LITMIR.BIZ

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      “There’s no such thing as curses,” Jenna snapped. She ran her hands up and down her arms even though the day had been unseasonably warm. “I wish you’d all just stop talking about it.”

      “It doesn’t matter why,” Harold told Natalie, his voice weary but firm. As far as he was concerned, the subject was closed. “It just is, Natalie. Let’s leave it at that.”

      But she had no intention of tiptoeing around the subject because it seemed to upset her father and, for different reasons, Jenna. She didn’t like unanswered questions.

      Natalie tried to make him understand. “Sure it matters. Say, if it was originally stolen from someone, then we’re looking at a revenge motive. If this is nothing more than some kind of ‘curse’ handed down through the ages, then we’re looking for some kind of wraith or ghoul, and we’re going to need to get ourselves a ghost buster.”

      It took Harold a moment to realize that she wasn’t serious about the second half of her reasoning. He scowled at her. “This isn’t funny, Natalie.”

      “No,” she agreed. “Death never is.” She studied his face. “Now, is there something more you want to tell us about this ring, Dad?”

      There was no hesitation on his part as he barked, “No.”

      There was something else going on here, she could swear to it.

      “Then why do you look like you’ve got something to hide?” she asked, trying her best to keep her voice neutral.

      “Stop badgering my husband,” Rebecca Lynn ordered as she walked back into the room. Ricky, mercifully, was nowhere in sight.

      Natalie really hated the woman’s high-handed manner. “He was our father before he was your husband, Rebecca Lynn,” she informed her stepmother. Glancing at her father, she felt sorry for him. He suddenly looked a great deal older than his sixty years. “But, for now, I’ll back off.”

      Harold attempted to flash a smile of thanks toward her, but the corners of his mouth hardly rose.

      “We still haven’t talked about Candace’s funeral arrangements,” he pointed out heavily, uttering each word as if it weighed a ton.

      “Oh God,” Rebecca Lynn moaned, rolling her brown eyes heavenward. “Just put her into the ground and be done with it.”

      Natalie instantly took offense for her late twin. Granted Candace had a myriad of faults, but she was dead and deserved respect. She threw up her hands in exasperation. “I’ll take care of it, Dad,” she told him.

      Harold looked as if a huge boulder had been lifted off his shoulders. “You really will?”

      “Yes, I really will.” What choice did she have? She could see this “family meeting” degenerating into name-calling and buck passing. She didn’t need to be part of that. “As soon as her body is released, I’ll have Candace cremated and place her urn in the family crypt—beside Grandpa.”

      Silver suddenly spoke up. “What about a service?” she wanted to know.

      That was easy enough to address. “We’ll have a memorial service,” Natalie told her. “Just for the family.”

      But even that drew an objection from Rebecca Lynn. Hostility entered her voice. “You’re not planning to include that woman, are you?”

      They all knew that “that woman” was Rebecca Lynn’s way of referring to Anna Worth Rothchild, the ex-wife Harold had unceremoniously dumped in order to wed his current trophy wife.

      “I most certainly am,” Natalie informed her. She would have invited her former stepmother even if it hadn’t irritated her present one. That it did was just icing on the cake. “Anna was like a mother to Candace.”

      Fuming, Rebecca Lynn spun around on her heel and looked at her husband, expecting him to back up her position. “Harold!”

      She was unpleasantly surprised. “She’s right,” Harold replied. He looked like a mongoose that had accidentally fallen into a snake pit.

      Rebecca Lynn refused to accept defeat. “But she wasn’t her mother, was she?”

      Her stepmother’s high-handed tone finally managed to arouse Silver’s ire. “If my mother wants to come, she can come,” the child-star-turned-pop-diva spat out.

      Rebecca Lynn glared at her stepdaughter, barely refraining from a bevy of ripe words. She knew she was outnumbered, but refused to admit she was outmaneuvered. Turning to Harold, she delivered her ultimatum with a dramatic toss of her head. Flaming red hair undulated all around her.

      “If that woman comes to the service, Harold, then I won’t.”

      “And miss a chance to be photographed by the paparazzi?” Natalie asked, feigned surprise. The look on her face told her stepmother that she was as transparent as a glass of water. “I sincerely doubt that, but the choice,” she said pleasantly, “is yours.”

      Furious, Rebecca Lynn stormed out of the room, cursing them all to several levels of hell, each hotter than the last.

      Harold merely shook his head. Though he was still under her thumb, his new wife had lost much of her charm for him. “You really shouldn’t antagonize her like that, Natalie.”

      In response, Natalie smiled at him. “Rebecca Lynn makes it much too easy, and I have such few simple pleasures.”

      Harold didn’t bother commenting. Instead, he asked, “How’s the investigation going?”

      As she started to answer, Natalie noticed Jenna edging closer, as if afraid she might miss something. That was a surprise, she thought. She would have expected that from Silver, who, thanks to Candace’s deceptive machinations, thought of Candace as her friend.

      With five years between them, Jenna and Candace had never known a close moment—again, thanks mainly to Candace. But then, Natalie reflected, maybe she’d misjudged her younger sister.

      It wouldn’t have been the first time her judgment had failed her, Natalie reminded herself.

      Her father was looking at her expectantly. Did he think she was some kind of a magician? “It’s only been a day, Dad. I’m still following leads.”

      An impatient sound escaped his lips. “And you’ll tell me when you find out who?”

      When, not if. He either had a lot of faith in her or was playing the guilt card. Most likely the latter, Natalie decided.

      A spasmodic smile came and went from her lips. “You’ll be the first to know.”

      “Do you have any, you know, suspects?” Jenna asked.

      The immediate male population. Out loud, Natalie said, “Someone the camera caught Candace smiling at.”

      Jenna’s eyes widened. Natalie thought she heard her stop breathing. “Who?”

      “Unfortunately, the person was off camera, so we don’t know. But I’m doing my best to try to piece it all together.”

      “If anyone can do it, my money’s on you, Nat,” Jenna said.

      Natalie said nothing. She only wished she had half the confidence that Jenna had.

      Natalie remained at the mansion another hour or so after her sister’s departure. Her father detained her with his incessant questions about the murder investigation, while stressing how crucial it was to locate the mystical ring that was all but a third party in all this. Finally disentangling herself from him, she went home to see if she could make any more headway with the copies of the tapes that Matt had given her.

      It took a little doing before she could pull them up on her own computer. The computer, she had long ago decided, was not her friend.

      But she did what she could and made progress using baby steps.

      Engrossed,

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