LITMIR.BIZ

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subject, Eden trudged through the mini jungle that had once been Therese Dumont’s prized garden to the back terrace. Gravel and broken concrete crunched underfoot the closer she drew to the old house. She spotted a beam of light—or possibly the flash of a camera—upstairs, and called to her sister. Receiving no answer, she tried again in a less patient tone.

      “Are you up there, Mary?”

      She heard a sound like stone grinding against stone and attempted to pinpoint it. She was standing beneath a wide protrusion that had once been the second-story gallery. It would have wrapped around the entire house and, in the back at least, allowed for a spectacular view of the river. Eden felt certain the sound she’d heard had come from the upper wall.

      When the air stilled and the sound didn’t repeat, she gave up. Absolutely nothing moved, not even the deadhead flowers hanging by a thread to their stems.

      One last time, she tipped her head back and called to her sister.

      To her surprise, she heard what might have been an answer. Something echoed inside the house.

      That meant she’d have to break her promise to Dolores—probably her neck as well. Pushing aside a tangle of vines, she backtracked through the garden.

      An old pergola hung at a precarious angle above her. Like everything else, it was choked with weeds, many of them dead, all of them clinging. Thorns snagged her pants, making her grateful she’d worn a pair of old hikers.

      A granite cross and a cracked marble headstone lay across the path. Eden didn’t see a raised plot, which probably meant someone had tried to make off with the stone, failed and wound up abandoning it. She looked, but couldn’t read the writing in the poor light. Respectful of its significance, she stepped over the stone and continued on toward the terrace.

      Three wide steps appeared through the dense foliage. Lisa, she mused, would love to get her green thumbs on a place like this.

      Eden yanked down one last vine and spotted the bottom step. Scratched, but glad to be out of the maze, she muttered, “Vampires live in cellars by day, Mary, not second-story bedrooms. Even fly-by-night magazine editors can tell the difference between a bed in a crumbling master suite and a coffin in the basement.”

      A train rolled past across the river. The whistle reached her over the croaking bullfrogs.

      She looked back at the fallen headstone and for a moment was tempted to get her flashlight. If the stone was Eva Dumont’s, she could tell Dolores…

      “No.” She stopped the thought flat. The past was the past, over and done. No matter what Dolores believed, there were no such things as ghosts. And even if there were, if she didn’t hurt them, why should they bother her?

      The grinding noise reached her again. Tilting her head back, Eden glimpsed a rectangular object above. Then she spied a blur of motion and felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her. She saw dark hair and a flurry of leaves and felt her body leave the ground. A second later, she landed on her back on the garden path.

      Stunned, she watched as a large white planter crashed onto the very spot where she’d been standing.

      Chapter Four

      It took Eden a long, startled moment to regain her breath and her bearings. When she was able to roll over, she found herself staring into the face of Armand LaMorte.

      He’d managed through some bizarre midair twist to land beneath her and at the same time give her a full terrifying view of what had almost happened. While part of her was grateful, another part wanted to know what the hell was going on.

      Strangely calm, she said, “Should I bother to ask?”

      He narrowed his eyes at the upper balcony. “You ask. I’ll find out.”

      Eden realized she was still lying on top of him. Pressing her palms into his shoulders, she pushed up, but he caught her before she could escape.

      “Did you hit your head?”

      She touched a sore spot above her left eye. “On yours, I think.”

      Crouching, he used his thumb and forefinger to trap her chin and tip her head back. “Am I clear or a blur?”

      All too clear, she thought and let her own hand fall into her lap. “I can see you, Armand. What happened?”

      “Good question. If you’re not hurt, I’ll find us a good answer.”

      “Don’t move,” he called as he disappeared through an ancient set of double doors.

      After a moment, her gaze slid to the side. There, not ten feet in front of her, was all that remained of a rectangular concrete planter. She’d noticed it on the gallery wall when she’d stepped over the headstone in the garden.

      But weren’t those pony walls as wide as the steps below? It should have taken a small earthquake to move the thing. The inside had been filled with dirt and weeds, so it must have weighed several hundred pounds.

      “Eden?” Mary appeared around the side of the house. “What was that crash…?” She appeared shocked when she spied the wreckage. “Whoa. Well, that sure wasn’t here a few minutes ago. Are you okay?”

      “If alive qualifies as okay, then yes.” Eden let Mary pull her to her feet, felt the ground wobble and rested her spine against one of the pergola supports. It would pass, she promised herself. She hadn’t hit the ground that hard. “As a point of interest,” she asked, “did a gorgeous man in a black shirt and jeans fly past you a minute ago?”

      “I was trying to get into the cellar,” Mary replied. “And I haven’t had a sniff of a gorgeous man since the weekend. The only person other than me who’s here is B.J.”

      Eden closed her eyes. “And B.J. is…?”

      “Mostly grunts and muscles. I met him at a party and figured he could help me arrange the vampire scene so to speak. I’d have mentioned him on the phone, but you hung up.” She nudged a fragment of the fallen planter with the toe of her boot. “Did this thing almost flatten you?”

      “Almost.”

      “You have good reflexes, Eden.”

      “I have a tail.”

      Mary eased away from both her sister and the rubble. “What you have, babe, is a curse.” Her arms twitched. “Man, I’m so glad I’m the youngest.”

      Eden left the pergola. The ground had stopped moving, but her head throbbed down to her shoulders. “When did you lose your muscle man?”

      “Twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. He saw a spider.”

      Eden’s gaze rose to the second story. “How strong is he?”

      Mary flexed her bare arm. “He’s got biceps like Popeye and a vocabulary to match. But, hey, you need a tree felled or a door ripped off its hinges, he’s your—” She stopped. “Wait a minute, you’re not thinking… My God!” she exclaimed. “You are thinking.”

      “Not very well yet, but Mary, planters as big and heavy as this one don’t just fall. It was pushed, or levered or something. I heard a grinding sound right before it came down. And don’t talk to me about vindictive ghosts. I went through that with Dolores earlier.”

      Mary sniffed. “Did you go through the curse, too?”

      Eden released a heavy breath. “There’s no curse, okay? People move heavy objects, voodoo rhymes don’t.”

      Mary skirted the dirt mound. “Go ahead and deny, Eden. Dolores will insist it was the curse. Think about it. Even if she does live in the swamp, she’s an educated woman. True, her mind’s a little left of center, but you don’t get a degree from Loyola unless it’s deserved. So, there you are, an intelligent woman believes.”

      “This is a pointless conversation.” Eden returned to the path to view the upper level. She didn’t

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