"First he burns down his house, now he's living with you?" Down in the basement, Jerry's grilling Julia while we do our laundry. Incensed by what's happened since he's been hospitalized, he angrily holds up a pair of Mason's boxers. "You're washing his undergarments too! What's next, marriage?" Julia grabs the brightly colored underwear from his hands. Expertly folding them, she discretely adds them to her own pile. I feel bad for Jerry. He's barely had time to recover from his accident before being slapped with the news Julia's invited the Grants to live with us. I can't tell what's causing him more pain. His fractured leg, or his breaking heart.
"Nonsense, Jerry. Dylan and Mason are only staying here until their house is cleaned up and made habitable again. It won't be more than a couple of weeks, then they'll be back home. Besides, I like sharing acting stories with Mason. He's worked with Michael Caine." She gives a girlish smile as she remembers her thespian career.
"I don't care who he's worked with!" Jerry bellows. Getting up from his lawn chair, he painfully hobbles over to Julia. "I don't want him putting his meaty paws all over you. If they're allowed to live here, then I should be able to stay too." Apprehensively, I watch as a vein in his temple starts throbbing. He looks moments away from having an aneurism.
"What are you doing, Jerry? Sit back down!" Julia grabs his elbow then forcibly directs him back to his seat.
"Fine!" No match for her preternatural strength he collapses in his chair, defeated. Cracking open a bottle of prescription meds, he pops a few pain pills then groans in agony.
Mason's footsteps sound loudly on the stairs. We all to stop talking and expectantly look at each other. A second later, he innocently pops his shaggy head through the doorframe, grinning from ear to ear. Amazingly, he's unaware of the maelstrom of jealousy he's unleashed. "Julia Luv, where do you keep the bay leaves and cracked pepper? I thought I'd thank you for letting us stay here by making you my culinary special, Beef Bourgeois."
When my grandmother gets up to direct Mason to the kitchen's spice rack, Jerry hoarsely mutters at his retreating back, "I'll crush you like a dry bay leaf you home wrecker!"
I don't know what to do for Jerry except try to distract him from the domestic adultery he's witnessing. Lowering my voice, I ask him about his detective work. "What have you learned about Katherine's murder?"
With an effort, he focuses off of Julia and Mason long enough to update me on the Stanford murder case. "Thanks to the seance we found a new lead." He lowers his voice and leans closer to me, in case Julia and Mason return. "There's something interesting about Katherine's husband. In the police report it states he claimed his wife's jewelry collection was untouched, but an insurance claim for an expensive red pendant was filed, not long after. The necklace was extremely valuable. Part of a collection that she inherited from her father's estate."
"Pendant. Wait a minute." I close my eyes, trying to concentrate. "When I was under hypnosis, I saw something in the grimoire that looked like a red pendant."
Jerry's floored by my revelation. "You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. Wait here. I'll be right back."
Upstairs, I find Dylan finishing up with a shower, draping himself in a towel. I take a deep breath inhaling his musky scent. Even though we're competing for living space in close quarters, I love the addition of his male products in the bathroom. "Dylan, where's that piece of paper you copied from the grimoire?"
He goes to the bureau to retrieve the notebook with the symbols he stenciled from the diary's missing entry. Looking at it closely, something starts bothering me. I point to the paper. "Those symbols are the same ones I saw in my mother's book when I was under hypnosis. Only they're reversed."
"You think they mean something?"
"Yes, I think it's some sort of Wikken crypto key." Grabbing a pencil, I start editing the symbols until they completely match the ones I saw when I was under hypnosis.
"Come on!"
"Lizzy, what're you doing?"
"I want to overlap these symbols with the ones in the diary entry."
Upstairs in the attic, we pull the small, leather book down from the cobwebby rafters. Opening it, I carefully transcribe the symbols into the diary. Suddenly, the symbols start glowing.
"Look! I think the symbols are acting as a counter spell to the curse." I'm ecstatic as some sort of magical alchemy materializes before our eyes.
Suddenly, I realize we're not alone. Mason's followed us upstairs. "I'm sorry if I snuck up on both of you. I was curious what you two were doing." With a sheepish grin, he comes over stand next to us as we watch the book, fascinated. Words start forming on the paper. "That's quite a parlor trick," he says, mesmerized. "Anyway, I wondered where you both were. You two just disappeared. I'm not comfortable being alone with Jerry."
"Maybe that's because you're working overtime to destroy his relationship with Julia." Dylan says.
Mason ignores the snarky comment and reaches for the diary. "May I see that book please, Elizabeth?"
Unscrambled, the entry shows a necklace being used in a demonic ceremony. I'm surprised when Mason edifies us as to why the necklace is so important. "There's an ancient legend about a highly valuable family jewel. The Devil's eye. The Red Ruby once owned and used by Vladimir the Impaler." His voice has an awed, ominous tone, sending a chill down my spine.
"Used for what?" I ask.
"It's supposed to be a direct line to hell." He pauses before adding, "The gem's very coveted in Satanic circles."
"How do you know all this?" Dylan's floored by Mason's knowledge of the occult world.
"I'm Scottish, son. It's in the blood."