Under the Boardwalk (Costas Sisters 1)

She rifled through her sister’s closet, searching for something to wear. She pulled out a black miniskirt and red leather bustier from the closet. Lordy, her sister actually wore these clothes?

Ariana held both up in front of the mirror and turned from side to side. How ironic that she now had to take on the look and persona of the person she’d always chided her sister for becoming.

“Barbie with a black wig,” she said, frowning at the sight. She had to make the huge transition from professor to vamp in one night, and she wondered how she’d ever pull it off.

“Looks more like a Halloween costume than something my Ari would wear,” her mother said from the doorway to Zoe’s room.

Ariana blew out a puff of air in frustrated agreement. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She looked over her shoulder at her mother.

Elena wore a long black dress that matched her raven hair, which cascaded down her back. Lace sleeves covered her arms to the elbows and then trailed to the floor. Her mother was wearing her Morticia outfit.

“You know when I first saw you standing there, I had a sense of déjà vu.” Elena curled her fingers around the molding in the doorway as she spoke. “I felt an immediate rush of relief that Zoe was really home.”

Ariana understood her mother’s feelings. For all her eccentricity, Elena adored her daughters. “Come here, Mom.” With a smile that didn’t come easily with Zoe missing, Ariana extended her hand, needing her mother’s hug as much as she sensed Elena needed hers.

Elena shuffled across the room with tiny steps. Beneath the dress, she twisted her ankles in a practiced move that would put Angelica Huston or Carolyn Jones to shame. “Show season’s over,” Ariana reminded her mother.

“All the more reason to keep my skills highly polished. Although things may change soon.” Before Ariana could question her, Elena finally reached her daughter and pulled Ariana into her arms.

Closing her eyes, Ariana breathed in deep and, for a moment, immersed herself in her mother’s love. She soaked in the warmth and caring, then pulled herself together. She needed to be the strong one and help her mother through this hard time.

“Mom, Zoe will be fine.” Ariana counted on Quinn’s words as she reassured her mother. She was putting her faith in a man she’d just met and a story he refused to tell.

She straightened and tossed the clothing onto the bed behind her. “I need something more middle-of-the-road,” she murmured, speaking of clothing. “What do you suggest I wear to Damon’s?” she asked her mother.

The normally unflappable Elena stiffened suddenly. “Damon’s?” she asked, her voice rising. “Why on earth would you want to go to the casino?”

Ariana lowered herself onto the bed and urged her mother down beside her. Since she already had one daughter missing, Ariana hadn’t told her mother she’d been shot at yesterday, and she understood Elena’s worry now.

She squeezed her mother’s soft hand. “You aren’t going to lose me, too. I just want to ask some questions and find out if anyone knows where Zoe went.”

Elena’s gaze remained downward, studying the patchwork quilt on Zoe’s bed. “But the police already questioned people,” she said, urgency in her voice.

“I know but it can’t hurt for me to poke around some more. I owe it to my sister.” And if she wanted to be able to face herself in the mirror ever again, she owed it to herself, too.

Elena shook her head vehemently. “You can’t go there. It’s not safe. And I can’t be responsible for anything happening to you, too.”

Ariana raised an eyebrow at her mother’s words. “Who said you were responsible for anything? Is someone blaming you for Zoe’s disappearance?” But even as Ariana asked, her mother’s shenanigans came back to her in living color and a sick feeling settled in Ariana’s stomach. “You were involved in a con, weren’t you? You and Zoe. And now she’s disappeared.”

“Now darling . . .”

“Do not patronize me.” Ariana rose and began pacing the floor. “For years you’ve been playing people and now you finally got into something dangerous!”

“Not exactly.” Elena stood and glided slowly across the room, Morticia-style, until she came up beside Ariana. “It wasn’t a con. At least not in the traditional sense.”

“I didn’t know there were traditional cons,” Ariana said, disgusted. She tipped her head to the side. “Okay, tell me what happened.”

Elena twisted her hands in front of her. “If only you two weren’t so independent! So strong-willed. If only you’d find a good man like your papa and get married . . .”

Elena always rambled when explaining, and even more so when she was upset or nervous, but Ariana wasn’t in the mood to hear her mother extol the virtues of having a man by her side. “What does this have to do with Zoe’s disappearance?”