“Yeah.” She drew the word out as she stared at the green vine crawling over the exterior walls. “That is notably weird.”
Gabe grinned as he started climbing the covered outdoor stairs. “Sometimes I wonder if the vines are trying to smother the house.”
Her brows lifted. There had been examples of weird vegetative abnormalities at sites with high paranormal activity. The Hoia Baciu Forest came to mind, which featured an unexplained circle where no living thing grew and a ton of firsthand accounts of the paranormal, but she’d never seen anything like this .
“This is my private entry,” Gabe explained as he rounded the second-floor landing. “Lucian’s is over in the right wing for now, but he’s moving out, and Dev is up there.” He jerked his chin up.
Her stomach dipped for some dumbass reason at the mention of Devlin’s name. They stepped out onto the wide, second-floor porch. She followed him around the corner and then saw comfy chairs lined up. There was a closed book, one that appeared to be an old historical romance based on the beautiful dress the model was wearing on the cover. The book rested on a wicker end table. The ivy had made its way to this level, spreading along the walls and even curling around the legs of the chairs. When she looked out over the railing, she wasn’t surprised to see the ivy covering that, too. Down below, there was a huge lima-bean-shaped pool and a . . .
“Is that a plane ?” she asked.
Gabe chuckled as he opened the door. “It’s Dev’s.”
“He has a plane?” She turned to him. “Why would he need a plane?”
“He travels a lot for the company. I guess for him it’s easier to have his own jet,” he answered. “It does come in handy when you want to head somewhere on short notice.”
“I imagine so.” Actually, that was a lie. Rosie couldn’t imagine waking up one day and randomly deciding to go Paris or the Caribbean, walking outside, and hopping on a private jet. Like her brain formally rejected the notion and she was a fairly spontaneous person.
But she was not a super-wealthy spontaneous person.
“Rosie?” Nikki’s voice floated from somewhere in the recesses of the house. “Is that you?”
Gabe stepped aside, allowing Rosie to enter what was definitely not an ordinary bedroom in a house. It was an apartment .
An apartment triple the size of hers.
Feeling way out of her element, her gaze shifted to Nikki. “Surprise?”
“What are you doing here?” Nikki shuffled toward her.
“I helped Gabe get some clothes for you.” Rosie dropped her purse on a chair near the door. She met Nikki halfway, clasping her cool hands in hers. “I wanted to see you and he said I could come over.”
“Really?” Nikki’s wide, one good eye swerved toward Gabe.
“I didn’t see a problem with it,” he responded. “I’m going to take this back in the bedroom.”
She stared at him for a moment and then focused on Rosie. “I’m glad to see you. I’m just surprised. They aren’t really fond of having people over here.”
“You were surprised?” Rosie giggled. “I was prepared to beg and plead to come see you, even hold your clothing hostage, but I didn’t have to argue at all.”
“That’s . . . wow. Okay.” She glanced in the direction Gabe disappeared. “Sit?” She didn’t wait for Rosie to answer, leading her over to a couch. “I just woke up from a nap, so this was perfect timing.”
“You look a lot better.”
“You’re such a liar, but thank you.”
That wasn’t entirely false. Some of the swelling had gone down and her left eye was open a little, but yeah, she still looked pretty terrible. “How are you feeling?”
“A lot better. I’m sore, but I’m alive.”
Rosie glanced at the hallway and when she spoke, she kept her voice low. “How is everything with Gabe?”
“Good, I guess.” Nikki leaned back into the thick cushions. “I mean, we haven’t talked about anything, but he . . .”
“He has you set up here, in the de Vincent compound, searched me down to make sure he got the right stuff for you, and even allowed me to visit?” Rosie whispered back, remembering what Devlin had told her. “And his br—”
“Want anything to drink?” Gabe yelled from the hallway.
Rosie’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll tell you later.”
Nikki studied her. “Okay.”
Just about then, Gabe appeared and then decided both of them needed a glass of sweet tea. It was strange, sitting in the de Vincent house, being served iced sweet tea by a de Vincent. It was so surreal, she hadn’t even thought about whipping out the Electronic Voice Phenomena recorder she always carried with her.
Nikki must’ve been reading her mind, because she said, “I’m surprised you don’t have one of those electronic meter thingies out and taking readings.”
“A what?” Gabe asked, sitting down on a barstool that butted up to the kitchen island.
“An EMF meter. It detects electrically charged objects, like power lines and ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” he repeated.
“Yep. See, it’s believed that when spirits are around, they emit electronic charges into the air, and an EMF meter will pick up on that.”
Nikki nodded. “I’ve actually seen her use one and it went off in the middle of nowhere, where there weren’t any power lines or electricity nearby.”
She was talking about that old cemetery near Tuscaloosa, where she’d met Nikki at the University of Alabama. “I don’t have an EMF meter with me, but I do have the EVP recorder.”
Interest filled Gabe’s expression as he hooked his feet on the bottom rung of the stool. She realized then he’d taken off his shoes. “And what does that do?”
Grinning, she glanced over at Nikki and saw that her expression had softened as she stared across the room at Gabe. “So, EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena. The recorder can catch intentional voices—voices you hear with your own two ears—and it catches voices that you can’t hear. Often it picks up just words or short phrases, but if you’ve got a place with a lot of EVPs, then you want to bring in a spirit box.”
Gabe lowered his glass of tea. “Like a Ouija board?”
“Hell no, I do not mess with that shit.” Rosie scooted forward. “Spirits sometimes need energy to communicate and there’s evidence that white noise in radio frequencies can provide the necessary energy. A spirit box provides that energy.”
“Why won’t you use a Ouija board?” Gabe asked, and there wasn’t an ounce of judgment in his tone. Just honest curiosity. “Figured ghost hunters would be all up in that.”
“Only ghost hunters who don’t care what door they may be opening or who they may be contacting,” Rosie said, thinking of what happened with Sarah. Sometimes being a medium was like being a living, breathing Ouija board. “And not to mention, my mother would straight up knock me into next week if she knew I was messing with those things.” She paused, looking over at Nikki. “I could take out the EVP recorder and see if we catch—”
“No. No way.” Gabe held up a hand. “I do not want to know what ghosts may or may not be saying. I’d rather just pretend that everything about this house is completely normal.”
“Gabe and his brothers have this remarkable ability to explain away everything they see or hear here,” Nikki chimed in.
“Like you don’t?” Gabe laughed while Nikki huffed.
Excitement filled Rosie. Gabe seemed more open to supernatural stuff. Maybe she could tell him about the possibility of his father coming through. At least she would get it off her conscience. “So, what—”
“Uh-oh,” murmured Nikki, her face turned to the glass balcony doors.
Rosie followed her gaze, and her stomach leaped to her throat. Every cell in her body seemed to freeze as she watched Devlin de Vincent open the balcony door and step into Gabe’s living room.
Against her will, her gaze roamed over him. Fitted dark trousers. Tailored white shirt that showed off his shoulders and broad chest. His dark hair was perfectly coiffed like before, not a single strand out of place, and there wasn’t even a five o’clock shadow on his smooth jaw.