She waved her hand toward the departing couple. “That. Why so much tension between you and Grif?”
“Every year, the Kingstons host a holiday festival at their farm. This past Christmas, the boys and I spiced it up a bit.” He grinned. “Evidently, we were the only ones who enjoyed ourselves.”
She shook her head, holding back her own smile. “Something else was going on. Something that’s been roiling for years.”
He shrugged. “In the early days, we kept to ourselves. Mom was gone, Dad was busy, and Grams did her best keeping us from killing each other.”
“Let me guess—hell-raisers as young men.”
He fingered the wispy black feather jutting out of her flapper headband. “Entirely possible.”
“What about as adults?”
“I suppose we’d settled into our public persona of reclusive badasses.”
She studied his unrepentant, no, proud expression. “You enjoy your renegade status.”
He grinned. “Why destroy a good thing?”
A male voice rose above the pulsing cacophony. Beyond the mass of humanity, Liv followed a single-file line of bobbing heads moving toward the exhibit table.
“Phin,” Zeke said, “you got anything.”
Phin’s voice came through her ear insert. “Nothing concrete yet.”
“Dammit.” Zeke clamped her hand in his and tunneled through the guests like a lawnmower through tall grass.
When they reached the edge, Queen Nicola stood halfway up one of the curved staircases, holding a microphone and smiling at her subjects. Hugh stood at the base of the stairs, white-knuckling the newel post and smiling up at his wife. Dr. Bentley prowled below in the shadows, a green cast to his countenance. Photographer Glenn dipped and swayed around the balcony above like a one-eyed cyclops focusing in on his prey.
Each of the bobbing heads—eleven gorgeous, masked men dressed in unrelieved black, except for their white satin gloves—now stood around the table, beside items draped in black velvet and drenched in LED illumination.
Liv counted the men again, and her heart sank into her stomach. She leaned toward Zeke. “Earlier, there were twelve items on the table.”
Zeke did his own count, holding out hope that the rumors and Dr. Bentley were mistaken about the doll. They weren’t. “Shit.”
The Kämmer and Reinhardt doll was gone, gone.