Kessian didn’t look confused at all, though. He glared and slouched back in his seat, arms crossed.
“What do you want?” I asked warily.
“In exchange for your grandfather’s researchandan expedited autopsy report on your grandfather, kept hush hush so as not to send our culprit into hiding, I’d like to expand my portfolio of property, and I understand that 37 Culpepper Avenue has fallen to you. Agree to sell it to me, and we’ll have a deal.” He turned his salesman’s smile on Kessian. “You already know what I want from you, and frankly, it’s been a mercy of me not to demand it sooner.”
More secrets? I regarded Kessian with uncertainty. “What’s he talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Kessian muttered. He turned his attention on Warwick. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll do it. Not as though I have a choice. But you don’t get to demand that from Tal. You already have the spa.”
Warwick shrugged. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if I did not strike a hard bargain, and I’m not doing this one by half.”
I couldn’t yet process the feelings rushing through me. 37 Culpepper Avenue hadn’t yet felt like mine. I’d been poised to sell it because there was no point in owning a house I couldn’t live in. But I’d had that vision in the spring, the one in the kitchen of Culpepper Avenue where warm arms wrapped around me, and I stood in the prismatic light of a suncatcher at the window while Lunaris—a cat and not a caravan—groomed one paw.
Domestic fantasies were my bread and butter, but I hadn’t realized how real it had started to feel. I’d inherited the house, I had a plan to free myself from the wraith. It hadn’t seemedplausible, but it was no longer impossible, and that made a difference.
Kessian had looked at Warwick with hate, and now I felt much the same. He was ruthless and cared not a whit for the danger my predicament put us in. His money would protect him, as it always did.
I needed that research. If we said no now, there was no way he’d leave it anywhere we could get our hands on it. He’d already caught us today. Even if we managed to steal it, that still left my grandfather’s autopsy. The idea of digging him up myself sickened me. I wasn’t the spiritual sort, but standing six feet deep in a grave to examine my grandfather’s corpse seemed more than bad luck; it was an invitation for the wraith to come and lay me to rest with him.
That wraith still hunted me, and the killer was still free. He could be sitting right across from me, though I couldn’t understand why he’d help at all if that were the case. Why not hide the research and deny us any help altogether?
In a way, it seemed the theme of my life, to give up any hope of a home to protect the people I cared about. I knew in my heart Fae and Amelia would understand, but this would become one more thing my mother could blame me for.
Warwick seemed to sense my defeat. “I’ll take your agreement in writing. We’ll exchange contracts on the house in a week. Kessian, I expectyou’ll be out in the same time. Lionel!” he called, and the butler appeared in the doorway. “Please could you bring the contracts.”
“Of course, sir.”
He’d already had them prepared.
Chapter 20
Ileft Foxbury Manor feeling as though I’d made a deal with the devil. The envelope stuffed with my grandfather’s research was heavy with what it had cost.
The contract had not included anything for Kessian’s part in it. Whatever that was, Warwick hadn’t felt the need to get it in writing.
We walked back to Lunaris, parked at the end of Warwick’s mile-long drive. The first thing I did inside was fish through the old tithes in my studio for something that could dispel anything Warwick might have cast on us to spy, but none were found, and the truth serum had dissipated.
I got in the driver’s seat and turned onto the road, keen to put some distance between myself and Foxbury Manor.
I had so many questions for Kessian. Had he managed to find anything in the study? How had he known the numbers to the safe? Most of all, what had Warwick meant when he said, “You already know what I want from you”?
Then there was the kiss, which, brief as it was, still replayed like a record skipping back to my favorite part. Kessian had kissed me out of necessity, because we’d have been caught otherwise. But I’d kissed him because I’d wanted to. Before I could ask any of my questions, Kessian said, “Could you take me home tonight?”
An unexpected, painful tug in my chest made it hard to breathe, so I only managed a very articulate, “Oh?”
“I’d just like to sleep in my own bed.” He looked away, out at the dark world rushing past.
I was worried about the wraith but didn’t know how to articulate it without it sounding as though it came from the more selfish desire to keep Kessian close. The change in his demeanor worried me. All the cheer had drained from his eyes. Even the stars on his cheeks seemed dimmer.
I turned down the road toward his place. If the wraith came … Lunaris would be there, and she was only marginally more safe than anywhere else.
I parked up outside. “Can I come in so we can talk?”
“’Course.”
The memory of standing on this front stoop, imagining a future where I came back, hit me as we walked through the door. Kessian dumped his keys in a bowl by the door, kicked off his shoes, and walked the short distance through his house to the sliding door out back, where there was a small garden crowded with two small patio chairs and a round table with mosaic glass. A hydrangea took up the entire corner, its blooms in various shades of pink, purple, and blue, yellow cone flowers peppered around it, a few dahlias towering out of the bush to one side.
Kessian lit the citronella candle. Dusk was falling and the mosquitos would soon swarm.
