“Which is how you know the story.”

“Um, no. Plenty of locals know the story. You’ve seriously never heard it?”

He shook his head. “If this house is connected to James, then the obvious answer is that he lured us here. The e-mails would be easy enough to fake with his technical skills.”

“His team’s skills. James himself isn’t much of a techie. But yes, he could have convinced someone to do it. He doesn’t have any direct connection to the property, though. I’m thinking of someone else who lured me to an abandoned building under false pretenses.”

“Tristan.”

I looked at the weed-choked lane leading to the ruins. “We should take a look.”

The proper response at this point would be: Are you kidding? Or, Are you fucking shitting me? Gabriel would never be so profane, but the sentiment held. We’d been lured to an abandoned estate, and I wanted to go check it out? Clearly madness. But Gabriel only sat there, gazing down that lane, considering.

“I have my gun and my switchblade,” I said. “Which I suspect wouldn’t stop Tristan, but if he wanted me dead, he’d have done it at the psych hospital.”

“He doesn’t want you dead. None of them do. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pose a serious threat.”

“So . . . no?”

He opened his door and got out. I followed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was said that the driveway to Villa Tuscana had once been topped with crushed marble, imported from Italy. I don’t know how likely that is, but there was no sign of it now. The lane passed between rows of giant hemlocks and was choked with ivy and wild roses, so thick that we couldn’t see beyond the tangle.

I knew what was there, though: one of the most haunting and beautiful places I’d ever seen. My dad had brought me there, twelve years ago, after I heard about it at a party with the Morgans and I’d begged to go see it. We hadn’t told my mother, of course. It was trespassing. Also, we’d get dirty.

My dad had been almost as enamored of the Villa as I was, but in a very different way. I’d seen spectacular architectural beauty reclaimed by nature. Even now, I could feel the pull of it, an intimate, primal mingling of the civilized and the wild that called to me.

To Dad, Villa Tuscana had been a lesson. No matter what you accumulated in life, it meant nothing if no one cared enough to continue your vision. Now, being here and thinking of him, my mind turned to the department store, his life’s work. Yet as soon as I felt guilty for abandoning it, I could hear his voice.