Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories)

by Ringle, Molly

  “I don’t think so, but…” Sophie blew her runny nose, and wadded up the tissue. “There’s a woman who sort of threatened me the other day. I have to wonder if she’s connected to this.”

  “What’s her name?” asked the male officer. He flipped open a smartphone, ready to run a criminal search, Sophie supposed.

  “Betty Quentin. I think she’s a retired professor—not a professor here; from somewhere on the East Coast. But I saw her here a few days ago. We talked in a coffee shop. That was the first and only time I ever met her.”

  “And why did she threaten you?”

  Sophie hesitated. “I’m not really sure. I got the impression she was kind of unstable. She got crazy pretty fast.”

  “What did she say?” the woman asked. “What was the threat?”

  Sophie realized too late that she couldn’t truthfully explain it. She’d become the mentally unstable one in their eyes. “Something about…how she wanted me to join her cult, and it’d be dangerous to say no. I don’t even know what the cult is.” There; that seemed safe enough.

  “We do get types like that around campus,” said the policeman with the smartphone. “We’ll see if we can find her. But my hunch is this was unrelated. Attempted mugging and assault; some guy with an accomplice. They were looking for someone alone to grab, saw you, and went for it. Good thing you had that pepper spray.”

  “But just now, a few minutes ago, I was having coffee with my ex-boyfriend, and these cult people have bothered him too. So I thought, if they followed him or something, and then saw me…”

  The two cops exchanged a glance. “You were with your ex-boyfriend tonight?” the man asked.

  Sophie saw where this was going. “Yeah,” she said reluctantly.

  “Was the breakup recent?” asked the woman.

  “About a week ago.”

  “So, possibly some bitter feelings on his side?”

  “He wasn’t one of the two guys who attacked me. And I really don’t think he’d have anyone else do it. But these people, if they followed him, without him knowing…”

  “What’s his name?” asked the smartphone cop. “We can at least ask him if he saw anyone hanging around.”

  Sorry about this, Jacob, she thought. “Jacob Nealon. He’s a freshman at U of O.”

  “Okay. We’ll look into it. But like I said, chances are it was just a random attack. Can we take you somewhere? Back to your room?”

  She nodded. “I have some people to call.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I DO NOT LIKE THIS,” SAID Adrian—after a tightly bit-off string of swear words. “Not one bit.” He drew in a long breath, exhaled, and gathered her into his arms. “But you’re safe. The police are on it. You did well.”

  They were in the Airstream, its interior lit by a small bedside lamp and the pair of candles on the table. From her dorm room, she had called her parents first. Meanwhile, Melissa sat at her desk, gathering the story by overhearing Sophie tell it, and looking quietly concerned. The news incited her parents’ terror and fury, and she had to spend a long while soothing them and promising to be extra careful. The most difficult part was convincing them to be careful too. They saw no reason why anyone would bother them or their lowly fruit stand, but Sophie now possessed heightened fears about the possibility. Finally, having secured their promise to watch out for suspicious people, she wrapped up her call, and barely reached her study date with Adrian on time.

  She hadn’t told him about the attack until he arrived. He had looked at her reddened eyes and asked in alarm what was wrong. She’d told him as they walked back to the trailer, and now they sat together on his bed, in their silent hug.

  She rested her head on his chest, comforted by the gentleness and warmth of his embrace—though, she found when she tried to shift, his arms were as rigid as an iron cage around her. “Relax,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

  His muscles loosened. “Sorry. But… ‘random attack’? I don’t believe it. Not with Quentin warning you the other day, and Jacob being there five minutes before it happened.”

  “I really don’t think he’d arrange anything like that. But yeah, if they followed him, it makes sense. That reminds me.” She lifted her head to look at him. “Yesterday, after Rhea talked to me, I saw a man watching us. He even followed me when I went into a building, but I took off a different way and lost him. I figured it was just my imagination. But now…”

  He sighed. “Yeah. They’re onto you, all right.”

  “Do you think it was that Wilkes guy? The one on the business card?”

  “Could be. If Quentin’s using him as a contact, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “I thought of mentioning him to the police, but…he is a cop.” She frowned. “Does this mean we can’t trust any of the police?”

  “Oh, we can trust most of them. That is, most of them aren’t in Thanatos. The cult is a small group. But they have members in several different useful positions—religious leaders, cops and other officials, academics, and so on. Still, no, I doubt it would help to mention Wilkes. All he did for sure was hand out his cards, and he could easily deny doing that, or say he hands them out all the time during investigations and doesn’t remember everyone he gives them to. He’ll know how to cover his tracks, being a cop.”

  “Is Niko still keeping an eye on him?”

  “Yeah, a bit. He’s also looking for Quentin, but can’t find her yet. She could be using a different name, and might not even be in Corvallis. Thus no luck so far. But I’ll ring him tonight and tell him what happened, so he can look for any hints that Wilkes or Quentin were involved.”

  Sophie nodded, thinking about the assault. “The guy who grabbed me was after my phone. Not my purse. That’s really what makes me think it’s Thanatos.”

  “Yeah. Bet they wanted to find my number on it and lure me out.”

  “They’d have to search under ‘David.’ Not sure they’re that smart.”

  Adrian smiled wryly. “Likely not.” He touched the puffy skin around her eye. “Poor love. It was good work, the pepper spray, but it hurt you too.” He settled the lightest, softest kiss upon one eyelid and then the other.

  The tense knot eased inside her. Hollowness still remained, though: her stomach growled. She looked up at him. “Hey, I skipped dinner. Do you have anything to eat around here?”

  “You’re in luck. I bought groceries today. Salami, bread, pasta, salad, biscuits.”

  “Does biscuits mean cookies?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ooh. I am lucky.”

  While Adrian rose and began heating water for pasta, Sophie’s phone buzzed.

  “Hmm,” she said, looking at it. “Text from Jacob.” She opened it and winced as she read it.

  You called the cops on me?? Real nice. I’m sorry someone jumped you but I had NOTHING to do with it. I can’t believe you’d even think that. Had to spend an hour answering questions, making me feel like a criminal when I HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING. You can forget what I said about waiting for you. You are freaking crazy. Good riddance.

  Rage and hurt filled Sophie’s chest, choking out her breath. She scooted her thumbs over the screen, ready to fire back all her defenses—who was the attacked party here?—then she stayed still, reconsidering. The rage subsided; she breathed again.

  The police surely told Jacob that all she’d done was mention his name, as part of the circumstances regarding where she’d been right before the attack. A good friend would get that, and would make sure she was all right, not complain about being interrogated. Good riddance, she thought. You said it, man.

  “What’s he say?” Adrian asked, from beside the stove.

  Sophie sighed, and began tapping menu items. “He is not amused.”

  “Ah. You calming him down?”

  “No.” She tapped another button that came up on the screen. “I’m deleting all the texts he ever sent to me, and taking him off my contacts list.”

  Adrian poured the pasta into the boiling w
ater, stirred it with a wooden spoon, and lowered the heat on the burner. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Okay then. Tomato sauce all right with you?”

  AFTER DINNER, FINDING herself exhausted, she returned to the dorms. Adrian walked her to her door, despite her protestations. With scarcely a word to Melissa or anyone else, Sophie went to bed.

  Her dreams continued through Persephone’s phase of lessons with Aphrodite, which involved plenty of laughter but always carried the undercurrent of loneliness from missing Hades.

  In the morning, after Sophie’s first class, someone called on her cell. It was the male police officer who had talked to her last night. Jacob was almost certainly uninvolved in the attack, he said, and they couldn’t find any Betty Quentins staying in the area. They doubted she was involved either, so far. They’d issue a public warning that a pair of unknown assailants were on the loose, and they’d keep looking for them.

  “Thank you,” said Sophie, and hung up with a sigh.

  But that evening she was feeling rather better about the world, as she leaned against the kitchen counter in the Airstream, with Adrian pressed up and down her front, his arms around her, their mouths involved in what she figured definitely counted as “pashing.” A small lightbulb glowed above the kitchen sink. Rain poured against the windows. Their computers sat open but neglected on the table.

  “If you’d just let me steal you away for good, to live in this realm forever,” he murmured, “I could keep you safe. I’m merely pointing that out.”

  “Mm-hm. No problems with that arrangement.” She wriggled into a more comfortable angle, and nibbled his damp lower lip.

  His hands roamed around her waist. “None at all. Can’t think of any problems. This whole situation, it’s quite low-stress.”

  She broke into laughter and hugged him closer, not only for the wry humor but for the delicious way his accent turned “stress” into “striss.” Resting her forehead on his neck, she thought of Thanatos, and then of Demeter’s treachery, and sighed. “Why do people want to keep us apart?”

  “Scared. Jealous. Both.” He groaned suddenly, sounding annoyed.

  Puzzled, she tilted her head at him.

  “Niko’s coming,” he said. “Just sensed him. Another person getting between us, temporarily at least.” He let go of her and moved to the door right before the brisk knock sounded. “Hey,” he said, opening the door.

  “Kalispera,” greeted Niko—”Good evening” in Greek, as Sophie now knew. He stepped in, wearing a dark red fleece and snowboarder-style knit hat complete with earflaps. Every inch of him dripped with rain. He took off the hat and tossed it onto the kitchen counter, glancing from Sophie to Adrian. “You weren’t in the middle of getting each other off, were you?”

  Adrian cringed. “Charming, Niko.”

  Sophie sat at the table, near her computer. “We were waiting for you,” she told Nikolaos. “So you could watch.”

  Niko grinned, and told Adrian, “I like her.”

  “What do you want?” Adrian asked.

  “Some gratitude. I spend all afternoon lurking around Bill Wilkes’ house in Salem, in the drenching rain, waiting for a chance to dive in there and download his hard drive, all because you ask me to, and do you even thank me?”

  Adrian folded his arms. “Thank you. Did you succeed?”

  Niko whipped a small portable hard drive from his pocket and held it up.

  Finally smiling, Adrian took it from him. “Ah, sweet as. Let’s have a look.”

  “I already did,” Niko said as Adrian plugged the drive into his computer. “You might be interested in the little vacation Mr. Wilkes took back in February. Seems he heard it was summertime in New Zealand, and decided to warm up his toes in Wellington.”

  Adrian stopped in the middle of clicking through files, and looked at Sophie, then at Niko. Then at Kiri, standing nearby, sniffing Niko’s wet shoes. “He’s the guy who shot me and Kiri?”

  “Yes, to judge from the email he sent Quentin that very night, saying something like, ‘Found our friend. Delivered the message. As suspected he’s recovering fast, and left for his other home.’ ‘Other home’ is apparently their oh-so-clever code phrase for the spirit realm.”

  Sophie imagined Wilkes shooting Kiri and Adrian without warning in the park at night. She’d heard the story already, but having been assaulted herself now—possibly by the same man—made it twice as horrifying. Fear chilled her stomach, then the temperature raised itself to simmering hatred. “If I ever see him, I’m pepper-spraying him and kicking his head in.”

  Niko looked up from petting Kiri to grin at Adrian again. “I really like her.”

  Adrian sighed, gazing across the table at her. “Thanks, love, but that wouldn’t be the greatest way to show you’re unaffiliated with us.”

  “Fine,” Sophie grumbled.

  “He’s right, I regret to say,” Niko added. “Your best course is to lie, lie, lie. I say that as someone with the greatest respect for lying. It’s saved my life many times. But pepper spray, that reminds me…” Niko drew a small black plastic bag, wrapped around something rectangular, from the inside pocket of his coat. “Present for you.” He handed it to Sophie.

  She unwrapped it. “A flashlight?”

  “Not just that.” Niko turned it in her hands, and showed her a button on the side. “A stun gun. Press this end against the next freak who grabs you, push the button, and zap. Million volts. Down he’ll go, and it won’t hurt you. But if someone does grab it from you, they can’t kill you with it, at least.”

  “Yikes.” She lifted her eyebrows, examining the weapon. “Well. Thank you. I admit, I’m sort of looking forward to trying it on these douchebags.” She glanced at Adrian. “Was this your idea?”

  He looked guilty. “Kind of. Though I hope you never have to use it.”

  She unfolded the instructions she found in the bag, and glanced over them. “When you’re friends with dangerous immortals, guess this is part of the deal.”

  “Indeed. So.” Adrian drummed his fingers on the table, exchanging a look with Nikolaos. “It was Wilkes who shot me. Now what? I can’t turn him in for it. There’s no evidence. Kiri and I were fully recovered in hours, and we didn’t report it back when it happened.”

  “We’ll keep watching him,” said Niko. “Turn him in if he does try anything.” He pointed at Sophie. “For example, if he lays a single finger on you, darling. 911. Or rather, stun gun, then 911.”

  “I will,” said Sophie. “But we still aren’t sure how much he knows about me, and my hanging out with you guys or Rhea. Right?”

  “Well…” Adrian clicked on files again. “We might get a hint. Niko, did you find anything in the messages?”

  “Yes, the most recent ones have Wilkes seeing Sophie yesterday in company of someone who ‘resembles Ms. R,’ though it doesn’t mention the disappearing and reappearing.”

  “So it was Wilkes who followed me,” she said, feeling queasy again.

  “And a week or so back,” Niko added, “Quentin and Wilkes got rather excited about some ‘texts’ and ‘meetings’ between some girl and some troublemaker. That’d be you two, is my guess.”

  She shivered. “So they know we’re texting each other? How?”

  “Let’s see your phone.” Niko held out his hand.

  Sophie handed it over. “I’ve already checked for spyware. I didn’t find anything.”

  “That’s the thing about good spyware. You wouldn’t notice.” He tapped at the phone’s screen. “Usually, for spying on texts, someone would have to get hold of your phone physically, and install something.” He lifted his gaze for a moment to examine her. “Who’s been close enough to do that?”

  “Well, you’re the only one who ever actually stole my phone,” she retorted.

  Nikolaos laughed, glancing at Adrian, who still gazed at the files on his computer. “Only in the service of love, and I swear I didn’t tamper with it. Who else?”

  Adrian met her eyes briefl
y, then looked at his screen again. She cleared her throat and hedged, “I suppose…Jacob might have. My ex-boyfriend. Thanatos did approach him.”

  “Mm-hm. I’d consider that.” Niko danced his fingers across the phone, eyes rapidly taking in information. “And who do you live with? Girls in the dorm?”

  “Melissa’s my roommate. But she hardly pays any attention to me. And I keep the phone pretty close.”

  “Looking at these emails,” Adrian suggested, “they possibly haven’t read the actual texts. There isn’t much detail. Just ‘From what source says, it sounds like they’ve met, and exchanged texts.’ And if they knew the exact times Sophie was going out to meet me, surely they would’ve simply followed her straight to me, and grabbed me then.”

  “Right.” Niko held up her phone. “So my guess is, someone’s watching you from a distance, or from fairly close, even; and they occasionally had a look at these while you were asleep or out of the room. You probably don’t have spyware transmitting your every text to someone else. That is, I don’t see any. But just in case, let’s do a little factory reset, shall we?”

  “Go ahead. I don’t think I have any important stuff to back up.”

  “Brilliant.” While Niko touched the options that sent the phone into its reset operation, Sophie squinted at him.

  “Do I want to know why you’re so informed about spyware?” she asked.

  Nikolaos gave her a charming, dazzling smile. “No, my dear. You do not.”

  UGH, SAID THE text from Sophie the next morning, arriving in the middle of Adrian’s breakfast. Sore throat. I’m getting a cold. Damn dorm food and its lack of nutrition!

  His spirits sank, mainly out of sympathy for her, but also (he had to admit) because it would mean less making out for a few days, and he had thoroughly enjoyed those kisses lately. Shoving aside his hormones in guilt, he typed back, Oh no. Poor thing. I’m sorry.

  Guess it wasn’t just the pashing making me feeling lightheaded. ;)

  No, that isn’t amongst my powers, sadly.

  I’d say I hope you didn’t catch it, but I guess you can’t get sick.