by Lena North
I went via the living room out the front door and reached out to my bird as I crossed the open area outside.
“You’ll guard him? Keep him safe?”
“Totally.”
“Thank you.”
The heavy door creaked a little as I pushed it open and then I entered the barn where they trained. I lit a lamp, sat down on the floor, and put the pile of papers I’d brought from the archives in front of me. Then I started reading.
“I’ll do some of them,” Dante said and sat down, facing me.
I’d recognized his steps, so I hadn’t looked up, and I nodded but kept reading. It was an effort to breathe evenly, but I pressed on, scanning through paper after horrible paper.
“What are you doing?” Wilder suddenly asked next to me.
“Reading,” I murmured.
“Why?”
I raised my head and looked at her.
“I can’t let him go through this. Dante won’t let Jiminella go through it either, so we’re reading the documents to ensure there’s no information we need in them.”
She blinked slowly, not understanding.
“Then we’re burning them,” Dante said.
“Oh,” she said, sat down and added, “Give.” She was waving her hand impatiently. “I’ll help.”
“I’ll take a few,” Mac said.
“Yeah,” Miller said.
Then Hawker sat down too, and Mary walked in, followed by Sloane and Kit.
“There are so many birds around the house it could qualify as a zoo,” Mary said calmly when Miller frowned. “They’ll tell us if the girls wake up.”
“You’re having a party without me?” Olly muttered as he walked down the stairs from the small studio upstairs. He joined us on the floor, grabbed a stack of papers and put on his horn-rimmed glasses.
Then we sat there in silence, reading through the awful details about our two sleeping family members. Shielding them from something that would only bring pain. Protecting them.
When all papers were in a jumbled pile on the side, Hawker sighed.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Dante replied, and we all echoed the same thing.
“We could have missed something but right now I don’t give a fuck. Start up a fire behind the barn. Let’s burn this shit,” Hawker said.
Olly left with Wilder, and the rest of us started tearing the papers into smaller pieces. Then we walked out through the back door and threw them piece by piece in the fire-pit. Dante held an arm around my shoulders as we watched the last pieces turn into yellow flames.
“I didn’t realize,” he murmured.
“What?”
“I thought that letting you go would mean I lost you, but it didn’t. It meant that I got to keep you. It’s not the same as before, but Snow?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s better,” he said.
My eyes burned suddenly, and I leaned into him.
“I love you, Dante.”
“Love you too, sweetie,” he murmured, but then he chuckled softly. “I talked to Nicky in the hospital. Said I wasn’t ready to let you go, and he tried to explain, but I didn’t get it. Kills me to admit it, but he was right…” He grinned down at me. “Which means I was wrong, and you know how I feel about that.”
I laughed quietly because I did most certainly know how he felt about that.
Nick woke up when I got back, and I told him what we’d done. He was silent for so long that I thought he’d fallen asleep again.
“I love you,” he suddenly whispered into the soft gray shadows around us.
I pressed closer to him and rubbed my cheek against his shoulder. My eyelids were heavy, and I was suddenly unable to stay awake, so when I tried to say the words back to him, they came out as a garbled mumble against his chest. He had a smile in his voice when he murmured, “Go to sleep, snowy Snow.”
***
The next day we gathered for a breakfast that was so late it was mostly lunch. We all sat in the shade on the front porch when Nick cleared his throat.
“Listen up everyone,” he said, and Jiminella walked over to stand behind him, holding a hand on his shoulder as she spoke.
“We both know what you did last night, while we were sleeping. If you’d asked either of us, we would have told you it wasn’t necessary. We would both have said that the material was important, academically, and for us to understand about our past. We would have said that we needed to read the documents.” She made a pause and smiled down at Nick. “We would have been wrong.”
“Neither of us would have asked you to destroy the documents. I guess we just want to thank you for taking that burden away from us,” Nick said.
“If I’d known what was in that pile of shit I wouldn’t have gone in there to get them,” Wilder muttered. “Snow wouldn’t have had to run up a wall with that garbage on her back.”
“But they would still have existed then,” Jiminella pointed out. “We’d never been really free from it, as long as they were in that archive.”
Nick put an arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. Mary got up and wrapped her arms around Jiminella, and both geniuses on the porch slowly relaxed.
“You ran up a wall, Snow?” Dante asked into the silence.
“She totally did. It was pretty cool actually,” Wilder said calmly. “Or, it would have been if there hadn’t been an asshat with a pistol coming down the alley right behind her.”
“I’ve seen her do it and it’s crazy, man. Defies gravity,” Nick said.
“Okay,” Dante said. “Can you show me?”
“Show you, as in me showing you when I do it? Then yes,” I said and smirked. “Show you, as in teaching you how to do it? Nope.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too heavy. Too slow, and not agile enough.”
Dante looked astonished and a little annoyed when everyone started laughing, but I turned to Nick.
“What are you laughing about? You’re too heavy too.” I turned toward Hawker, and scrunched up my nose, surveying his long-limbed, lean body. “You, eagle-eyes… I might be able to teach you, actually.”
Hawker smirked too then, and Miller leaned forward to top up my coffee.
“What does your bird call me?”
“Salt and pepper,” I said, and turned to Kit. “You’re pepper with a little salt, although I don’t know why. You haven’t really started graying –”
Wilder and Mary burst out laughing, and some of the others did too.
“What?” I asked and heard Kit mutter something about never swimming in his father’s pond again.
“I’ll tell you later,” Wilder chuckled.
The mood was lighter, and I leaned into Nick with a satisfied sigh. We had things to sort out, but right then, we were just enjoying a good moment with our friends.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out,” Jiminella said.
She was frowning, which made me grin and give her shoulder a soft caress as I stretched past her for another bite to eat. There were very few things Jiminella couldn’t figure out, and it always annoyed her when it happened.
“What?” Dante said as he leaned over his girl, and half the table, to snatch the last croissant from under my hand.
I stuck my tongue out, and he winked as he tore it in two pieces and tossed me one of them.
“Professor Jones. Why the hell would they send the code sheets to him? It doesn’t make sense.” Jiminella made a pause and added, “I know it doesn’t matter that they’re gone because we know what they said. That rude chief of police on the Islands –”
“My cousin,” Nick interrupted with a grin.
“Your rude cousin,” she conceded with a grin right back at him. It made my heart swell to see the look of understanding between them, and I smiled when she went on, “Croixer PD wrote the message down, word for word, so we know what it said. But why Professor Jones? And why not a simple
email?”
“Anyone can read an email,” Olly snorted. “Even encrypted ones. The net isn’t nearly as safe as traditional paper copies.”
“Okay,” Jiminella agreed. “Fair enough. But why him?”
“Hold that thought,” I said and walked inside.
When I came back, I threw the stack of photos I’d found in my Professor’s desk during our search of his office. They spread out over the table, and I turned to Nick.
“You might want to close your eyes.”
He grinned crookedly and said, “I’m a big boy, Snow. I can handle – whoa!? Is that a whip?”
There was a stunned silence around the table and then Mary giggled.
“I like how he put that leather cap on. Tilted just a little to the side,” she said, and added, “Cheeky.”
“But –” Jiminella was the only one of us who had actually known the professor, and she was apparently stunned by the images. “Is that… lederhosen? I’ve never seen black ones before? And aren’t you supposed to wear a shirt underneath them?”
“Is it really leather?” Wilder muttered and picked a picture up to examine it.
“Shield your eyes,” Mac snorted. “Might hurt them if you look too closely. And it isn’t leather.”
“Really? What is it?”
“Latex,” Hawker muttered, and all heads turned to him.
“Well, you would know,” Miller deadpanned.
Hawker turned slowly toward him, and since a fight was brewing, I got ready to get involved when Jiminella held a photo up for us all to see.
“What the hell is this?” she asked.
There was a long silence, and then Nick lowered his head.
“You were right, babe,” he muttered. “There are things you wish you could unsee.”
“Do you know what it is?” Jiminella asked curiously.
“I guess we know why,” Dante said loudly. His voice was a little forced, and when his fiancée turned to him, he put a hand on her leg and squeezed.
“Yeah,” Hawker muttered. “We found large payments going out from his bank account for a few years, but it stopped six months ago, and there suddenly seemed to be money coming back to him. We thought about blackmail, but the man seemed so…”
“Beige,” I filled in when he trailed off.
Hawker nodded.
“Yeah, exactly. It all makes more sense after seeing these pictures. Someone blackmailed him, and then he started paying by receiving messages. Maybe even receiving payment for his services.”
“I’ll see if we can find a link between Professor Jones and either of the Strachlans. It isn’t a stretch to think that the older Strachlan was an acquaintance. Ma has connections in the army intel still. Maybe they can find something,” Olly said.
“Does she need the photos?” I asked.
“Jesus, Snow. Do you think I’d give pictures like that to my mother?” Olly snorted.
He had a point. I did not think my sweet Aunt Bee would like the photos.
“I want to destroy them,” I said.
“Why?” Hawker asked.
“He’s dead. There’s no need to tarnish his reputation. Besides…” I looked down at the pictures and tried to explain. “He was always so incredibly boring. Seemed immensely bored too. In these pictures, he looks kind of happy.”
“You’re right,” Jiminella chimed in. “Kinky, but happy. Let’s destroy them.”
I turned to Hawker, and he shrugged.
“Sure. No need to keep them. You’ll remember them anyway?” he asked Nick.
“Forever,” Nick sighed.
Wilder and I burned the pictures in the fireplace and went back to the porch, although we barely had time to sit down when a couple of cars came down the driveway. Both Hawker and Wilder stood up immediately.
“What the hell,” she murmured.
They stopped in front of us, and Joao stepped out of the first car. A group of men from the Islands got out too, and lined up around Joao. They were quite a sight, looking like a wall of bulky muscles and dreads of various lengths.
“Torres,” Hawker muttered.
“Joao,” Wilder said.
She sounded a lot friendlier than her father, and behaved better too, indicating with her hand that they were to join us on the porch.
“We have some bad news,” Joao said when we were all seated again. “Cristina is dead.”
I blinked. Cristina was the girl who had sent my package. She’d been wearing diamond studs in her ears and too much red lipstick. And now she was dead?
“No shit?” Nick said slowly. “How?”
“Her car. Toby’s bluff,” Joao replied.
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Accident?”
“Yup.”
“Breaks?”
“Yup.”
“Huh.”
“Exactly.”
“Don?”
“Unhappy.”
“Shit.”
“Can someone stop grunting and explain?” Wilder snapped.
“The girl who put the code sheets in the package was in a car accident. Her breaks stopped working, and she went off a very, very high cliff,” I explained, and swallowed. “She was engaged to Nick and Joao’s cousin, Don.”
I hadn’t liked the girl very much, and had thought it was stupid to trade Croxier PD secrets for cash, but she hadn’t deserved to die.
“Have you brought the car back up?” Hawker asked.
“Divers brought the faulty parts up, they’re on their way to Norton to look at the ones from Nicky’s car.”
I glanced over at Nick and our eyes met. We’d talked and I knew what kind of divers they would have sent down to the car.
“Good,” Hawker grunted and made a small gesture toward Miller who immediately got up and pulled out his phone. “We’ll see if there are similarities.”
“I bet there are,” Joao said.
“Yeah,” Hawker sighed.
“There’s more,” Joao added and looked at his cousin.
“Now what?” Nick muttered, and added with a sigh, “I need a vacation from all this shit.”
“You haven’t gotten around to furnish that place of yours, so it could have been worse. You have one TV less, man. That’s all,” Joao assured him.
“What?”
“Someone broke into your condo, took the TV. Neighbors called it in, local PD called me.”
“Just the TV?” Nick said. “Nothing else?”
“There isn’t anything else,” Joao said dryly, and he had a point, but I knew what Nick was asking.
“They left his photos?”
“Yup.”
“Amateur idiots,” I said.
“How’s that, Snow?” Wilder asked.
“He’s got his photos covering a whole wall. They’re worth more than the TV.”
“Shit,” Hawker muttered. “How many photos do you have?”
“Don’t know. A bunch.”
“Huh. It would have been easy enough to stack them all up and try to trade them in for a TV,” Hawker said, sounding like he thought it was ridiculous.
Some of us started grinning, but a few looked astonished.
Nick mostly seemed annoyed, and said coolly, “They’re all signed, so it’s a TV for each, actually.”
Hawkers brows went way up on his forehead.
“You’re that good?” he asked.
“Yeah, Hawker. I’m that good,” Nick stated with considerable satisfaction in his voice.
“Huh,” Hawker said. “I might just let you take my picture then.”
“Not a good idea,” Mary said calmly. “I’ve seen your portraits, Domenico, and they are always amazing but not always kind. And they’re always revealing. I still remember the one you took of Senator Pearson.”
I turned to Nick, remembering the picture that had been all over the news a few years earlier. The Senator had commissioned a portrai
t, and there had been a formal one. Then another one had surfaced, showing the senator looking incredibly amorous. He’d had a glint in his eyes as if a naked woman stood in front of him, and people laughed at the lascivious Senator until they noticed the reflection in a glass cabinet next to him. Showing a young boy running through the room.
“That was you?” I breathed.
“Disgusting man,” he muttered. “I accidentally forgot the photo at the desk of an acquaintance who happens to be a journalist.”
“Took a while but he’s in jail now,” Hawker said. “And I’m a simple guy. I have nothing to hide.”
There were low chuckles around the table, and I thought about all the things Hawker had to hide. The link to his bird, his covert operations, magical cups that were part of prophecies, his heritage as a dragon-shifter –”
Wait a second. Magical cups?
“Joao, you’re sure nothing else was taken?”
“We checked, and the crime scene investigation is ongoing. Prosper PD is still there, but yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“Can you call them? Ask them about a thing in my bags?”
“Sure, what?”
“I had a metal cup. Simple design, blue stones set along the rim. Looks nothing special, but –”
Everyone from Norton had straightened, and Hawker was moving off the porch, pulling his phone out. Joao straightened, but I waved my hand in his face and asked him to hold his questions. Then Hawker turned and started walking back to us, and I knew what he’d say from the look on his face.
“Gone.”
There was a long silence, and then Nick sighed.
“I guess we know another reason for why he wanted to kill Snow.”
Joao turned slowly and looked at his cousin.
“I think there are things you need to tell me.”
It took almost an hour to share everything we knew, but when Joao finally didn’t have any more questions, he leaned back and sighed.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” Hawker echoed, and they exchanged a look.
“I don’t get how this all ties together,” I murmured, feeling a little bit stupid, but it had to be said.
“Me neither,” Wilder agreed.
“None of us does,” Dante said. “We know there are four angles to our problems, though, so let’s start from there.”
