The first thing that caught her eye was the corner of a photograph, peeking out from behind the folders and papers that littered the top of the desk.
This one was different from the ones on the wall in Eugenia’s room. Older. It showed a group of people standing on a lawn somewhere. It looked like a party. The adults held glasses in their hands and the children were dressed for some kind of important occasion. There was something vaguely familiar about it, but Claire couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
She set it aside and moved on to the file folders on top of the desk.
The first one held travel information, including itineraries and flight plans from Romania to Paris and then to New York. It didn’t surprise her that Eugenia and her companions were foreign, though Claire hadn’t expected Romania. Her eyes ran down the list of names: Eugenia Comaneci, Maximilian Constantin, Jean-Philip Constantin, Herve Constantin.
Maximilian Constantin. Max. The silver-haired man Estelle Toussaint had been talking to near the carriage house. And who were Jean-Philip and Herve? Maximilian’s sons?
She filed the questions away in her mind. Whoever they were, there weren’t three of them as she and Xander had thought—there were four.
Which meant one more possibility of someone stumbling on them in the house.
She picked up her pace, moving the first file aside and opening the one underneath it to reveal a stack of paper.
She flipped through it, trying to get her head around what it was.
“Xander . . .” she said softly.
He looked over at her.
“It’s a list of all the Guild’s supply houses in the city.” She paged to the back of the stack, her hands slowing. “Scratch that. It’s a list of all the Guild’s supply houses.”
“All of them where?” Xander asked.
Claire shook her head. “Everywhere. Here, the rest of the United States; there are even addresses in London and Asia and . . . here’s one in Turkey.”
Xander thought about it. “Well, Eugenia does have a key. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that they have a list of our locations. They’re entitled to entry anywhere.”
“I guess,” she murmured, looking at all the names and addresses. She hadn’t realized the Guild was so far-reaching. “But why would they need a list in every country?”
“I don’t know, but I think we should hurry.” He turned back to the window and parted the draperies.
Claire closed the file. She shuffled through the rest of the papers on the desk, but there was nothing more of interest. Just some receipts for area restaurants, a streetcar ticket, and strangely, a movie stub.
Claire focused on the valise. It was substantial and masculine. She could almost see the man named Maximilian moving through the city, the leather case under his arm.
She undid the brass clasp and folded back the top, surprised at how thick and supple the leather was. The case had to be old. Really old.
She put her hand inside and felt around. Her fingers brushed against several objects and came to rest on some kind of booklet. She removed it from the case.
It was Maximilian’s passport, and it was loaded with stamps. Germany, France, Hungary, China, the Caribbean, even Cuba. He had been everywhere, the dates spread out over the last few years.
She set it aside and reached back into the valise, withdrawing a long, flat piece of leather, tied with cord. Something was inside it. She unlaced the cord, unrolling the leather case on top of the desk until it lay flat, revealing a stack of folded papers.
She lifted it out of the case, releasing an odd, almost unpleasant scent. Mildew, firewood, and a bitter tang that might have been a residue of the old leather.
Unfolding the stack, she skimmed over the first page. It was yellowing, dry and thin in her fingers, the edges uneven. Formatted like a letter, it appeared to have some kind of greeting at the top (Le Plus Chere Sorina . . .) and paragraphs underneath it.
There was just one problem; it was entirely in French.
She let out a frustrated sigh.
Xander looked up from the window. “What is it?”
She started paging through the stack. “They look like letters, but they’re in—” She stopped, her eyes skimming the rest of the pages. “Wait a minute . . .”
“What’s going on?”
“I thought they were in French, but some of them are in English.”
He held out a hand. “Let me see.”
She passed them to him.
His eyes roamed the pages. “The English pages are translations, I think.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “You don’t speak French.”
He glanced at the window before leaning toward her.
“I know, but look . . .” He held out the first page. “‘Le Plus Chere Sorina.’”
Then he pointed to the second page’s greeting.
“‘My dearest Sorina,’” Claire murmured, reading the small, slanted script.
Xander was right; they were the same. Someone had already translated the letters.
He looked back at the window. “We need to hurry.”
“I know. I’m trying.”
She skimmed the English version, words and phrases jumped out at her as she read.
. . . the darker parts of our art . . .
. . . your questions about black magic . . .
. . . possible to curse someone . . .
Turning the paper over, her eyes were pulled to the signature at the bottom of the page. “What the . . . ?” Her voice was a whisper.
“What now?” Xander asked.
She pointed to the looping scrawl. “Look.”
His eyes met hers. “Marie Laveau?”
Claire looked back at it, wanting to be sure. But she knew that signature. Had seen it in the family spell and ritual book.
“That’s what it says. And look.” She pointed to the date on the front. “Eighteen eighty. Which means they were probably from Marie the First, not her daughter.” Claire shook her head. “Why would these people have letters from my great-great-grandmother?”
Xander pulled his eyes reluctantly from the pages to look back at the street. “I don’t know, but we need to wrap it up.”
“Why? Is someone coming?”
“Not yet.” He checked his phone again. “But we’ve been here too long already. I don’t want to push our luck.”
He was putting his phone back in his jeans when Claire got an idea. She laid all the letters flat on the desk and took out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Xander asked.
“I’m taking pictures so we can get a better look at these later.”
He didn’t say anything, but she knew he was stressing. She saw it in the tense set of his shoulders and the way he rubbed his hand against the barely there whiskers on his chin as he looked at the street.
She tried to hurry, taking pictures of each letter and putting them back in place, careful to keep them in the order she’d found them. When she was done, she snapped a picture of the group photograph just for good measure.
She put the letters back inside the leather case and returned everything to the valise. Her fingers brushed against a small, cold object. Taking a hold of it, she removed it from the leather case.
It was a glass vial, full of red liquid. There was a paper label stuck to it, and Claire lifted it to her eyes, trying to read the script.
She read it three times, shaking her head in disbelief, before she was sure.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she murmured.
“We have to go,” Xander said suddenly. “Right now.”
Claire looked up. “Why?”
“A black Range Rover just pulled up outside.”