Updating a place like this would be a painstaking and delicate process. She’d pulled all the furniture to the center of the living room and covered it with a plastic tarp so she could paint the walls the quietly elegant color it deserved. She’d selected a warm, pale gray. She intended to strip the sage-colored paint from the gorgeous original wood trim. Instead, she’d opted for a crisp, clean high-gloss white. She’d also bought a charcoal and white drapery fabric in a damask pattern, as well as a soft white sheer that would peek from beneath the curtains, enabling light to stream in but keeping prying eyes out. A simple plush black area rug would ground the space, and she’d ordered lamps with the same pop of color in their hand-blown glass bases. They’d been a little bit of a splurge, but everything she’d chosen would coordinate perfectly with the attitude of the room. Comfortable but elegant. New Orleans glamour.
Now she’d have to put off the project—and starting her new design business—if she had Gates’s interns stomping around and getting in her way. God knew what they’d do to all this original hardwood flooring. It needed repair, re-sanding, re-staining, and a quality sealer. Until she could have all that done, she didn’t want strangers walking on them, much less moving the furniture or knickknacks around. She already had three men and an eager puppy who wasn’t housebroken running all over the place and causing chaos. Even more distracting, Tate had taken up working shirtless half the time just to tempt her.
“I’ll get you the inventory.” It might take her months, but she refused to have others pawing through her grandmother’s things and slowing down her renovation.
Since moving in here, Belle had become very protective of the woman she’d never met. She’d made it through half her grandmother’s journal, all the way to her dad’s junior high years. Her grandmother had written about how much “her girls” loved him and gushed that he was the king of her castle. So apparently, Grandma had run a business of psychics out of this house. Hiring only females had been fairly smart. Women tended to be more empathetic and in tune with those around them, so they probably made better psychics. Obviously, she’d run a lucrative business, too.
Belle loved getting glimpses into her father’s childhood. The boy her grandmother had written about had been a happy kid. She’d even found some pictures of her dad tucked into the volume. In one, he’d been in overalls, wearing a goofy grin as he hammed it up for the camera.
She often thought that her mother hadn’t smiled much since the day her father died. So much of her life came back to that one tragic afternoon. Her mother had given her food and a roof over her head after his passing, but Mom had been a ghost flitting through life, allowing no one—not even her own daughter—to touch her.
Maybe if she brought her mom these pictures of her dad she’d smile.
Mr. Gates frowned her way. “I don’t think you understand how much work this entails. How precise you must be. This is a big house, and the job is far too big for one person. It would be so much better if you let me handle this. I’ll have it done quickly, but we must have an accounting of every possession, down to the last piece of paper.”
That seemed a bit extreme, but she wasn’t an expert in Louisiana inheritance laws.
Belle sighed, heartily irritated. “Fine. Send a couple of interns, but I’ll be overseeing everything. Thank you, Mr. Gates. Now excuse me.” She nodded toward the electrician, a big guy who made his way up the walk, toolbox in hand. “Hello, Mike.” She opened the door wider, allowing Gates out so the electrician could enter. “I’m glad to see you.”
Mike winked her way. He was a handsome blue-eyed devil in his early thirties with broad shoulders and a ready smile. He’d given her an estimate the day before, and Tate had been trying to convince her since then that Mike must be a lothario, a serial killer, or an escapee from a mental ward—whatever he thought would convince her to hire someone else. Eric had threatened to run a background check on the man. She sighed.
“Good to see you, Ms. Belle. I’m going to start in the bathroom today. You have a lot of old knob and tube wiring to bring up to code. You’re damn lucky this place hasn’t burned down yet. Don’t be surprised if your homeowner’s insurance won’t renew you until it’s fixed. It’s happened to more than one resident in the Quarter.”
She winced. Naturally, building codes had changed a great deal since the house had been built. Her grandmother had renovated the house since taking possession of it, but the wiring hadn’t been terribly out of date then. Drywall and paint or wallpaper had covered what people now considered an electrical sin. Still, as low as Mike’s estimate had been, it chafed. Satisfying the city and changing things she really couldn’t see was rapidly depleting her design budget. Unfortunately, it was a safety issue, so she merely smiled. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Mike shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll see one of your…friends before I see you. They seem mighty interested in watching whatever I happen to be doing.”
As he walked into the house with a grin, Belle groaned.
For three days, Eric, Tate, and Kell had been steadfast. They worked. They cooked. And they tried to seduce her. When she went out to buy supplies for the renovation, at least one of them came along. She’d tried sneaking out yesterday, but Eric had been smiling and standing by her car, swearing he needed a break.
Despite their argument about her employment contract, none of them had tried to rope her into resuming her old job. Belle had noticed a don’t ask/don’t tell policy. As long as she didn’t ask when they were leaving, they didn’t tell her to pick up a case file and get busy.
Instead, both he and Tate had caught her alone and done their utmost to tempt her to kiss them. They’d invaded her space with their big, male bodies and stared down at her with hungry eyes, reminding her of everything she’d almost had. When she’d weakened enough to melt against them, when she could feel her blood humming and her sex aching, then the bastards would walk away, reminding her that she knew where to find them and they’d welcome her anytime.
Something had to give, and she worried it would be her. She’d spent three restless nights knowing that they were just down a flight of stairs. She’d also spent three nights dreaming of dead girls swinging from a rope and the monster who dragged them to their deaths.
She shivered, despite the heat of the day. It was morbid, but she couldn’t seem to stop the terrible dreams. She’d even gone so far as to check into the house’s history on a local historical website. It hinted at the home’s colorful past. Those tales were more rumor than anything, but the police reports on file corroborated Gates’s story. All the deaths had been suicides, not murders.
“I’ll be leaving now, Miss Wright. Thank you for allowing the interns to help with the inventory. We’ll get this mess put behind us so you can move on. The most important thing is to find your grandmother’s papers. She told me she had a life insurance policy, but I don’t have the name of the insurance company or the policy number. I’ll need to file on your behalf so you can receive the funds.” Mr. Gates looked nervously around the house as though he thought someone might jump out and yell “boo.” Belle found his demeanor unsettling.
A cool breeze brushed past her legs. Cooler than cool, really. In fact, it felt like an arctic blast. Mr. Gates obviously felt it as well because he stiffened and took a giant step back to the threshold of the front door.
“I think that’s my cue to leave.” The lawyer’s eyes had gone wide. He swallowed nervously. “Expect the interns shortly.”