Love's Shadow (Brothers Maledetti Book 2)

by Nichole Van

  All of me wanted to gather her against my chest again, comforting her.

  Naturally, dumb Dante beat me to it.

  I had to watch as he gave Lucy a solid hug and whispered, “We’re going to find her.”

  Lucy pulled back, swiping at her cheeks.

  Well . . .

  If Dante could hug her, then so could I.

  I opened my arms, and Lucy moved past Dante to collapse on my chest, body trembling in terror. My arms engulfed her, heedless of the sting from bandaged scrapes.

  I met Dante’s eyes over her head. He looked grim but determined as he surveyed the bedroom.

  Lucy continued to shake, pressing her face into my chest. Tension hummed, palpable and thick.

  Dante started with the bed frame, touching it and glazing his eyes in concentration.

  Like me, Dante could focus and sift through past scenes, seeing them. No sound or other senses. Just sight. Unlike me, he wasn’t limited to moments of change in an object. He could see anything at any time, provided the people involved were dead. Which, I suppose, was a different sort of alteration.

  All of us hoped he didn’t see Grace.

  Because if he did . . .

  Lucy whimpered, clutching me tightly, face buried in my t-shirt. I held her close, stroking her back.

  After a few moments, Dante lifted his head and smiled at us.

  “I’m not seeing Grace.” His deep voice rumbled through the room, relief-filled.

  Lucy tightened her arms around me, shoulders shaking.

  “Lucy.” I nudged her with my arm. “Did you hear Dante?”

  Lucy nodded, face still pressed into my chest.

  “He’s not seeing Grace. She’s alive,” I continued.

  Lucy’s response was to cry harder, tension collapsing into emotional release.

  Dante met my eyes above Lucy’s head again, his gaze clearly stating he understood more than I wanted him to. I definitely had a long, uncomfortable conversation looming in my near future. No way Dante would let this go. Stupid, pathetic me . . . because soothing Lucy was worth the price.

  I cuddled her closer, hungry for the sensation, knowing this would probably be the last time I would ever hold her. And she needed comfort right now.

  Dante looked away and continued to study the room. He picked up some toys, a fuzzy pink blanket, touched her dresser and then her nightstand. Each time his eyes glazed in concentration.

  “No Grace anywhere,” he said.

  Lucy hiccupped and pulled back from my chest, leaving a rapidly cooling wet spot on my shirt for the second time today.

  I sternly told my arms to let her go . . . which they very reluctantly did.

  Lucy looked up at me, eyes bright, freckles stark against her pale cheeks. “S-she’s alive. She’s still alive.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  Dante scanned the room. “I’m not seeing much at all, to be honest. Whoever took Grace, assuming someone did, is alive too. Did you hear anything unusual, Bran?” He looked at me.

  I shook my head and caught him up to date on what I had ‘heard.’ Dante twisted his mouth to the side, thinking.

  “Did Grace use this blanket?” He pointed to the pink blanket, fuzzy and covered in princesses.

  “She did,” Lucy wiped her damp cheeks on her t-shirt.

  “Do you mind if I keep it for now? I want to make sure Grace doesn’t appear. Disconcerting, I know, but any information is good at this point.”

  Lucy swallowed and rapidly blinked back tears. “You’re right.” A whisper. “Anything is better than not knowing.”

  Dante sighed, turning to study the room again. “I wish I could have seen something that would help us find Grace—”

  “Actually, would you mind doing one more thing?” Lucy sniffled and shot me a quick glance.

  What was she up to?

  “Sure.” Dante draped the blanket over his shoulder. Somehow managing to pull off the pink princess look even in an Armani suit.

  Figured.

  “Would you mind reading objects in the living room, too?”

  “Of course.”

  We all filed down the hallway and into the living room. Lucy swiped her cheeks a couple more times before snagging a tissue and drying her tears.

  “Thanks again, Dante.” Lucy sank into the sofa, curling her feet underneath her. “I heard you got married.”

  “I did.” Every line of my twin’s face changed, beaming love and devotion. “Two months ago.”

  “Let me guess. Tall. Blond. Leggy?”

  Dante nodded, smiling wider. “Her name’s Claire. You’d like her.”

  Lucy squirmed, knowing all-too-well that she would probably not meet Claire. “I’m sure I would. Congrats.”

  Lucy and I watched as Dante methodically worked his way through the room, concentrating on one object and then moving on to another.

  Dante and Claire had been married a few months ago in a small private ceremony atop our family palazzo. I had moved out of the apartment I shared with Dante on the piano nobile and into a spare room in Nonna’s apartment to give the newlyweds their own space.

  Dante was flying out in the morning to join Claire in Boston. Her mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier in the week, and Dante insisted on being at Claire’s side, supporting her as she cared for her mother.

  Part of me still couldn’t believe Dante was married and probably already thinking about kids. Granted, we had turned thirty-one this year, so it wasn’t like my mom and Nonna hadn’t been nagging us for years to settle down and start giving them grandkids.

  A brief image flashed through my head. Lucy pregnant, belly round, looking at me with all that adoration she had faked fifteen minutes ago as my pretend girlfriend—

  The thought nearly brought me to my knees.

  I swallowed. Hard. Sucking in a long, steadying breath.

  I would sign up for that in a heartbeat. Tiny red-headed kids running around, spunky and sweet, just like Lucy.

  My heart hungered for it with a ferocity that nearly made me nauseous.

  Forcibly, I visualized a razor-sharp knife and cut the fantasy from my mind.

  When . . . when would this torment end?

  Jealousy flared. Not for the first time.

  Dante was head-over-heels, to-the-moon-and-back in love with Claire. And she with him. Unlike Tennyson or myself, the love of Dante’s life had simply landed in his lap. No insurmountable complications.

  Everything was bigger, better and plain easier for Dante—life served up on a silver platter. While Tennyson and I had to deal with this half-life, both madly in love with a woman who wasn’t meant for either of us.

  Being the non-Dante part of our little triumvirate could be trying at the best of times.

  I swallowed back my resentment, knowing I wasn’t being fair.

  Dante hated that things were simpler for him, that his GUT was just plain easier to deal with. So much so that his guilt spilled over into a mother hen-like protectiveness with Tennyson and me.

  It wasn’t his fault he and Claire had found their happily-ever-after. He most certainly wasn’t responsible for this impossible Lucy love triangle.

  And yet . . .

  Resentment and jealousy were irrational emotions. Hard to understand and even harder to control.

  Dante had moved on from the larger furniture, touching the knickknacks.

  Lucy hopped up from the couch and grabbed the silver vase that had ‘attacked’ me, for lack of a better way of describing it.

  “What about this one?” She handed it to Dante.

  I shot her my best Are you kidding me? look behind Dante’s back.

  She gave me a signature Try and stop me shrug.

  I knew from past experiences that the vase wouldn’t harm Dante. After all, he had read Nonna’s silver teapot before I touched it.

  Dante stood still for about ten seconds, holding the vase and then shook off his trance.

  “What were you expecting m
e to see?” he asked Lucy.

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I asked.”

  Dante frowned. “It’s not a terribly old object. I saw an elderly woman arranging flowers in it. That’s all.”

  Interesting but not unexpected.

  “So now what?” Lucy sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  “We need to talk to Roberto,” I said.

  Lucy and Dante swiveled heads in my direction, my twin raising an eyebrow in question.

  I gave them the low-down on Cat Lady’s conversation, mentioning that Professor Ross’s alibi was hardly airtight without going into how I knew.

  “Cat Lady is also concerned about something bad that happened in the palazzo,” I said. “She kept going on about how Lord Knight should have left things in the ground.”

  Dante made a humming noise, thinking. “Then Roberto becomes curator at the museum, solidifies his obsession with John Knight-Snow by befriending his great-whatever nephew, Jeff, and next thing you know, Jeff’s daughter, Grace, disappears.”

  “Exactly. The connection is thin but there.”

  “So what was the deal with John Knight-Snow?” Dante asked, both of us turning to Lucy.

  “I’m not sure, to be honest.” Her eyes went unfocused as she dredged her memory. “I know there was some sort of scandal, and Gruncle Jack died young and childless, which is why the title and everything passed to my direct line. But that’s not much to go on.”

  “I did hear something interesting with the mantel, Dante,” I said. “An Englishman talking. It could possibly be Jack himself or, at least, related to Jack. Would you mind taking a look?”

  “Of course. How old do you think it was?”

  I paused. I couldn’t say I had actually seen a man wearing early nineteenth century clothing. Dante didn’t know that my gift had morphed, and I wasn’t interested in having that particular confrontation right now.

  My brothers and our secrets from each other.

  “By his British accent, I would say probably around 1820 or so—”

  “That is the right time period to be Gruncle Jack,” Lucy chimed in.

  Dante nodded and touched the mantel, again going into that unfocused trance of his. Usually he simply stared forward. But if something were interesting or unique, he would track it with his eyes.

  This time, he did just that, keeping a hand on the mantel but swiveling to take in the entire room. He stood staring for several minutes. There would be about two hundred years of people and scenes to sort through until he hit the one I needed.

  What would he see? My GUT was so debilitating and yet so limited at the same time. Sound was hard to contextualize. Sight was much more useful with things like this.

  Dante frowned. Let go of the mantel and then touched it again. Restarting his vision, so to speak.

  He stared for a moment. And then did it one more time—let go of the mantel and retouched it.

  “What’s up?” I asked, wanting him to speak so I could ‘hear’ his emotions.

  My twin shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” His confusion and surprise swamped me. “Let me check it one more time.”

  He did that let-go and retouch thing one more time, still shaking his head.

  “Okay, that is officially the oddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Dante finally said.

  “What?” Lucy and I said at the same time.

  Dante gazed back at the mantel and then studied the room, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I was scanning back through time just fine. People moving in and out of the room. Soldiers in uniform from both World Wars. Women in bustles and then hoop skirts that got progressively less poofy. All normal . . . everything appearing substantial and real, like I always see the past.”

  “Okay.”

  “But then I hit the early nineteenth century and a man. Tall. Thin.” Dante shook his head again, lifted his eyes to mine. “He wasn’t solid.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean? Not solid?”

  “He was . . . wispy. Like smoke, totally transparent. The weirdest part . . . it was only him. Servants, people visiting . . . they were all solid as could be. But the man was consistently diaphanous. See-through. Do you think that’s who you heard?”

  “Possibly.” I was nearly one hundred percent sure that was my guy. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise.

  But, for me, the entire scene had been gauzy, not just the man. Why was it different for Dante? Why did Dante see everything else as solid, but that one man was ghost-like?

  It made no sense.

  “What did you hear?” Dante asked me.

  “It was frustratingly incomplete. This man was ranting about how he should have left something alone. That it was love’s curse.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “Do you both think it’s Gruncle Jack?”

  Yes. But I didn’t want to tip my hand. So instead, I said, “He’s a good candidate, but without an old portrait to compare with Dante’s vision, it’s hard to say.”

  “Mmmm, I’m not sure there are any portraits of Gruncle Jack, so we may never know.”

  Why was Gruncle Jack ghost-like to Dante? Was something changing for him? Why was my GUT morphing to encompass my other senses? Could we trust the information our family ‘gift’ was feeding us? And if not, what did that mean for missing little Grace—

  Bzzz. Bzzz.

  The doorbell.

  We all looked at each other.

  “Cat Lady.” Lucy pushed herself off the couch with a sigh.

  Dante and I followed her to the door.

  A police officer stood on the other side.

  “Lucy Snow?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Inspector Paola requested I visit you. There have been some changes.”

  Lucy tensed, her eyes going wide. “What happened?” A whisper.

  The officer handed her a sheet of paper. “The Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari decided this apartment is a . . . a—” He waved his hand, searching for the words in English and then gave up. “—una scena del crimine.”

  Lucy glanced at the paper written entirely in legalese Italian and shot me a panicked look.

  “The Judge over the preliminary investigation has declared this apartment to be a crime scene,” I said quietly.

  “But why now? They’ve had a day to make that decision. Did something change?”

  We all looked at the officer.

  He lifted his shoulders. “I cannot say.”

  “Oh! What happened?” Lucy covered her mouth with her palm. Tears flooded her eyes. “My Gracie . . . Dante just saw . . . my Gracie is still alive—”

  “Hey, it’s probably simply a precaution.” I took her by the shoulders.

  Lucy collapsed against my chest for the fourth time today, not that I was counting or anything. “M-my Gracie has to be okay.”

  I met Dante’s eyes, his gaze just as troubled as mine. The poor police officer stood nervously in the doorway, obviously unsure what to do.

  “Everything will be alright, Lucy.” I ran a comforting hand up her spine. “No one dies on our watch.”

  Thirteen

  Seattle, Washington

  Six years earlier

  Lucy

  Wow. That’s really . . . high.” Branwell craned his neck back with the rest of us, staring up as the roller coaster plummeted down the nearly vertical track.

  People eddied around our group. Prize bells of carnival booths clamored. Popcorn, grease and cigarette smoke hung in the air.

  “You gonna do it?” Dante asked his twin.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Dante grunted, wrapping an arm around his girl du jour. Tiffany? Brittany? Gah, they changed so often I couldn’t remember her name. Blond, tall and giggly. That was all you had to know about Dante and women, I had realized.

  “Well, we’re both in,” Dante said, arm tightening around Blond Giggler.

  Tennyson squeezed my own hand. I smiled and leaned into him. Branwell remained a
part from our small group. Alone.

  He was always alone. For some reason, that fact tugged at me, made my heart ache.

  “C’mon, Branwell,” I encouraged. “It looks awesome.”

  “He’s afraid of heights,” Tennyson deadpanned.

  Branwell nodded, eagerly agreeing.

  I snorted. There was something kinda awesome about a huge, lumberjack of a man being terrified of heights.

  “You have to do it, Branwell,” I said. “Choose fun. It’s the Snow family motto.”

  “Choose fun?” He turned those hazel eyes to me.

  “Yeah. Attitude is everything, in the end.”

  He studied me some more, eyes inscrutable.

  I popped a hand onto my hip. “You guys have a family motto too, right?”

  The three brothers bobbed their heads, eerily similar. Kinda hive-mindish.

  “Just don’t die,” Branwell said.

  I blinked. Darted glances at each of them.

  “That’s your family motto?”

  “Yep.” Tennyson shrugged. “My mom still says it all the time. ‘Have fun at the soccer match. Just don’t die’.” He did a fair mimic of Judith’s voice.

  “And given the height of that roller coaster . . .” Branwell’s voice trailed off, lost in the screams of said roller coaster plunging again.

  Mmmm. “Have you ever considered adopting a less morbid family motto?” I asked. “Or at least raising the bar on it a bit? ‘Just don’t die’ seems sorta bottom-barrel, expectations-wise.”

  “You clearly have never experienced Italian traffic.” That was Dante.

  “Ha-ha. I’m simply saying that a lack of death is hardly an admirable benchmark of success.”

  “Maybe, but we have a solid one hundred percent success rate.” Branwell eyed the roller coaster. “And I’d really like to keep things that way.”

  “Well, I for one am going to ‘choose fun’.” Tennyson winked and tugged me toward the roller coaster line. Dante and Blonde Giggler followed.

  “I’ll sit and wait.” Branwell motioned toward a nearby bench.

  We were halfway to the roller coaster when his voice reached us. “Just don’t die, you guys.”

  Fourteen

  Florence, Italy