Page 16 of Her Dark Lies

He laughs, his head tipped back and throat moving with the effort, and I join in. There is nothing more joyous in my life than watching Jack laugh.

He finally gathers himself. “I told you my grandfather stayed in some Hollywood starlet’s Villa in Tuscany and came home full of ideas. He and my grandmother renovated the place back in the seventies. They wanted it to be open and airy, welcoming, a good place for kids to run and scream. We took advantage, trust me. The entire Villa was redone, but this is the most modern area and yes, I can see what you mean, the happiest space.”

“It has great energy. I can’t wait to explore every corner.”

“We will explore it all, darling, I promise. But for now, let me show you our room.”

10

Venus Calling

We start for the stairs—this place is a rabbit warren, a maze of corridors and hallways. It’s going to take me weeks to learn my way around. Jack points out rooms—dining room, breakfast room, parlor, billiards, the path down to the kitchens, another to the gardens—but he’s in a hurry, and my mind is spinning too much to comprehend anything except the massive grand staircase that winds up and up and up to the residential floors of the Villa.

The staircase: thick semicircles of marble with a dove gray runner up the center. Columned on both sides, it sweeps up seventeen steps before the landing diverges into two formal curves, one left and one right. The banisters are made of dark polished wood and iron spindles. A balustrade runs the length of the hall above, the parapet giving a magnificent view of the foyer below. I halt, craning my neck backward to take it all in.

“Oh, wow.”

“You like?” Jack asks, smiling.

“I do.”

They make such a statement; I feel drawn to them. I can see a painting forming in my mind, swirls of gray, roiling in fury, limned in spectral white on the edges. There is a sense of the uncanny to this, of ghostly presences scurrying in our wake. A metaphorical ascent to the unknown. A foreboding journey. I’ll call the paintingCassandra.

We begin our own ascent. The six-feet-tall windows on the first landing show the sea. The thunderhead still crouches possessively over the mainland. In the distance, I see a bright fork of lightning. The labyrinth path leads away beneath us, and further still are the cottages.

I catch something out of the corner of my eye. A flash of white. The scarf I saw earlier? Is the mysterious cliff greeter now in the cottages?

“Jack?”

But it’s gone before he can say, “What, darling?”

“I thought I saw something—someone—in the cottages. The same white scarf from the cliff.”

He stares out the window, but there is nothing more to see. The scarf, and its wearer, are gone.

I laugh lightly.

“It must have been my imagination. I think the jet lag is setting in. Or my head is playing tricks on me. I thought I’d done so well resetting my body clock by getting up at 4:00 a.m. for the past week, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Oh, my poor girl. I’ve tired you out.” He kisses my forehead, and I try to shake off the eerie sense of lingering otherness that hangs about the landing.

“I’m sorry, Jack. The break-in—”

“Shh. It’s okay. I promise we’ll get everything sorted out.” He grins, trying to set me at ease, as always. “Come on. The sooner we get this meeting out of the way, the sooner you can crash.”

I’m not sure how he can just forget everything that happened. He’s a good compartmentalizer; I’m the opposite, I worry things to death, running them through my mind over and over.

“Stop. Please. I want to know who broke into our house. I want to know why.”

Jack tugs me up the staircase to the right. The hallway is tastefully lit, slate floors covered with a silk geometrical-patterned runner, marble tables that house a few elegant pieces, a few wooden armoires, and more art.

“We’ll know more soon. Karmen is handling things. She’ll be in touch as soon as she has answers. Trust me, darling. You’re safe. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Karmen Harris is the head of Compton Security. Wherever Brice is, she is close by. And technically, the Crows work for her. That’s why she’s looking into the shooting, dealing with the police. It is her charge who shot the intruder.

I haven’t met her yet, but I know Jack thinks she’s smart and tough. I suppose this makes me feel better, but still, Karmen wasn’t the one staring down at the masked face of an intruder in her house.

“Okay?” he asks, smoothing my curls back from my face.