Tate rolled his eyes. “I don’t know if any of this is real or not. I only know what my instincts tell me and I’ve decided to start listening to them. This will very likely make Belle feel better about living here. Helena asked us to clear the house of as many people as possible or it interferes with her reading.”
“Whatever. So you’re really not even going to try to get Belle back to Chicago?” Kellan asked with dread in his gut.
“Nah, I like it here. I’ve gotten used to beignets,” Tate explained, reaching across the desk for a file. “I know I said I wanted to go home, but home is where Belle is.”
He knew it made him a sick bastard, but he went a little nauseous at how settled Tate seemed. He was a fucker because he should be happy for his friends, but all he could think about was his own despair. If Tate and Eric really settled down with Belle, where would that leave him? Would he ever be truly content to be their “roommate”? Would he be the creepy dude who lived in their house and showed up for sex, only to slink off to a lonely bed afterward? No, she’d shut him out quickly. At the end of the day, Belle was a woman who had sex because she felt something for her partners. Getting off wouldn’t be good enough for her for long.
He forced himself to smile. He was not going to ruin their happiness. “That’s great. Have you thought about the firm? You can’t run it from here forever.”
The lamp on the desk tilted as Tate knocked it over. It began a long fall to the floor before Eric threw himself across the room and managed to catch it. There was a collective sigh of relief. Belle took those damn antiques seriously.
“That was close.” Eric managed to sit up and glared at Tate. “Dude. Bull. China shop. Watch what you’re doing.”
Tate flushed sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s crowded in here. We need to find office space.”
Eric set the lamp on the floor and got to his feet. “Yeah, we do. As to your question, Kellan, we have a proposition for you.”
His stomach took another nose dive. He’d been afraid they would do this. “You want me to buy you out?”
Eric reached down and brought the lamp back up to its original position. “Yeah, but not all at once. Obviously we’re not going to pressure you for capital. I’m going to make a list of lawyers I think you would work well with. You’ll still need partners. Unless you change your mind and decide to stay here with us. Come on, man. Southern gentlemen lawyers? We can get our mint juleps on.”
He ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t do this now. He thought he would have so much more time.
“Hey, what the hell is that?” Eric stared down at the lamp.
“Uh, it’s a lamp. You turn it on and it provides the room with illumination and aides the human eye in seeing things,” Tate said with a big “duh” in his voice.
Eric threw him his happy middle finger. “Fucker. I’m talking about this thing inside the shade.”
He walked across the room, leaping at the chance to do anything but answer the question Eric had posed. “There’s something in the lamp?”
Eric pointed to the inside of the shade. He unscrewed it, lifted it off the lamp, and handed it to Kellan.
Peering inside the lampshade, he saw a small round device. Holy shit. He knew what that was. A bug. He’d seen his father’s private investigators use them many times before when attempting to get dirt on rival politicians. He put a hand to his lips and bade Tate to look inside, too.
Tate stared for a moment, then stood. He pointed toward the back of the house. Kellan followed him, making his way to the kitchen and out to the back porch. After the door was closed, Tate and Eric both turned to him.
“That’s a fucking bug, isn’t it?” Eric asked.
“I think so. It looks like the type my father used to listen in on his adversaries. Or his mistresses. He didn’t mind cheating on my mother, but he demanded he was the only customer when he was paying.” Someone was listening to them.
Tate held a hand up. “I think Kellan’s right. That technology has got to be ten or fifteen years old, and it looked like it had been there for a while. I would bet it’s been there at least a couple of years.”
“Who would be listening in on Belle’s grandmother?” Kellan asked. A couple of ideas hit him at once. “We need to learn more about her life. Who did she associate with? What business did she sell off? Did she have any enemies? She couldn’t have been just a psychic. Haunted house or not, there’s no way a street psychic could afford this place. She had something else going on. Whatever it was, someone was interested enough to bug her place. Check with your fed contacts. I want to know if there was any reason for the feds to be investigating her.”
Tate huffed a little. “That would explain the crappy technology. I’ll sweep the house and find out if there are any other bugs. I suspect so. What do we tell Belle?”
She was worried enough as it was. He didn’t want to put more stress on her shoulders. “How do we tell her we think her grandma might have been involved in something criminal?”
“Maybe it wasn’t criminal,” Eric said.
Eric was being naïve. “Something went on in this house, and you know damn well it’s not about ghosts. Spirits from the beyond didn’t plant that device. A person did, obviously a while back. But someone wanted to keep tabs on Marie Wright. If that bug belongs to the feds, then she was involved in something nasty. If it doesn’t, then it’s very likely she was still involved in something nasty. Completely innocent people don’t normally have bugs in their houses. I don’t want to tell Belle anything until we at least know what Grandma was involved in.”
“Belle doesn’t have much family.” Tate looked back toward the door. “She’s been reading her grandmother’s journal. I think she’s really starting to admire the woman. I would hate to crush that. Kellan’s right. I’ll see what I can find out before we say anything.”
“What are you going to tell her when you walk through the house looking for bugs?” Eric asked.
“That I bought a ghost hunting kit and I’m looking for evidence,” Tate shot back. “Which is kind of true. I’m looking for spooks.”
The door creaked as it opened. They turned to see Sir running by as Belle let him out of the house. She smiled a little. “If you need fresh air, you could always open a window.”
That restless feeling was back. The minute she walked into a room, he felt antsy, anxious. There was so much he wanted from her and so much he didn’t deserve. “It got crowded in there.”
She joined them. “Well, the good news is, the whole house is empty now. Mike got an emergency call. The draper left. Everyone else went to lunch. We should be quiet for a few hours.”
Eric sighed with obvious relief. “Thank god. I have a conference call in five minutes. I thought I would have to yell over the sound of that saw whining.” He strode back into the house.
Tate leaned over and gave Belle a kiss. “I have errands to run, baby. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll be here in time for the cleansing.”
She nodded. “Okay, but she said I needed to clear out the house. The fewer people here, the better.”
Tate left, and he was alone with Belle. How could it be more awkward to talk to a woman than to make love to her? He hated the fact that he felt anything but comfortable with her. She was one of the few people in the world he could really relax around, and now all he could think about was the fact that he was going to be the outsider, the interloper. Tate and Eric would be here with Belle—live with her, love her. They would be her family, her men. He would be back in Chicago with new partners. He’d be alone again without friends. Without a woman. He’d have nothing.