Page 33

within the hour.

The tub was a huge basin that didn’t look like a tub at all. It

wasn’t like anything Coralyn had ever seen before. She made

sure to instruct Giana only to use a few inches of water and to

stay upright. Giana had rolled her eyes, but she must have seen

how scared Coralyn was, all her nervous energy pouring out of

her at what she was about to do, and so she’d agreed.

“Giana?” Coralyn called from down the hall.

“I’m still alive,” she said, laughter in her tone.

Rage burned through Coralyn. This was the same woman

who had stood in her office and spurned her. Who hadn’t felt a

damn thing when she’d begged and pleaded for her to do

something to grant a dying man peace. She hadn’t cared. I was

interested in hearing what you had to say and now I’m not.

That was the gist of it. She was hard and cold, and that made it

easier for Coralyn to do what she had to do.

Even if finding her mother’s necklace in a house this size

was nearly an impossible task. There were too many other

priceless artifacts just out in the open. Clearly, Giana

Thompson liked to look at the things she collected. Her house

looked more like a museum and an art gallery had a really

fucked-up baby than it did a home. Even Giana had exclaimed

a soft, breathless, holy shit when they’d walked in the door.

That about summed up room after room filled with

expensive artwork on the walls, glass cases displaying

everything from clothing from other centuries to a woolly

mammoth tusk. Who the hell owned one of those? There were

fossils and knives in cases, rocks and crystals, bugs in frames,

vintage signs, celebrity memorabilia, a bookcase of ancient

books just like at her office, and so many other things that it