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left had moved. All four paws were now firmly planted on the ground. She narrowed her eyes, took a few steps closer. Several times in the past twenty-four hours, she’d studied the painting.
    All the hounds should be leaping with teeth bared, legs barreling beneath them, slobber flying from their jowls. But this beagle…it wasn’t possible. It was standing still, nose raised, alert. Jaws closed. Eyes limpid.
    It was some kind of trick. She dashed up the steps to the landing, headed toward the canvas with palm outstretched—
    “What are you doing?”
    “Mary, Mother of God!” She slapped a hand against her thundering heart and sagged back against the wall as Jude descended the stairs from the east wing. “Oh, Jude, you scared me to death.” For the first time, a smile of genuine humor played around his mouth. His lips were full, beautifully formed, like his father’s. He studied her with black, liquid eyes, and in the silence Kate stared right back at him.
    He didn’t look quite so Eddie Munster-ish now that he’d rested. He wore a gray waffle knit shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. Looked just like any other kid, except prettier and significantly paler. His complexion appeared nearly translucent in the glow of the entry chandelier. She glanced at his hands. Tiny blue veins tangled beneath the papery thin surface of his skin.
    “You don’t look like a teacher,” he said finally, as though he’d reached a monumental conclusion.
    “You don’t look like a thirteen-year-old,” she replied.
    The furrows between his dark, winged brows deepened. “Are you saying I look like a little kid?” She shook her head gravely. “More like a man trapped in a kid’s body.” That response seemed to mollify him, and he moved past her to start down to the foyer. Then he paused and said without turning around, “You like that painting?” “Not really.” She glanced at the now placid, tri-colored hound, which appeared absurdly out of place amid the magnificent brutality of the foxhunt. “It creeps me out.” “Me, too. It moves. The figures move.”
    Kate couldn’t exactly argue his matter-of-fact observation, so she said nothing and followed him down the stairs, leaving the beagle and all its mysteries behind for now.
    “You play chess?” Jude asked as they walked through the living room and past a gleaming ivory chessboard poised on a game table.
    “No. You?”
    He shrugged. “Sometimes. My dad taught me. I could probably teach you.” A tiny frisson of hope leaped in her chest. “How about now?”
    “Right now I have to take my medicine.” He nodded toward the kitchen stairwell.
    Kate followed the direction of his gaze and was startled to find Gideon standing at the top of the stairs.
    He melded with the shadows, all darkness and silence.
    Like a ghost.
    A ghost holding a black, odd-shaped bottle in his hand. “Ready, J?” he asked, but he was looking at Kate.
    Jude sighed. “Can I have water with it this time?”
    “Nope. Can’t be diluted.” Moving toward them with that easy, confident grace that had so fascinated Kate last night, Gideon reached them and tenderly brushed his fingers through Jude’s dark hair. His lashes hid his expression as he examined his son’s face. “How’re you feeling?” “Okay. But that stuff is so gross. I think it makes me sicker.”
    “It doesn’t make you sicker.” He started to uncap the bottle, then glanced at Kate. “Dinner’s ready. You don’t have to wait for us.”
    His firm tone told her she didn’t have a choice. When she reached the top of the kitchen stairs, she glanced back and saw Gideon lift what looked like a dropper toward the glow from a nearby lamp. A thin amber substance filled the tube, shining wetly in the light.
    Jude made a face, took the dropper from his father’s hand, and sucked down whatever was inside it.
    Then he gagged and leaned over with all the dramatic fervor of a child film star. “God, Dad! I’m dying!”
    “It’s not that