big sister had been upstaging her all her life. And what had she done to deserve Ione’s scorn? Treated the dead like people and listened to them when they talked. Phoebe might be green, but she was a damned good lawyer, and Ione had no business swooping in to pat her on the back and usher her out like a precocious child.
Ione had imagined herself an adult—and the only adult—from the day Phoebe was born. Only four years Phoebe’s senior, she seemed to think she’d raised Phoebe and their younger sisters, Theia and Rhea. Their mother would have begged to differ—if she’d been around to finish raising them, anyway.
The white open-work Gothic spires of Covent Temple rose out of the misty backdrop of a huddle of low clouds against the improbably red hoodoos scattered around Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte. The less dramatic geological formations among which the temple nestled couldn’t be found on any tourist map. To the casual eye, the temple was effectively invisible, hidden by a glamour. But once seen, it teased with half-glimpsed visions, a mirage ever-approaching but never reached.
It tended to be more visible the more it was brought to mind, and Ione’s slights had definitely brought the Covent and the temple to mind. Phoebe turned onto the brick-cobbled road almost without thinking, drawn by its presence. She’d never been inside. That was for the privileged few. But Diamante’s status as an oath-breaker had piqued her curiosity. From what little she knew of Covent doctrine, branding a member of the Covent as a warlock required a convention of the Conclave. Which meant the regional Covent officials had either come here in person or convened magically. Either way, such a meeting ought to have stirred up the shades, but Phoebe had heard nothing of it.
The brick drive wound through the rocks, giving glimpses of the towers, but the rain was coming down hard now and Covent Temple didn’t seem to want to be found. But just as she circled back to return to the highway, it rose out of the wall of rain ahead of her like Brigadoon on its hundredth anniversary.
Phoebe hit the brakes hard and the car whipped back and forth on the road, but the cobbled texture of the brick surface broke the swerve before she went into a tailspin. There it was, much smaller than it seemed from the highway, but gorgeously out of place with its shockingly white Gothic design. It was like coming upon the brilliant San Xavier Mission—the White Dove of the Desert—in the southern part of the state. She supposed its appearance had a similar purpose, if more arcane, visible in stark relief against its rugged surroundings for those who were meant to see it. The only difference was that the Covent didn’t proselytize.
But something other than just the temple’s aura had drawn her here. She sensed the ethereal tug of a shade but without the usual step-in immediacy. It had the same feel as the shade she’d encountered earlier, but this time it kept its distance, and its confusion and fear had receded. If it was Barbara Fisher, she’d accepted her fate surprisingly quickly. But why would Barbara bring Phoebe here? And why not step in and try to communicate?
A strong atmosphere of shade activity shrouded the temple as she drew closer, different from the shade that had prodded her here, prickling in the air with a soft electric vibration Phoebe couldn’t fully tune in to. She’d never experienced anything like it. Shades often congregated around sacred spaces, but they tended to hone in on Phoebe when she was anywhere near them, like bees to their queen, and none of them here was trying to step in. There was something off about the feel of them, as though they were hovering between one plane and the next.
For a moment she felt a little flutter, a voice trying to manifest in her head, a held breath. She caught a name—Matthew—before something jolted her as if the shade had been yanked away as it tried to make contact. In the wake of the missed connection, her head throbbed with pressure as if she’d made a sudden change of altitude. Everything felt wrong. Whatever was going on at the temple didn’t bode well, and it had Covent interference written all over it.
* * *
By the time she reached the semiprivate drive to her house, the uneasiness had faded and Ione’s unbelievable stunt was playing musical chairs in Phoebe’s head once more, with Phoebe metaphorically dumped on her ass. Leaving the wipers at half-mast, Phoebe switched off the engine and pounded her fists on the steering wheel with a loud, cathartic expletive. Thank goodness for the county zoning that kept her closest neighbors just beyond screaming distance.
Okay, Ione was out of her system. Done. She wasn’t wasting another minute on her sister’s crap.
In its place, however, the image of Gabriel Diamante—begging his brother for mercy as he was forced to leave behind everything he’d known—slid to the fore. She couldn’t get it out of her head. Something about it triggered her, too close to the feeling of helplessness she’d experienced in the early days of hosting step-ins.
In the beginning, when she hadn’t been careful about setting boundaries, she’d been paralyzed by the emotions of shades. If their deaths had been sudden and unexpected, they were often awash in anguish over what they’d lost and drowning in fear of the unknown. To force them to move on before they were ready was like holding their heads under water—killing them all over again. It was a prime example of the Covent’s arrogance, and why Phoebe was willing to let the shades in. Someone had to speak for them. But letting them in had also meant opening herself up to an intimacy that wasn’t entirely consensual.
She shivered, trying to dispel the feeling of violation, and swept her bag off the seat as she hopped out of the Wrangler. The leather briefcase seemed light. Son of a—Phoebe opened it, knowing full well what the missing weight was. She’d been so flustered, she’d left her tablet at the county jail. It had an encrypted password, at least, but what were the odds she’d ever see that thing again? It had all of her recent case notes, along with personal files—photos and videos she hadn’t uploaded to the cloud for backup yet. A quick call to the jail confirmed the worst. The tablet was long gone.
It was definitely time for a drink.
Inside, Phoebe opened a bottle of Côtes du Rhône and poured herself an oversized glass, ready to curl up on the papasan chair and do nothing but sip wine and listen to the rain as the sky brooded with storm-induced dusk. Her head still pounded from the incident with the step-in; she might as well earn the hangover. Besides, tomorrow was Sunday and she could sleep in.
Halfway to the living room, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Maybe someone had found the tablet, after all.
“This is Phoebe Carlisle.” She assumed every call was professional. Wherever she happened to be at any given moment functioned as her “office” much of the time.
“Phoebe, it’s Di.” Ione’s given name was actually Dione. She’d dropped the D when she was younger, but the nickname had stuck.
Phoebe’s thumb hovered over End Call.
“Don’t hang up, Phoebes, I need to explain.”
“Don’t call me Phoebes like we’re BFFs. We’re not children anymore. And we’re most certainly not friends.”
Ione sighed into the phone. “I don’t blame you for being angry, but that wasn’t my call. Diamante Senior hired his own counsel for Rafe and he wanted it to go through the Covent so Rafe wouldn’t refuse. And you have to recognize you would have been in over your head, anyway. The evidence is pretty damning, and there are a lot of people in the valley who’d love to see a wealthy business owner like Rafe take a fall. It’s going to be a media circus.”
“And you don’t think I can handle a serious case. I get it. Thanks for calling.”
“Phoebe. Do not hang up this phone.”
“Oh, my
