by J. R. Ward
She put the tray down on a mahogany table and opened the way into the room he used as his study. His old desk had been brought over from the rental bed, which had been placed next door, and her father was sitting down to his work as he always had, papers everywhere.
“How fare thee?” she asked, going over to kiss his cheek.
“I am well, very well indeed. The doggen has just brought my juice and my repast.” His elegant, bony hand swept over a silver tray that matched the one she’d been brought. “I adore the new doggen, don’t you?”
“Yes, Father, I—”
“Ah, Lusie, dearest!”
As her father rose to his feet and smoothed his velvet smoking jacket, Ehlena glanced over her shoulder. Lusie came in dressed in a dove gray sheath and a knobby hand-knitted sweater. She had Birkenstocks on her feet and thick, bunched-up socks that had likely been homemade as well. Her long, wavy hair was back from her face, pinned in a sensible clip at the base of her neck.
Unlike everything that had changed around them, she was still the same. Lovely and…cozy.
“I’ve brought the crossword.” She held up a New York Times that was folded in quarters, as well as a pencil. “I need help.”
“And, indeed, I am at your disposal, as always.” Ehlena’s father came around and gallantly angled a chair for Lusie. “Ease yourself herein and we shall see how many boxes we may fill.”
Lusie smiled at Ehlena as she sat down. “I couldn’t do them without him.”
Ehlena’s eyes narrowed on the female’s faint blush and then shifted over to her father’s face. Which was showing a distinct glow.
“I’ll leave you two to your puzzle,” she said with a smile.
As she left, two good-byes were given to her, and she couldn’t help but think the stereo effect sounded very nice to the ear.
Downstairs in the grand foyer, she went left into the formal dining room, and paused to admire all the crystal and china that were set out on display—as well as the gleaming candelabra.
There were no candles topping those graceful silver arms, though.
No candles in the house. No matches or lighters either. And before they had moved in, Ehlena had had the doggen replace the gas-powered restaurant range with one that ran on electricity. Likewise, the two televisions in the family part of the house had been given to the staff, and the security monitors had been moved from an open desk in the butler’s pantry to a closed room with a locked door.
There was no reason to tempt fate. Especially given that any kind of electronic screen, including those on cell phones and calculators, still made her father nervous.
The first night that they had come to stay at the mansion, she had taken pains to walk her father all around and show him the security cameras and the sensors and the beams not just in the house, but on the grounds. As she wasn’t sure how he would handle the change in address or all the safety measures, she’d given him the tour right after he’d had his medications. Fortunately, he’d viewed the better accommodations as a return to normalcy, and had loved the idea that there was a system looking out all over the estate.
Maybe that was another reason he didn’t feel the need to have the windows covered up. He felt as if he were being watched over in a good way now.
Pushing through the flap door, Ehlena went into the pantry and out to the kitchen. After chatting with the butler who had started cooking Last Meal, and complimenting one of the maids on how beautifully she’d polished the handrail of the big staircase, Ehlena headed for the study that was on the other side of the house.
The trip was a long one, through many lovely rooms, and as she went she trailed a gentle hand over the antiques and the hand-carved jambs and the silk-covered furniture. This lovely house was going to make her father’s life so much easier, and as a result, she was going to have a lot more time and mental energy to focus on herself.
She didn’t want it. The last thing she needed was empty hours with nothing but the crap in her head to keep her company. And even if she were in the running to win Miss Well-Adjusted, she wanted to be productive. She might not need the money to keep a roof over what was left of her family, but she’d always worked, and she’d loved the purpose and heart of what she’d been doing at the clinic.
Except she’d burned that bridge and then some.
Like the other thirty or so rooms in the mansion, the study was decorated in the manner of European royalty, with subtle damask patterns on the walls and sofas, plenty of tassels on the drapes, and lots of deep, glowing paintings that were like windows open to other, even more perfect worlds. There was one thing off the mark though. The floor was bare, the couches and the antique desk and every table and chair sitting directly on the polished wooden floor, the center of which was slightly darker than the edges, as if it had once been covered up.
When she’d asked the doggen, they had explained that the carpet had suffered a stain that was not removable, and thus a new rug had been ordered from the household’s antiques dealer in Manhattan. They didn’t go into any further detail about whatever had happened, but given how worried they all had been about their jobs, she could just imagine what Montrag would have done if there had been any kind of deficiency in performance, no matter how reasonable. One spilled tea tray? No doubt they’d had a big problem.
Ehlena went around and sat behind the desk. On the leather blotter, there was the day’s Caldwell Courier Journal, a phone and a nice-looking French lamp as well as a lovely crystal statue of a bird in flight. Her old computer, which she’d tried to give back to the clinic before she and her father had come to the house, fit perfectly in the big flat drawer under the top—kept there always just in case he came in.
She supposed she could afford a new laptop, but again, she wasn’t going to buy another one. As with her clothes, what she had worked just fine, and she was used to it.
Plus, maybe she was grounded a little by the familiar. And, man, she needed that.
Putting her elbows on the desk, she looked across the room at the spot on the wall where a spectacular seascape should have lain flat. The painting was angled out into the room, however, and the face of the safe that was exposed was like a plain female who’d been hiding behind a glamorous ball mask.
“Madam, the locksmith is here?”
“Please send him in.”
Ehlena got to her feet, and went over to the safe to touch its smooth, matte panel and its black-and-silver dial. She’d found the thing only because she’d been so taken by the depiction of the sun setting over the ocean that she’d put her hand on the frame on impulse. When the whole picture popped forward, she’d been horrified that she’d hurt the mounting in some way, except then she’d looked behind the frame…and what do you know.
“Madam? This is Roff, son of Rossf.”
Ehlena smiled and walked over to a male who was dressed in black coveralls and carrying a black tool case. As she went to put her hand out, he took off his cap and bowed low, as if she were someone special. Which was beyond strange. After years of being just a civilian, the formality made her uncomfortable, but she was learning that she had to let others honor the social etiquette. Asking them not to, whether they were doggen or workmen or advisers, just made things worse.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“It is a pleasure to be of service.” He looked over at the safe. “This is the one?”
“Yes, I don’t have the combination to it.” They headed for the thing. “I was hoping there was some way you could get into it?”
The wince he tried to hide was not encouraging. “Well, madam, I know this kind of safe, and it’s not going to be easy. I’d have to bring in an industrial drill to get through the pins and release the door, and it would be noisy. Also, when I’ve finished the safe would be ruined. I mean no disrespect, but is there no way of retrieving the combination?”
“I wouldn’t know where to look for it.” She glanced around at the shelves of books and then over to the desk. “We just
moved in, and there were no instructions.”
The male followed her lead and ran his eyes around the room. “Usually owners leave such a thing in a hidden place. If you could only find it, I could show you how to reset the combination so that you could reuse the safe. As I said, if I have to drill in, it will have to be replaced.”
“Well, I’ve been through the desk when I was exploring after we first came here.”
“Did you find any hidden compartments in it?”
“Er…no. But I was just going through random papers and trying to make some space for my things.”
The male nodded across at the piece of furniture. “In a lot of desks like that, you’ll find at least one drawer with a false bottom or back that hides a small place. I wouldn’t want to presume, but I could try to help you find one? Also, the moldings in a room like this might conceal spaces as well.”
“I’d love another set of eyes on this, thanks.” Ehlena went over and, one by one, removed the drawers of the desk, laying them side by side on the floor. As she went along, the male took out a penlight and looked into the holes that were revealed.
She hesitated when she got to the big drawer on the bottom left, not wanting to see what she’d stored there. But it wasn’t as though the locksmith could see through the damn thing.
Muttering a quick curse, she pulled on the brass handle and did not look at all the sections she’d kept from the Caldwell Courier Journal, each folded in on itself to hide the articles she’d read and saved even though she didn’t want to read them yet again.
She put that drawer as far away as she could. “Well, that’s the last one.”
With the male’s head wedged under the desk, his voice echoed. “I believe there’s a…I need my tape measure from my tool—”
“Here, I’ll get it.”
When she passed the thing over, he seemed astonished that she was helping. “Thank you, madam.”
She knelt down beside him as he ducked backed under. “Is something off?”
“There appears to be…Yes, this is more shallow than the others. Let me just…” There was a squeak and the male’s arm jerked. “Got it.”
As he sat up, he had a rough-cut box in his workworn hands. “I believe the lid flips open, but I’ll let you do it.”
“Wow, I feel like Indiana Jones, just without the bullwhip.” Ehlena lifted the top panel off and…“Well, no combination. Just a key.” She took the slip of steel out, looked it over, then replaced it. “Might as well leave it where we found it.”
“Let me show you how to put the hidden drawer back.”
The male left twenty minutes later, after the two of them had knocked on all the walls and shelving and molding in the room and found nothing. Ehlena figured she’d search around one last time, and if she still ended up empty-handed, she’d have him come back with his big guns to bust the safe open.
Returning to the desk, she put the drawers into their slots, pausing when she got to the one that held all the newspaper articles.
Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t have her father to worry about. Maybe it was the fact that she had some free time.
More likely, she was just having a weak moment in fighting back the need to know.
Ehlena took all the papers out, opening the folds and spreading them across the desk. All of the articles were about Rehvenge and the ZeroSum bombing, and no doubt when she cracked today’s edition, she would find another to add to the collection. The reporters were fascinated by the story, and there had been a ton of coverage on it in the last month—not just in print, but on the evening news as well.
No suspects. No arrests. Skeleton of a male found in the rubble of the club. Other businesses he’d owned now run by his associates. Drug trade in Caldwell brought to a halt. No more murders of dealers.
Ehlena picked up an article off the top. It wasn’t among the more recent ones, but she’d looked at it so much, she’d smudged the newsprint. Next to the text was a blurry picture of Rehvenge, snapped by an undercover police officer two years ago. Rehvenge’s face was in shadow, but the sable coat and the cane and a Bentley were all clear.
The past four weeks had distilled her memories of Rehvenge, from the times they’d been together to the way things had ended with that trip she’d taken to ZeroSum. Instead of time dissolving the images in her head, what she remembered was becoming even clearer, like whiskey strengthening over time. And it was strange. Oddly enough, of all the things that had been said, good and bad, what came back to her most often was something that female security guard had barked at her as Ehlena had been on her way out of the club.
…that male has put himself in a rat-hole situation for me, his mother, and his sister. And you think you’re too good for him? Nice. Where the hell do you come from that’s so perfect?
His mother. His sister. Herself.
As the words banged around her head yet again, Ehlena let her gaze wander around the study until it reached the door. The house was quiet, her father busy with Lusie and the crossword puzzle, the staff working happily.
For the first time in a month, she was by herself.
All things considered, she should take a hot bath and cozy up to a good book…but instead, she took her laptop out, cracked the screen open, and fired the thing up. She had the sense that if she followed through with what she wanted to do, she was going to end up going down into a deep, dark hole.
But she couldn’t help herself.
She’d saved the clinical record searches she’d done on Rehv and his mother, and as both of them had been declared dead, the documents were technically part of public record—so she felt less as if she were invading their privacy as she called both files up.
She studied his mother’s records first, seeing some familiar things from having previously scanned it, when she’d been curious about the female who had birthed him. Now, though, she took her time, searching for something specific. Although God knew what it was.
The recent notes that had been entered were nothing remarkable, just Havers’s comments on the female’s yearly checkups or her treatment for the occasional virus. Scrolling through page after page, she began to wonder why she was wasting time—until she got to a knee operation that had been performed on Madalina five years ago. In the pre-op notes, Havers had mentioned something about the degradation in the joint being a result of chronic-impact injury.
Chronic impact? On a female of worth from the glymera? That sounded more like what you’d get on a football player, for chrissakes, not Rehvenge’s high-bred chatelaine mother.
Made no sense.
Ehlena went back farther and farther through more nothing-specials…and then starting twenty-three years from the present she started to see the entries. One after the other. Broken bones. Bruises. Concussions.
If Ehlena didn’t know better…she’d swear it was domestic violence.
Each time, Rehv was the one who brought his mother in. Brought her in and stayed with her.
Ehlena went back to the last of the entries that seemed to indicate a female who was being abused by her hellren. Madalina had been accompanied by her daughter, Bella. Not Rehv.
Ehlena stared at the date as if some sudden breakthrough were about to come from the line of numbers. When she was still fixated five minutes later, she felt like shadows of her father’s illness were once again moving across the floors and walls of her mind. Why the hell was she obsessing over this?
And yet even with that thought, she followed an impulse that would only make her obsession worse. She cracked open the search on Rehv.
Back, back, back through the entries…He’d started needing dopamine right around the time his mother had stopped coming in injured.
Maybe it was just a coincidence.
Feeling half-crazy, Ehlena shifted over to the Internet and went into the race’s public-records database. Typing in Madalina’s name, she found the registry of the female’s passing, then hopped over to that of her hellren, Rempoon—
E
hlena leaned forward in the chair, her breath leaving on a hiss. Not willing to believe it, she went back to the record on Madalina.
Her hellren had died on the night of the last time she’d come in hurt to the clinic.
With a sense that she was on the verge of answers, Ehlena considered the matching dates in light of what the female security guard had said about Rehvenge. What if he’d killed the male to protect his mother? What if that security guard knew that? What if…
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the picture of Rehvenge from the CCJ, his face in shadow, his fancy car and his pimp cane so very obvious.
With a curse, she slapped the laptop shut, put it back in the drawer, and got to her feet. She might not be able to control her subconscious, but she could take charge of her waking hours and not encourage this craziness.
Instead of driving herself more nuts, she was going to go up to the master bedroom Montrag had slept in and poke around trying to find the combination to the safe. Later, she would have Last Meal with her father and Lusie.
And then she needed to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
“‘…suggests that the recent killings of area drug dealers might have come to an end with the likely death of club owner and suspected drug kingpin Richard Reynolds.’” There was a rustle as Beth put the CCJ on the desk. “That’s the end of the article.”
Wrath shifted his legs around to more comfortably support his queen’s weight in his lap. He’d been to see Payne about two hours ago, and his body was beat to shit, which felt really nice.
“Thanks for reading it to me.”
“My pleasure. Now let me go tend the fire for a second. We’ve got a log that’s about to roll out onto the carpet.” Beth kissed him and stood up, the pansy chair creaking with relief. As she went across the study toward the fireplace, the grandfather clock started to chime.
“Oh, this is good,” Beth said. “Listen, Mary should be coming in a minute. She’s bringing you something.”
Wrath nodded and reached forward, running his fingertips across the desk’s top until he got to the glass of red wine he’d been drinking. By its weight, he knew that he’d almost finished it, and given his mood, he was going to want more. The shit about Rehv had been bothering him. Badly.
