Inheritance (The Lost Bride Trilogy, #1)(87)

“I hear that’s your off-tap go-to.”

“So it is. Bottle’s fine, I don’t need a glass.”

She handed him the bottle and wine for herself. “Has Mookie eaten?”

“I picked him up too early for him to mooch off Jones.”

“Then he can mooch off Yoda.”

She fed a couple of hungry dogs, got plates before they settled at the small table. Trey slid a slice on each plate before tapping his bottle to her glass.

“Did you get a chance to text Bree?”

“I did, and she grilled me some. Food allergies and all that. I just said you didn’t mention any. She wanted your skill level.”

“Did you tell her nil?”

With that slow smile, he shook his head. “Sorry, cutie, the pot roast ruined you there.”

“That was a one-off.”

“I hope not. Anyway, she said she’d send you something. She’s tight with her mom, so you got points for wanting to make dinner for yours.”

Sonya’s eyes laughed over a bite of pizza. “And Manny? Is she tight there, too, by now?”

“Don’t know, didn’t ask. Don’t really want to think about it. Pay up.” He gestured with his beer. “Astrid.”

“Astrid. I think I went through the mirror again.”

“The mirror from your father’s sketches.”

She nodded, drank some wine. “I don’t remember that part, but it felt like it. Which is impossible to explain.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t know if it was a dream or real, but it felt real. I was in the front parlor,” she began, and told him.

“I woke up, or whatever I did, standing by the bed again. But Yoda was still sleeping. Maybe because it wasn’t scary this time, or not scary and tragic like seeing Marianne Poole die.

“But she saw me, Trey, and looked at me, spoke to me. No one else in the room did. I think she’s the piano player. She doesn’t play in the parlor now, and I’m wondering if it’s because she’s sad. And that night, the night I saw, everyone was happy.”

“You didn’t call me,” he pointed out.

“It wasn’t scary, not like before. I admit, I’d actually feel better about it if I thought I’m hallucinating. But I’m not.”

“I can go through the house, try to find the mirror.”

“I don’t think you’d find it. I honestly don’t think anyone will until it’s ready to be found.”

“You’re ascribing a will to a mirror.”

She put a second slice on each plate. “And that’s the strangest thing about all this?”

“Got me there.”

“I’ve thought about it, a lot. I think these—I’m calling them dreams—are a positive. I’m seeing and hearing and learning. Not just names and pictures in a book. And it’s not like a movie, because I’m in it somehow. Like I step into that time, that moment.”

Brows lifted, he studied her face. “You’re adding time travel to hauntings?”

At that, she could only shrug. “And if I’d thought or said any of this a year ago, I’d have raced to the nearest shrink.”

“You’re about as stable as they come,” Trey said half to himself.

“So I always thought. I always found Cleo’s crystals and white sage, and her easy acceptance of, let’s say woo-woo, just charming and harmless. Now I’m going to be particularly glad when she’s living here and has that viewpoint.”

“How soon?”

“She hopes another week or so. She had a yard sale at my mom’s over the weekend, and told me she sold a lot. She’s packing up some things, and my mom will bring what she can. And she’s already got someone who’ll take over the apartment. Bad breakup.

“The thing is, I’m not afraid here.”

He looked her in the eye. “Ever?”

“All right, there are times. The Marianne dream, the business with the Gold Room, the banging, and the blizzard that wasn’t. But now I have Yoda.”

At his name, Yoda pranced over. Mookie followed.

“That’s right, I’ve got you. And you, too, when you’re around.” She rubbed both dogs. “And I should let them out.”

“I’ve got it. Are you trusting him on his own?”

“I’ve let him out a couple times. Watched him like a hawk. He stays close.”

“And he’ll stick with the Mook. He doesn’t wander off.”

Trey opened the door, but watched while the dogs played in the snow.

“Yoda sees them—or someone I don’t—now and then.”

Trey glanced back at her. “Mookie did whenever I brought him over to see Collin. Jones, too.”

“You said you saw a woman on the widow’s walk. A woman in white. I didn’t believe you then. I do now.”

“It wasn’t Astrid. She was blond, and the woman I saw had dark hair. I couldn’t really see her face. My father says I used to babble at ghosts when I came here as a toddler. I don’t really remember.”

Because she hoped he’d linger, she topped off her wine, got him another beer. “Anything else?”