She picked up her pace again until she reached the front door and hesitated slightly before opening it. There was a killer on the loose. But it was highly unlikely he or she would turn on all the lights in the house. Plus, even though Ollie didn’t have a mean bone in his body, the sight of him was pretty intimidating. The UPS guy still didn’t believe that he was harmless. What the hell. She walked through the door and immediately knew that it wasn’t Derek awaiting her. She recognized the woodsy scent of Allure by Chanel.

It was Simon, of course, accompanied by Marco.

“Oh, Bellissima, where have you been?” Marco rushed to her and held out a brandy snifter.

“I see you two haven’t wasted any time getting comfortable.”

“We knew you’d have the good stuff,” Simon said.

“Give me a break. That mansion you live in has bottles worth thousands in the cellar, not to mention you could have gone into the warehouse for a nice bottle of wine.”

“Sure, Snow White. Do you really think my mommy dearest left us the key to the cellar? And besides, we weren’t about to head into the warehouse with some bogeyman in the hood.”

She rolled her eyes at him. Simon did have a point about his mother, Patrice. When the boys’ father died, she inherited the home and the boys inherited the winery. Patrice was not exactly mother of the year by any stretch of the imagination, and since Nikki had first arrived at the winery, she’d done what she could to chase her away. Eventually Nikki won that battle and Patrice was currently residing in Greece. Simon and Marco promptly took over the big house on the hill, while Derek remained in the ranch style he’d built by using the frame from an original barn that stood on the property.

Nikki eyed Ollie standing over his dog dish, ground beef in his bowl. “I see they tempted you with the good stuff, huh, Cujo? Nice going, letting the riffraff in.”

“He seemed hungry,” Simon said and sneezed. “I just took my allergy pill.”

“I don’t know how you could really be allergic to him. He hardly has any hair at all.”

Simon dismissed her comment. “It should kick in soon. I always forget he’s like a permanent fixture here.” He pointed to Ollie.

Guilt flooded her upon realizing that in her afterglow of the late afternoon events with Derek, she’d forgotten to feed Ollie. Bad mommy! She bent down next to him and he looked at her like he was definitely pissed off at this faux pas. “I’m sorry, bud. My bad. Aren’t you lucky the boys stopped by? And now that I’m home, you two can skadoodle on up to your place.”

“Skadoodle? No way. We want the scoop. What gives? Like, where have you been?”

“Taking care of a few things. And what are you talking about? Scoop about what?”

Marco frowned. “At this hour, and after this evening, you were taking care of things. What things?”

“You can do better than that,” Simon said. “We’ve been worried about you.”

“Worried about me?”

“Duh. Killer on the loose? Marco and I do worry, you know.”

“Yeah, right. You two don’t worry about me. You know that I can take care of myself.”

“Yes, we always worry, Bellissima, but the honest truth is we want to know what Detective Robinson was talking to you about.” Marco brought his snifter up to his nose and took a long whiff.

Simon frowned. “Yeah, so what gives with you and the hot detective hanging out in the corner talking all hush-hush-like?” He rubbed his hands together. “Now dish, dish. And what did take you so long to get back here? Sansibaba let us out almost an hour ago.”

She sighed. There was no way of getting around this. These two were relentless, and when they wanted an answer, she’d learned that either she’d have to eventually lie-and that typically meant some long, convoluted bullshit story-which she didn’t like doing but at times found necessary. Or she’d have to give them the real scoop, and in this instance it could behoove her to tell them the whole truth and nothing but.

When she was finished, both of them were speechless. At first.

“Whoa, there, Snow White. Back up an eensy-teensy second,” Simon said.

The slack-jawed silence couldn’t have lasted. “Yes?”

“That part about this Jen who has to be Iwao’s son and Sierra Sansi, and then the Sansibaba-”

“Alan,” Marco interrupted. “He wants to be called Alan.”

“Whatever. Okay, so you’re not thinking that somehow Alan or his daughter is tied into this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. It’s some strange stuff, boys.”

Simon shook his head. “No, no, I don’t think so. We’re so not going there. We are all enlightened people, not killers, especially not Alan or any of his family.”

“I disagree,” Marco said. “I do think it was one of the members. I think that people can be fantastico at hiding who they really are. And that is what we are looking at. A person with a mask.”

“Maybe so. Tomorrow I’m going to dig out my books from my aunt’s library-they’re still packed away-and read up on sociopaths and psychopaths. Two slightly different personalities but both could be killers, and if we can find one basically wearing a mask, Marco, then we’re on to something. Let me ask you, how well do you two know any of these people?”

“Not very,” Marco admitted. “You know we are some of the newest members.”

“I can’t believe you would think that someone who follows Alan Sansi would do such a thing,” Simon said. “Much less Alan himself.” Ollie had come over to where Simon sat on the couch and nudged Simon’s hand, whining. “Go away. You can’t have the couch. Go. For God’s sake, we fed you ground sirloin.”

“Go lie down, Ollie,” Nikki said. Ollie looked at her and then came over and plopped himself on the floor next to her feet.

“You obviously have had some contact with Alan. What do you know about him on a personal level?” she asked.

“He’s who he says he is, Snow White. He is the real dealio,” Simon said. “And I am appalled that you would think the worst.”

“Really?” she asked.

“No. I take that back. Cynicism seems to be in your nature.”

“That is not true. I’m a very positive person. What I don’t do is always take people at face value.”

“His son is strange,” Marco muttered.

“What do you mean?” Simon asked. “I didn’t think so. I found him delightful just like the Sansi-er…I mean, Alan.”

“I sat by him for some time tonight, and he’s not like his father. I get the feeling he wants to be his father, but he doesn’t feel real to me,” Marco replied. He snapped his fingers. “Like the mask. I think Eli Sansi wears a mask.”

“I kind of get a strange feeling from him. I guess he’s also writing a book, and then Iwao was offering to maybe publish the book, but Alan shut that down quickly, basically saying that their loyalty needed to remain with Inspiritus. That’s understandable, considering that Rich Higgins is his publisher and soon to be his son-in-law. But Iwao was determined to get Sansi’s business, at least the foreign rights to publish his stuff in Japan,” Nikki said. “Did Eli do something in particular that made you feel this way, Marco?”

“No. He… I don’t know. It is a feeling that I have. Like it is… What do you say? An intuition thing.” He rubbed his gut. “Right here. You know? I get this sense he has jealousy toward his father.”

“Oh come on.” Simon wrinkled up his nose and took a long sip off his brandy.

“No, no, really. I watched him watch his father tonight, and in his eyes I see a man with a jealous soul. Children can be jealous of their parents, and his father is a great man.”

Nikki ran some ideas by the boys of summer. “If Eli is jealous of his father and Sierra is one angry, resentful daughter, for reasons that could possibly be tied into Iwao Yamimoto, maybe we have a family affair on our hands. Maybe one of them did it? Or a couple of them? Or one planned it out and one executed it. This could not bode well for Sansi’s public relations. Could one of his family members be looking to actually sabotage their dad? Once this hits the press, you know what will happen. There will be speculations and accusations. Even Robinson himself asked me if the group was a cult.”