Victory of Coins (The Judas Chronicles, #7) by Aiden James

couldn’t hide my disbelief
    “It shouldn’t be too bad in terms of being cramped,” said Jeremy. “And if it gets that way, I have already volunteered to occupy the rear bench seat and keep an eye on it. It will look great in Rod’s house.”
    He smiled to sell his confidence in the deal, and Roderick joined in offering his support for my wife’s twelve grand purchase. Not that money means much to Roderick or me, as it would take a few centuries of daily extravagant purchases to make a slight dent in our combined fortunes. The biggest factor to swing my vote, though, was Beatrice’s joy at finally owning a piece like this. Seeing her childlike excitement, which simmered to a blissful glow at the realization the fancy desk was hers, warmed my heart about the purchase—despite the inconvenience of hauling it from Corinth to Abingdon.
    We arranged to pick up Beatrice’s prize Sunday morning, and the rest of the day proved to be anticlimactic. I wish I was a better sport for this sort of thing, since most of the stores we visited blended into one very long boring experience that didn’t improve until we dined at the pizza place.... Except The Pizza Grocery wasn’t just a pizza place. With a full menu of Italian delicacies prepared to perfection, by the time dinner ended all of us agreed that the restaurant’s cuisine was as wonderful as advertised.
    So the night ended on a high note of enjoying one another’s company until one by one we all retired for the night. Even Roderick called it quits by ten o’clock, nearly an hour after Amy and Jeremy had retired and Beatrice and I shared a passionate goodnight kiss.
    “I probably should’ve gone light on the sangria tonight,” said Roderick, as he took leave of my presence downstairs. “Sometimes I forget that the sweeter alcoholic beverages often throw off my metabolism for a few hours. I’ll be fine to drive tomorrow if I get a few hours of sleep tonight.”
    “I wondered if you were paying attention to how many glasses you consumed,” I teased. I should mention that Roderick’s perpetual youth comes from a slightly slower regeneration process than my own. We regenerate cells similarly, but my body’s restoration can happen in a manner of minutes and the druid’s can take several hours to attain the same state. “Go ahead and get some rest. Goodnight, Rod.”
    “Don’t linger too long tonight in your thoughts, Judas.”
    It was the last thing he said before disappearing on the upstairs landing, I wondered how much he had picked up from the swirling chaos floating in the forefront of my mind. As far as I was concerned, I had no choice but to stay up that night. Despite successfully keeping my head clear of worries about Kaslow and the kidnapping of two prominent historians in Europe, the nagging doubts about our continued safety were much harder to push from my awareness. Now that I was alone in this grand house, I could begin sorting through it all.
    Something wasn’t right, something unfinished... as danger lurked nearby. While everyone else in the General Johnson House slept soundly, I armed myself with Kaslow’s letter and the charcoal-marked linen piece. Then I set out to find the pieces of a puzzle that we were missing... pieces I hoped would help me understand what we were overlooking before it was too late.

Chapter Five
    ––––––––
    S itting in the front parlor inspired nothing.... Nothing but memories of a few unfortunate trysts that took place in similar houses, in New Orleans and Savannah, during the early twentieth century before World War I broke out. So, I relocated to the front porch, where the evening calls of crickets, cicadas, and the occasional comment from a barn owl kept me company until well after midnight. Yet, no matter how much I scanned the poem or ran my fingers over the charcoaled strip of linen, nothing new came to me.
    No sudden epiphanies or intuitive insights. Not a damned thing that would allow me to uncover