Tate shook his head, an amused light in his eyes. “At one point, yes. The word is, he ran afoul of the local voodoo priestess. According to local legends, the Peterman family had been in New Orleans for years and made their money in shipping, but the times changed and so did their fortunes. One Madame Charitte went to the local police and claimed that Peterman had come to her and asked her to summon the devil to make a deal with him to restore their fortunes. She refused to be involved in dark magic. The cops claimed she was a kook and ignored her. Of course, Peterman was a long-standing donor to their charities, if you know what I mean.”

Kellan didn’t like where this was heading. “So Peterman had the police in his back pocket. Got it. But do you really think the man would try to call the devil? That sounds insane.”

“According to Madame Charitte, Peterman had brought her a detailed spell to work that involved a very nasty sacrifice,” Tate explained.

“He had daughters, two of them,” Eric reminded. “Both supposedly hung themselves.”

Kell gaped. “Like the girls in Belle’s nightmares.” She’d finally confessed this morning that she’d been having terrible dreams since she’d first moved in about two girls being hanged to death. But… “You can’t think for a minute that the man sacrificed his own daughters to the dark side and got away with calling it suicide.”

“This was back in the fifties. Peterman was considered an upstanding citizen. In the wealthy community, there was an outpouring of sympathy when both of his daughters committed suicide.” Tate pointed to the headlines. “So tragic, right? All evidence of ritual sacrifice was covered up. Although, if he managed to make a deal with the devil, ol’ Lucifer didn’t keep up his end of the bargain. The business went belly-up within a year, and Peterman shot himself in the library. Police reports suggest his body was discovered roughly where Belle said she saw the shadow person.”

“Come on, Tate. Don’t get distracted by this. It’s a great campfire story, but totally illogical. There’s something else going on here.” He turned to his other friend. “Give me something real, Eric. Has Sequoia run all the searches we asked for?”

Eric chuckled. “Yes, but he says it’s bad karma to invade someone’s privacy. So here’s the rundown. The plumber is clean. Captain Ron had a couple of parking tickets and was cited for public intoxication years ago, but that’s all. The landscaper got sued for stepping on someone’s prized hydrangea. But Mike, our friendly neighborhood asswipe, has a little more on his record.”

Something akin to joy lit Kellan up inside. He really hated that asshole. “Please tell me he killed someone or something juicy we can use against him to keep him far from Belle.”

“Sorry. He was convicted of bribing a city official to turn the other way on code violations for a wealthy client. He did six months, but it looks like he had a lot of trouble in jail. While there, he had multiple trips to the infirmary because the dude got his ass handed to him. Other than that he’s sadly clean. No violent offenses. I don’t think we can bury him or that Belle will kick his ass out. He’s doing all the follow-up work under the original contract so it’s not costing any extra money.”

Tate glanced through the folder. “It looks like Grandma’s lawyer has some unsavory connections.”

Kellan snorted. He didn’t know a lawyer who didn’t. “Well, we can ban him from the house. I think he’s got a meeting with Belle this afternoon, but it’s just to pick up the final inventory list since we all pitched in to finish that. I found the insurance paperwork so he should be satisfied. He won’t need to come here again. From now on, we’ll take meetings at his office.”

And that was about all he could do. Frustration welled. Who the hell had left the note on her wall that day? True, the warnings seemed to have stopped, but Kellan didn’t like unanswered questions. They tended to come back to bite him in the ass.

He didn’t care how quiet this person had gotten. The situation could be dangerous and whoever the hell masterminded it was human, not some shadow person or ghost.

“So have we looked into Helena?” Eric asked.

“Who is that?” Kell snapped.

“The psychic.” Tate acted as if he should know. “Mike, the perverted electrician, recommended her to Belle. I’d call another psychic if I knew one, but I don’t. This one seemed all right.”

Oh, fuck. Could his day get more surreal? “We have a psychic now?”

Tate waved them both off. “Yeah, she’s a psychic medium, dude. She does house cleansings. I talked to her this morning and, lucky for us, she’s free this evening.”

“Yeah, lucky, man. I’m shocked she doesn’t have a full schedule of house cleansings. Uhm, you do know that grifters tend to make room on their schedule for naïve idiots, right? It’s kind of how they make their living.”

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?”