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She gave her housemate ten minutes, time enough for that first, mind-clearing cup of coffee, then with Yoda, headed down to the kitchen.

Cleo sat at the island with coffee, a toasted bagel, and her phone. After grabbing a Coke, Sonya gave Yoda the option of outside, which he took. Then she sat beside her friend.

“I take it our overnight guests are gone?”

“They are. Owen at the crack of dawn, and Trey not long after.”

“Makes me very glad I don’t have work that requires me to come near the crack of dawn.” She lifted the bagel, got a good look at Sonya’s face. And set it down again.

“Well, shit. Just shit! What happened? Did I sleep through something?”

“Apparently everyone did but Trey.”

As she listened to Sonya’s recount, Cleo nibbled on the bagel.

“Three a.m., binding the curse with her own blood. And I’m a hundred percent on your conclusions. Not for love of the 1800s Collin Poole, but pure jealousy and avarice. She wanted to be lady of the manor. And she still does.”

“When Patricia Youngsboro married Michael Poole Jr., she didn’t have her wedding or reception here, and refused to live here,” Sonyasaid. “Closed the manor until her son Charles inherited, and he opened it, moved in—with Lilian Crest. But for those twenty years or so, the manor stayed closed—maintained, but with no occupants. Why would she do that? Unless she knew of or believed in the curse?”

“I’m going to say both.”

“Both,” Sonya agreed. “Everything I’ve read says she was a hard-ass, status-symbol type of person. A controller, one who ruled her business and her family.”

“Yeah, I’d say separating her dead son’s twins qualifies as controlling. And downright mean.”

“She embraced all things Poole.” Sonya held up a finger. “Except the manor. The historic family home, a major status symbol. Her other son, Lawrence, never lived here. Her daughter, Gretta, never lived here. Why?”

“Because she didn’t want them to.” Instead of a finger, Cleo held up a fist. “Iron fist. That’s what you’re thinking, and again a hundred percent. But she couldn’t do a damn thing about it when her husband left the manor to Charles—Charlie—and he moved in.”

“Exactly,” Sonya agreed. “Charlie said no to the control, no to her rules. So Dobbs had her sixth bride, after a couple of decades of holding the manor.”

Sonya pushed up. “From what I can tell, Clover was already pregnant when they moved in. But Dobbs didn’t go after her, or her wedding ring, until the birth of the twins.”

“You think, after that twenty-year gap, Dobbs wanted more. More blood, more rings, more power?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“And I’m right there with you.”

“I need to find out more about Patricia Poole. She must’ve been in this house before she married. At parties, for dinner. Something. Then she shut down one of the biggest—aside from the business, the biggest—Poole status symbol, and had a house built on the other side of town. And as far as I know, she took nothing out of the manor. No furniture, no family heirlooms.

“Deuce—Trey’s father—is coming to talk to me about it this afternoon. And I want to know more about Gretta Poole. She lived a lie, pretended to be Collin’s birth mother. And she never married, raised Collin in her mother’s house. She never lived on her own.”

“Under her mother’s thumb. Or we could go to Gilead, because I bet Patricia could’ve given Aunt Lydia a run. Under her eye.”

“Yeah, with the manor closed again, until Collin inherited it, and moved in.”

Clover let loose with “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

“It’s interesting,” Cleo commented, “having a three-way conversation that includes a ghost, through her musical selections.”

“But I think she can only tell us so much, all of them can only tell us so much. That’s why we need the living. I’m going to go back to work.”

She walked to the door to let Yoda in. “If you’re not in the middle of your own and can break off, feel free to join us when Deuce gets here.”

“I think I will. I not only want to meet him, but I’d like to hear what he has to say firsthand.”

“You’ll like him. Come on, Yoda. Break’s over.”