I watch them go, shaking my head. I start a mantra in my brain as I trail a safe distance behind. Safe as in safe from Ellis finding something to hurl at me or scowling me into oblivion.
I refuse to believe in curses because if curses are real and that ring won’t come off Ellis’ finger, what does that mean for me? For her? For us???
CHAPTER 3
Ellis
As I follow Meryl to a kitchen that looks nothing like the outside of the building, which is all brick and black wrought iron under every window, turrets, and other fancy things from a bygone era, I’m very aware I still have my recorder going in my back pocket. I really hope that whatever happened with the ring didn’t short it out. If I lost the material from before I put the ring on, I’m going to lose my mind.
Honestly, my mind is on what I can do with that story, who I can sell it to, and the thousand ways I can ruin Ash Cromwell’s life. It’s not on the ring that has somehow crazy glued itself to my finger.
“Oh my god!” Meryl gasps after she turns to look at me.
We’re standing by the kitchen counter, which is made of something weird like cement and crushed blue and green glass with a transparent resin covering it all, and there’s a rack of pots above our head. I don’t mind Meryl, but I swear, if she spotted my recorder and tries to take it, I’m not above beaning her with a frying pan. But no, not to kill her or anything, obviously. Just to stun her so I can run out the back door. Maybe I’d whack her in the leg to scare her and then take off. I eye the big wooden door not too far from us, just in case I have to make a fast break for it.
My car is parked out there, in the small drive carved out for this part of the house. I don’t know why anyone so rich would want a house in the French Section. I mean, it’s incredibly nice, but it’s also highly touristy. If I were rich, I wouldn’t want people up in my business, no matter how historic and tempting the property might be. Thankfully, this one isn’t a funky color like most of them are. This one is brick, two stories, and is wider and longer than it is tall. It has rows and rows of windows on the first and second floors, each bracketed by a little wrought-iron decoration balcony-looking thing below it. The house is on a corner, and it takes up at least three lots going back. Also, it has a rooftop patio and garden.
Yeah, this place is freaking huge, and I hate cleaning. The maid gig is purely just for undercover purposes. If I had to clean this place all on my own, I think it would take me a hundred years just to work my way up to the rooftop.
“W…what?” I stammer. I grasp the weird countertop and stare at the glossy white cabinets so that it’s not obvious I’m eyeing the pots above us.
“Your eyes.”
Okay, that’s not what I thought she was going for. “My eyes? My eyes what?”
“They were…on the stairs…they were, like, blue. Or green. I don’t know. But they’re not blue or green now.”
“What color are they?” I’m a little bit creeped out, but I’m also losing my patience. Maybe they just wanted to scare me, or they’re making this whole thing up as a great big joke, or maybe Ash knows I’m working as an undercover journalist, and he’s making my life hell.
But no. It doesn’t explain why I can’t get the ring off when it’s not a snug fit. It doesn’t explain how Meryl and Ash got from the top of the stairs right to the bottom and were standing in front of me without me ever seeing them move. And it certainly doesn’t explain why I feel like there’s a chunk of my life missing, even if only a few minutes. I feel like I blinked—one heck of a long blink—and missed something in time. Something I can’t get back.
“Amber. I think.” Meryl leans a little closer, and she smells good. Like sweet sugar, cotton candy, or something sweet. Icing maybe? Anyway, I like it, whatever it is. “Brown with gold flecks?”
“That’s my normal color.”
“They’re very pretty. I like them.”
“Umm…thanks?”
Meryl shakes herself with a flutter of her blonde hair, and more of the delicious burnt sugar scent fills the air around her. “Right. Sorry. Oil.”
I want to ask her where the heck Ash went. Not because I want him anywhere near me, tugging at the ring, staring me down, or getting my name wrong, but because I don’t like that I can’t see him. He might be plotting something.