by Mark Henwick
Tullah had said if everything’s okay this morning, meaning after I had spoken to Mary tomorrow. I’d brushed that off as a minor matter and now, that seemed hasty. If Mary and Tullah knew the language that Bian used, which I was betting was Athanate, what did they know about them? And me?
And in the meantime, what the hell had Mykayla gotten into, and was it really Bian’s fault?
Chapter 33
I drove my poor misused car in through the gates of the Lakeside Golf Course. It was getting dark now, and the little raised islands of flowerbeds scattered through the parking lot each had their central, solar-charged light glowing. About twenty cars were parked, their owners lingering over the nineteenth hole, or enjoying the clubhouse restaurant. Over by the path to the clubhouse, tall floodlights shone down, but in the main parking area, the place was shadowy, almost sinister.
Looking way over to my left, I saw a tall figure wave to me and I recognized Diana. Behind her, a couple of cars and a van were grouped together and I could make out people sitting in them. The unmistakable form of Bian sashayed out from the dark and joined Diana. Did the girl have to be quite so over-the-top? Then I realized she might have done that so I could be sure it was them.
I relaxed a tiny bit as I pulled up next to them and got out.
Bian was already in the back of my car, bent over Mykayla’s head. It looked as if she were kissing her.
“What—” I turned, but Diana’s hand stopped me.
“Bian is a healer. In this case, the best that could be for Mykayla. This is the Athanate way, Amber.”
“She’s not going to bite her.” I struggled, but Diana’s grip was extraordinary. I’d have had to tear my arm off to get away.
“She is not biting her,” said Diana. A half dozen men had emerged from the van and cars. Without actually seeming to surround us, they formed a cordon between us and any other watcher in the dark. They would appear as a group of friends to the casual eye.
“Amber, look at me.”
My heart hammered in my chest. Crap, crap. What had I gotten into now? My eyes seemed to move of their own accord and I was looking up into Diana’s. My head swam.
“I have given you my word, Amber,” she said. “I’m not trying to control you, but it’s important that you believe me.”
I calmed myself down. I told myself she wasn’t going to bite me. Bian wasn’t biting Mykayla. Calm. Calm. Focus. The coppery scent from Diana was strangely soothing. Her eyes were gorgeous.
“Better,” she said. “Now, when we bite, which we’re not tonight, Athanate saliva contains chemicals. Some of these we call aniatropics. They make the body heal itself rapidly. That’s what Bian is giving Mykayla, but with a kiss.”
With my head swimming as it was, a giggle threatened to escape. “So the vampire’s kiss is good for you?” I said. David had said something about this.
Diana smiled, and let me get away with calling Bian a vampire. “It could be. Or not.”
“Why’s Bian so good for Mykayla?” I said. I’d have to find out about the or not part later.
“Because Bian believes she is at fault here and owes Mykayla protection. Responsibility is a very strong force for her and that motivation is helping her to create the strongest aniatropics.”
I let out a breath and relaxed. I did believe her, whether it was because she was messing with my head or that I simply found her easy to believe. Diana let me go and I rubbed my arm. I’d just gotten rid of the last bunch, and I really didn’t need new bruises at the ball.
“We are also in your debt, Amber.”
“Well, if you’re offering,” I joked, “a new car would be handy, at least for a while. The bikers will know the car and they’ll have my license plate. And I think I’ve thrown a tooth on the gears.”
Diana made a signal to the surrounding Athanate and, taking my arm again, gently walked me to one side.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
I went through it, from why I felt I had to check up on Mykayla, to scaring off the gang members and escaping. I left it that I’d dropped Tullah off for her mother to pick up and implied I did it for Diana’s security reasons. I filled in a bit of ZK background—the connection to drugs and their interest in finding a legitimate front for their expanding criminal organization. I didn’t mention Kingslund Group. I told her about the death of Guy Windler and mentioned the similarity in smell of the vampire that did that to the rogues from last year.
Diana’s nose flared and she shuddered. “It begins. Soon, it will be very dangerous for you to be on your own, Amber. Keep the cell number we have given you and use it at any time. Or simply agree to live with us.” She looked up at the night sky with her head tilted as if she were listening to something else, then let her breath plume out. “We need to be back at the House. Is there anything else I can offer you in thanks?”
Else?
“Yes, I want to see Mykayla, unbitten, as soon as she’s well. And I want to be convinced she understands exactly what she’s getting into before anything happens.”
“You will,” said Diana simply, as they carried Mykayla to the van. One of the men came over and offered something to me.
I put out my hand and a key dropped into it.
“It is yours,” said Diana, indicating one of the cars. “I’ll bring the papers tomorrow. They’ve moved your things across. Give Bian your keys, please.”
Dumbfounded, I held out the key to my beaten-up old car. “But it’ll be dangerous,” I said. “ZK will be out looking for it, they’ll ambush you.”
“I hope they do,” said Bian, taking the key from me. I looked at her and shivered. All signs of the provocative goth girl had disappeared and were replaced with something entirely feral and frightening. It could be her choice of tattoo was justified.
“Just down to Mykayla’s house to clear that up and then back, Bian,” said Diana. Bian’s head lowered stiffly in acknowledgement.
I dived into my car—my ex-car—and retrieved the little pack of Mrs. Welchester’s fake ID hidden behind the dash. There wasn’t anything I could do about the GPS system, but at least it didn’t have the recording disk inside.
“We will see you tomorrow, Amber,” said Diana.
“Not at the office,” I said. “I’m going to close that for a while.”
Diana nodded. “Probably best. Meet us here, then, in the clubhouse conference room.”
I looked surprised, and she smiled. “I own the club.” They drove off into the night, leaving me with a new Audi.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Playing with the car kept my mind occupied until I got back to Jen’s. I had to get out and show myself to persuade Victor’s guards to let me in, which I approved of, and I told them so.
I turned off the engine and called Tullah. She was fine and I told her that Mykayla was in good hands. I said not to use the office for the moment, and we agreed to meet her mother in the afternoon at the Café Vienne where I’d talked to Geoff earlier today.
I called David and left a short message on his voice mail. Maybe I’d have to slap him around a bit at our next sparring session to teach him that when I said leave the phone on, I meant it.
Jen sauntered out.
“Are you aiming to sleep in your new car, honey, or would you like a drink?”
I kissed her cheek and followed her in. “I’m sorry to treat this like a hotel, Jen, but dinner would be very welcome.”
“I’ll get it started.” She pointed me to the living room. “Butt on the chair, feet on the stool, rum in the glass, I’ll be back to catch up in a moment.”
In less than ten minutes, Carmen had cooked me up an omelette with some delicious little tapas dishes on the side—nuts, mushrooms with garlic and tiny, salty potatoes. Between that and the rum, it felt as if the world was slowing down to a more reasonable pace at last.
Jen sat with her legs tucked underneath her and watched me eat, smiling.
“What are you laughing at?” I asked.
“That’s evil, Jen.” I put my empty plate on the table and slumped back in the chair. “Okay. I met with Geoff Hansen this afternoon, formerly of your finance department.”
“I bet that was exciting,” said Jen, and I grinned.
“Couldn’t get away.”
I sat back and took her through my findings. Geoff’s description of the financial processes confirmed my suspicion that there was a problem, and that it was internal to the Kingslund Group. Geoff confirmed some of the issues that David had raised when he’d seen the accounts.
A company like Jen’s that was purchasing a rival should have been moving long term investments into short term. The money needed to be accessible quickly and without penalty more than it needed to be getting a good return by being bound up for a long period. The reverse was happening; money was being moved into long term investments. None of this showed in the balance sheets because the investment types were no longer being broken out. The bottom line was that she wasn’t in a good position to buy Tucker Beacon. And in the current climate, the banks would assess Tucker Beacon as too big a risk to get involved.
The second anomaly was that the investment documentation provided to me was false. The return on any particular investment was difficult to extract and the total amount looked good, but I had managed to find references to a specific investment that was returning a fifth of the level it should. If all the recent investments were doing the same, the total position was only being obscured by the number of new investments that were being added.
This sleight of hand was about as stable as a Ponzi scheme. At some point, the money available from new investments wouldn’t be enough to mask the fact the previous investments weren’t returning the right amounts. This was a short term tactic to hobble the company. Whoever was doing this would be discovered at the next general audit. So it stood to reason that whatever plan there was had to be triggered by the end of the year at the latest, probably much earlier.
I had a feeling Geoff had been getting close to finding this out when he had fallen foul of what he thought was office politics. My concern for Jen was that the person he’d fallen foul of was Jen’s financial director and second-in-command, Bernard Verdoon.
Jen’s eyes were hooded as I talked it through. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Bernard’s been with me for ten years. He has signing rights for the company, for God’s sake.” Her hand slapped down on her thigh.
“He’s the only one with enough authority to run this.”
“I’ll string the bastard up if it’s him. I’ve totally trusted him.” She grabbed her phone and I lifted my hand. “What?” she said angrily, looking up at me.
“Two things, Jen. I can’t be absolutely sure it’s him, and I think the best course of action is to find answers. Who, how and why may tell us a great deal, while firing him may not. We need to know what’s going on to stop it or at least make a suitable defense.”
She put the phone down. “What are you suggesting?”
“You have a meeting with him on something else. Matt and I will look at his computer and desk files while he’s busy. You should also set up an agreement with your banks that any large transfers have to be passed by you—secretly. We won’t be able to keep that hidden for more than a week or so, but that should be enough.”
Jen thought it through and then nodded. She calmed down.
“So much for the financials,” I said. “Next, I haven’t forgotten the trouble on your land. If it’s linked to everything else, it gets straightened out with everything else. If not, I’ll deal with it in the next week, or explain to you why I can’t.”
Jen stared at me with a slight smile. “It is weird, then. Okay.” She waved it off.
I got us refills for our glasses and took my plate back to the kitchen to thank Carmen and to give Jen a little time to think everything through. I hadn’t had anything to report on Troy, but Victor was emailing her directly now.
She was sitting in the same position when I returned, but had clearly put my news aside to be dealt with in the morning. I wished I could do that sort of thing.
“So,” I said, “what’s your news that you teased me about?”
Jen smiled lazily. “I assume you know which asshole I’m talking about when I say Lieutenant Krantz?”
Chapter 34
“Dammit, Amber, I’m sorry.” Jen had her arms around me, trying to physically stop me from venting my anger on the furniture. “I didn’t realize he’d gotten under your skin so badly. I’d never have joked about it if I thought you’d react like this.”
I felt the anger ebbing away slowly and I let Jen steer me back to the sofa and sit me down. Carmen’s head popped around the door to see what the noise was and Jen waved her away. Embarrassment took over from the anger as Jen picked up the table I had kicked over.
“Sorry,” I said. “That was childish, way over the top.”
Jen slid in beside me and grabbed my hand between hers.
“Tell me about it,” she ordered.
I sighed. Not telling people was like pushing water uphill. If I was going to end up disappearing into the Athanate community in a couple of months, maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Thinking that depressed me. I wasn’t that far gone yet and I wasn’t giving up the fight.
I decided to tiptoe around the edges of the agreement I had signed with the army.
“Krantz thinks he’s onto a major fraud involving vets’ money. I don’t know. If he is, more power to him.” I sighed again and ran my free hand over my face in frustration. “Because of what I did in the army, my records aren’t available to him. It looks to him like I’m being paid a vet’s disability compensation without ever having been in the army. That’s what he accused me of, and called on my sense of patriotism. As if he had any idea.”
“What are you being paid for?” Jen’s business mind cut right to the heart of it.
“Think of it as a retainer. Stupid damn decision to hide it like that, but not my decision. Anyway, I don’t care. I don’t want the money. It’s nothing. It’s Krantz telling me—”
“Okay. Okay. I get that part of it, honey. He was ‘officially’ telling me that you had been cleared, but that he was just tying up loose ends. Trying to tell me that you were actually guilty but he wasn’t allowed to prove it.”
I managed to remain seated this time. “What did you say?”
“Hell, I kicked him out, of course. I think I said something along the lines of you were so patriotic you had the flag sewn into your panties, and you would never, ever be involved in anything like that. As for my contract with you, none of his damn business. I may have used some short words, and I may have shouted a bit.”
“Thanks, Jen.” I looked down at my lap.
“You’re blushing.” She laughed. “You actually do have a flag sewn into your panties?”
That made the blush worse of course, but it was sort of true, I did have a pair with a flag printed under the words ‘Property of the US Army.’ A joke gift from my team about four years ago, in what I was now thinking of as very long ago. Time to change the subject.
“Matt came by this morning. Thanks for loaning him to me. He’s a nice looking kid. I think Tullah may have noticed.”
Jen grinned, but she let me change topics. “Did he do a good job?”
“Very good. It’ll save an enormous amount of time. From a glance, it looks like there will be enough leads to get the police involved in closing down ZK.”
“That’ll be welcome news.” Jen spared a hand to reach for her brandy and took a sip.
“Do you know why Matt might be—well, scared of me?” I asked.
Jen put her glass down and went back to holding my hand with both of hers. It was all right, really, I wasn’t going to get up and break her furniture again, but I didn�
�t mind.
“Yes,” she said, and a prickle of unease went through me at her expression.
“Amber,” she began finally, “I’m in a very vulnerable position. In all sorts of ways.” Her hands squeezed mine and I remembered doing exactly that to David in the coffee shop. I steeled myself. Whatever she had to say, I was going to face it as calmly as David had and find the good in it.
“I had Matt run full background checks on you.”
I let that sink in. It wasn’t so bad. If I were in her position, wouldn’t I do the same thing? I put my free hand on the others and squeezed her back.
“Thank you,” she said, “for taking that so well.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I replied. “Find anything?”
She smiled crookedly. “As you know very well, there’s an eerie absence of information about you. Matt says the only profile he can think of that fits is some secret ninja assassin. That’s why he’s acting nervous.”
I laughed. “Too much Hollywood.” Jen grinned in agreement.
“I can connect the dots,” she said. “And I like the picture it shows. There’s no way, for example, that your friend Werner believes you were only ‘in the vicinity’ when his daughter was rescued last year, and I don’t either.”
The feeling I had from hugging Emily that morning came flooding back and lit me up from the inside. I smiled. “Werner says you’ve put in some orders for you and your friends.”
“Hell yes! I’m sick of people complaining that there’s no diversity and then shopping in national stores for expensive crap that has no individuality. I don’t want to live in a cultural wasteland. Support local artists and artisans if you want your place to have its own identity. I’ll never buy a pair of boots in a store again.”
“Message received and understood, ma’am,” I said. She would have jabbed me, but I was holding her hands.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
I floated above the exercise mats in the dark of Jen’s basement gymnasium, a shadow among shadows as I went through Master Liu’s most strenuous exercises and the puzzles of the day.
