.”
Lilac extinguished the flame in her palm. “Something tells me you’ll survive. Cockroaches always do.”
21
