Ghost Flower Read Online Free

off.”
    Bridgette looked at him curiously. “It was your idea.”
    “Well, I changed my mind. It’s a bad bet. And as I’m sure you’redying to remind me, not the first.” He shifted his eyes to me. “I’ll drive you back to Tucson. Unless you’d rather ride with Bridgette.”
    “Either way.”
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bridgette watching us, and I sensed she was amused. “Bain, may I speak to you for a moment?”
    He dragged his eyes from me and glowered at her. “What?”
    “Let’s go upstairs. You might as well stay for dinner. I made
macaroni au gratin avec lardon
,” Bridgette said, with a hint of challenge.
    Even though I had no idea what that was, I was suddenly ravenous. I’d skipped breakfast and lunch, and my dinner the night before had been a day-old scone. “That’s a favorite of mine,” I told her, like I ate it every day.
    Her eyes narrowed again, but she turned and led the way up the staircase. They led up one floor into a wide open space with the windows I’d seen from below on one side, and a wall of French doors on another. There was a fancy-looking kitchen with an island surrounded by six tall stools with backs. An immense overstuffed couch and chairs were grouped around a huge sheepskin rug, facing a fireplace. The furniture was all white or cream and modern but comfortable looking. Three places were set at the kitchen island with plates and napkins and glasses and forks and spoons that looked like they could be real silver, and the smell of something delicious baking came from the oven. The kitchen area alone would take an hour and a half to clean properly.
    But what drew my eye was the piano. A baby grand made of a rare dark wood gleaming like a beacon off in a corner by the French doors. It was a beautiful instrument.
    Bridgette pushed Bain through one of the French doors onto the balcony that ran the length of the building, said to me, “Help yourself to whatever you want. We’ll just be a second,” and closed it behind her.
    I took a bottle of Perrier from the refrigerator and moved toward the piano, which would give me a good vantage point to watch Bridgette and Bain. Lines of photos in matching hammered silver frames marched down the length of it like officers in the Army of Memory.
    I picked up the largest one, a smiling group overlooking a tennis court. Unlike the others, it had a dark matte around the edges as though it had been cropped, and the center seemed shifted. A woman with striking silver hair sat in the front near the left edge, with an athletic-looking man in a yellow polo shirt and seersucker shorts leaning against the balcony edge behind her. There were enough physical similarities to make me think he might be Bain and Bridgette’s father. The man was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking intently to the left, off the side of the photo. On the other side of the old woman stood Bain and Bridgette, slightly younger, both dressed for tennis.
    Every detail, from the glint of the double strand of pearls the old woman was wearing with her tennis dress to Bridgette’s unscuffed tennis shoes to the watch tan line on Bain’s wrist above the red handle of the racket combined to make the picture look like an advertisement for How the Rich Live. They were all smiling and appeared to be a complete happy family with everything in the world they could want. But it had a careful, curated feeling that seemed sinister. What was the man looking at so intently just outside the frame?
    Suddenly I felt cold. I moved my eyes from the photo to the real thing outside. Bridgette and Bain walked up and down the balcony, so I could only catch snippets of their conversation. At first they went in jerks, a few steps forward, then a stop to argue, then a few more steps. Bain seemed angry and shrugged Bridgette’s hand off, but then his posture changed, got straighter. I made out the words“fool us” and “leverage,” before they moved on and the