She wasn’t mistaken; he’d paled a bit. “I . . . think so.”

“I was wondering if I could look through them, get some ideas for here. You know, to ramp up the authenticity and get away from DeeDee’s fake castle.”

“That’s a good idea, actually.” He took a deep breath. Paused. “Sure. You can take a look at them.”

“Oh, great. Thanks. Are they packed into one of Mildred’s garages?”

“No, they’re, ah”—He began to stroke a finger down each side of his face, over and over again—“all at the house.”

“Which one of the three?”

He turned then to gaze across the park and down the narrow lane that swooped into the lowest part of Gleann, where Leith’s childhood home stood.

“Not Mildred’s house.” His voice turned distant. “Da’s house.”

Not my house. Not our house.

“Oh. You never mentioned you still had it.” She wondered why he wasn’t living there instead of in a strange old lady’s time warp.

“Yeah. I do.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we run back to Mildred’s and I’ll get the house key for you. You can let yourself into Da’s, take what you need.”

“Are you sure now’s a good time?”

“Now’s great, actually. But I’ll have to drop you off, if that’s okay. I think I might head out of town earlier than I’d originally planned. Get down to Connecticut with plenty of time before I meet with Rory tomorrow morning.”

“All right,” she said, but he was already walking away, and she knew something was up.

Chapter

9