by Lena North
Dante leaned back too and sipped his water calmly as quiet conversation swirled around him. Everyone tried to act as if nothing was wrong, and the only ones not saying anything was Magnus and Murielle. He looked defeated, and she looked angry.
I turned to Dante and wondered what it would feel like to sit there and listen to the girl’s thoughts, hearing her childish hopes and dreams being preyed upon by a grown man. As I watched, his eyes suddenly sharpened but he didn’t move. After a while, he slowly pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and got to his feet.
“Excuse me,” he murmured and left.
Hawker watched his back with narrowed brows, and Allie turned to the room.
“I can’t remember anything that would explain –”
Hawker’s phone rang, and she stopped, but he calmly turned it off without looking at it. Miller phone rang immediately, and he did the same.
“That’s okay, Allie,” Hawker said and sighed when Mac also rejected a phone call.
Then my phone chimed. I had a text message from Dante.
“Tell Johns to pick up his goddamn phone,” it said.
I looked at the screen and my gut clenched with apprehension. Hawker’s phone started ringing again, and he sighed, but I leaned forward.
“You should perhaps pick it up,” I said quietly.
He pressed his lips together and turned the phone around. Then he got to his feet and walked over to the window. We all watched in silence as he murmured a few words into the phone and then he turned.
“Right,” he said. “We have another situation that will have to be dealt with so here’s what’s going to happen…”
He surveyed the room, clearly making plans, and then he nodded.
“Miller, Wilder, Mac and Mary. You’re with me. Everyone else stays in this room. Olly, you’re deputized. Anyone moves, arrest them.”
“What,” Murielle gasped.
“I am not kidding,” Hawker barked, turned to his brother and said, “Mags, my daughter once told you to grow a pair. Now would be a good time to do so.”
Without waiting for an answer, he walked out of the room. Miller pulled me to my feet, and we followed Hawker across the driveway and into his house.
Ch
apter Twenty-four
Strachlan
Dante was in the living room, and when we walked in, he raised his hand and pointed to the phone he held to his ear.
“Danny, where’s Jiminella?” he said. “Right. Get three men, fully armed, go get her.” He listened for a few seconds but then he clearly cutting his friend off. “I’m calling her, she won’t give you any issues. All security is on full alert. No time to talk now, I’m leaving in thirty, get our people into the village, and absolutely no one else enters until I’m back. Complete lockdown, Danny.” There was another brief silence, and then he murmured, “Yeah. Keep her safe for me man.”
“What the –”
Dante raised his hand again to stop Hawker from talking, pressed the screen and then he said into the phone.
“Nellie, no discussion, not now. Danny and a few men will come pick you up. Go home, stay there, okay? Call me when you’re inside the gates.” She must have agreed without questioning him because he said immediately, “Yeah, love you too,” and closed the call.
Then he turned to us, and his face was hard and angry.
“Someone is fooling that girl and has been for a very long time. Years, I think.”
“I thought so,” Hawker agreed. “Did she see him?”
“No. He’s been damned clever, hiding in the forest and feeding Allie's ego, telling her stories about the birds, and how she couldn’t tell anyone. It started out innocently enough, but it seems as if it’s escalating, or has been in the past few months.”
“What’s wrong in Marshes?” I whispered. “Dante, why are you afraid for Jinx?”
He answered immediately, and I could suddenly see what Miller had talked about when I’d been surprised about Dante and Olly sparring. Try to hurt Jinx and the suave, slick Dante turned into someone completely different. The man in front of me would kill, instantly, if he had to, there was no doubt in my mind about that.
“He told Allie that she was the cleverest girl he had even met,” he growled. “Said she was even smarter than the one by the waters. He also said that the one by the waters would be gone soon.”
“What?” Wilder shouted. “She knew this and –”
“Wilder, she’s twelve,” Hawker interrupted. “She doesn’t understand.”
“She’s young, but she’s not stupid,” Wilder snapped.
“She knows it’s wrong, and she wanted to tell someone,” Dante interrupted. “He’s cunning, and he knows how to play her.”
“Shit,” Wilder muttered. “Dibs when we find him,” she added, and I stared at her.
She was calling dibs on what? Killing him?
“He’s mine,” Hawker said, and his voice gave no room for argument, so no one even tried.
They started pushing Dante for details, and he told them what he knew, which wasn’t a lot. He kept looking at his watch, and I knew that he worried about Jinx, so when his phone rang, we all sighed with relief.
“Nellie,” he said, looked around the room and went on, “I’ll put you on the loudspeaker. Hawk, Mill, Mary, Wilder and Mac are in the room.”
“Hey everyone,” Jinx said. “Problems?”
Her voice was calm, and the mood seemed to lighten in the room just by her verbal presence, although it could be simply because Dante visibly relaxed.
Dante told her what had happened in a summary so clear and to the point, I felt my mouth fall open a little before I controlled myself. I knew he was the Mayor of the village by the sea, and since Jinx was a genius I’d figured out that he wasn’t exactly stupid, but I realized that I’d been a bit blinded by his looks. His beautiful face, long golden hair and tall, muscular body had made me think that he was laid back and not very shrewd. The way he talked with Jinx on the phone, and handled Hawker Johns, clearly showed that he was more than a jovial man who made jokes about Miller and me.
“How do you know she doesn’t have a bird?” Jinx asked. “The connections evolve, you all know this. She could –”
“Jinx, no,” Wilder said calmly. “I get what you’re saying, but there were too many things that were off. She talked about us all being bird owners when we are friends with our birds. They’re family. We don’t own them.”
“She said her bird sounded like a normal man,” Mac cut in. “It… I can’t explain, but they don’t sound exactly like humans. It’s more like…” He trailed off and looked around the room.
“An echo,” I said quietly.
Everyone froze, and Jinx murmured, “Was that you, Mary?”
“Yes,” I said and looked at them. “I’ve heard Miller’s kite. I heard him when we were at Miller’s porch, and he was so drunk… and a couple more times since then.”
I hadn’t told anyone except Miller because it was so mundane. I’d heard the bird laugh a few times, and once it told me to bring in a few books from outside just before it started raining. There were no major revelations or anything dramatic, just everyday stuff.
“Huh,” Hawker said.
“Interesting,” Jinx said, and I could tell that she wanted to discuss this further but we’d have to do that another day.
“Then there’s the name,” I said, to get them back to the current problem.
“Yeah,” Wilder picked up immediately. “That was really strange. They do not have names, and it used to drive me nuts.”
“They don’t have names?” Jinx asked. “What do you call them?”
“Bird.”
There was a long silence, and then Jinx asked, “Just, bird? All of you the same? Bird?”
“Yup,” Mac said.
“That’s why it was so strange that she called it Strachlan, repeatedly. Told us clearly, that was her bird's name, a
nd that’s when we all knew,” Hawker said.
“What?” Jinx said, and her voice sounded strange.
“Str –”
“I heard you. Oh, God,” she whispered.
“Nellie, what?” Dante asked, leaning forward and the frown was back on his face.
“Dante… The man, the professor leading the research program that put me in a hospital several times as I grew up. He was called Jonathan Strachlan.”
Everyone reared back when we heard, and a murmur went through the room. We’d all heard about how Jinx and a group of children had been used in scientific experiments as they grew up. To find out that there was a link between that program and the group around Hawker Johns was mind-boggling.
“Fuck,” Hawker said succinctly, and for once I agreed with the use of that word.
“We’ll have to find the professor,” Dante said quietly.
“That’ll be hard because he’s dead,” Jinx countered. She had regained her composure and continued calmly to explain.
“His academic career took a downward turn from what he did with us. Then someone found errors in most of his official research, so he got discharged immediately from all his posts at the University, and stripped of his academic titles. Within weeks, a nasty rumor about his fondness for young boys somehow made its way around the hospitals, and nothing was ever proven, but there was enough to make sure nobody hired him.”
She made a pause, but since she was met with silence, she went on, “Then he was murdered. Someone broke into his home and shot him.”
“You?” Wilder asked.
I blinked. I had never in my life expected to hear one of my girlfriends calmly ask the other if she’d committed murder.
“I’m the sheriff here,” Hawker murmured warningly. “No mentioning murder, Jinx.”
Jinx promptly started laughing.
“The official research, affirmative, that was totally me. Pedophilic tendencies, I wish it had been me, but no. Murder, absolutely not. I wanted him to live for eternity.”
Dante smiled toward the phone and rubbed his face with one of his hands.
“Eternity?” Mac asked.
“Yes. Jonathan Strachlan saw himself as a demigod, but he fell fast and landed hard. He had a son, but when it all went down he took his family and bailed, so the high and mighty Uni professor who had ruled his own little kingdom ended up living alone in a small shack,” Jinx said and added with great satisfaction in her voice, “On welfare. Hell yeah, I wanted him to live like that for a long time.”
“Guess someone disagreed,” Mac muttered.
“Guess so,” she said.
“We need Kit and Olly,” Miller suddenly said. “There’s a connection, but I can’t…”
“What do you mean?” Hawker asked when he trailed off.
“Too much shit has happened, Hawk, but I don’t get how it ties together. The crystal. Fratinelli. Trying to capture Jinx. Kidnapping Mary. Code sheets. The Ophidians. Shooting at us… and shooting to kill. And now this man with a link to Jinx is tricking Allie into telling secrets.”
Their eyes held and then Hawker nodded.
“We’ll get together all of us. Everyone’s in Norton, so we’ll do it tomorrow.”
“I haven’t gone through Paolo Fratinelli’s study yet. Haven’t had time and didn’t think it was important, but I’ll start tomorrow,” Dante said, and added, “Though, Hawker? Not everyone is in Norton.”
“Huh?”
“Snow,” Jinx said. “Snow is in Prosper, in my condo which has four crappy locks and a couple of deadbolts.”
“Shit,” Hawker said, and started pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“You’re responsible for things here, Johns,” Dante said, and there was a steely tone in his voice. “I’ll make sure Jiminella and Snow are safe.”
“If Perdita Frato is still somehow involved, then –”
“What?” Jinx shouted.
I blinked, wondering if my mind would ever stop spinning from what they were talking about.
“Perdita Frato,” Hawker repeated. “The drug cartel, the Ophidians – they’re structured in cells, and each cell takes a name, and it’s usually something in their old language. The one we had issues with here was called Perdita Frato. I’ve been assured that it was a rogue cell and that they were acting on their own, but I’m not so –”
“No,” she whispered, and she suddenly sounded close to tears.
“What’s wrong, Nellie?” Dante asked immediately.
“It isn’t. Dante, tell them it isn’t.”
“Nellie, what? We don’t understand,” he said.
“Perdita Frato. It means lost brother,” she said hoarsely.
There was a long silence, and I didn’t understand at all why this was a problem.
Jinx took a few deep breaths, and said, “You’ll be looking for someone who knows about Strachlan and the hospital. About me and where I live. A person who’s clever enough to figure out about the birds and can manipulate a young girl. And that someone had a brother who’s dead now.”
“Shit,” Dante said immediately.
“What?” Hawker barked.
“There is someone who fits the bill perfectly,” Dante said.
“It isn’t him,” Jinx wailed.
There was a long silence, and then Dante sighed.
“Jamieson.”
I blinked. James Jamieson? Jamie, Jinx’ nerdy doctor friend? No. I had to agree with Jinx, it couldn’t be. Could it?
C
hapter Twenty-five
When hell freezes over
There was a chill in the air, and Wilder was lighting up the huge fire-pit as I walked out with a pile of blankets. Then I sat down and leaned back in my chair, out of necessity more than desire because my belly was growing faster than I’d expected and I thought that I looked like a barrel already.
“Where’s Mac?” I asked Wilder when she sat down next to me.
“He’s picking Olly up, they’ll be here soon. No way I’m letting them miss this afternoon,” she grinned.
“I hope they can all come,” I murmured and put a hand on my belly.
“I’ve sent texts galore, so they’ll be here,” she replied, and when I glared at her, she just grinned. “Don’t worry, your surprise is safe with me. Told them to come or explain to my fists why they didn’t, that’s all.”
I smiled, knowing well that they’d all come, understanding that this was her way of telling them that it was important. While we waited for everyone to arrive, we talked about everything that had happened in the past months. Allie had been devastated when she saw Wilder’s bird and had at first refused to believe that she’d been fooled. When the truth sunk in it had hit her hard, and she’d withdrawn from her parents and the rest of her family. She cooperated, though, and told Hawker everything she could remember, although the man who had tricked her had been clever, so they didn’t know who he was or exactly what he tried to achieve. He’d made threats against Jinx, and it seemed as if he’d been behind the attack on Miller and me though how that was connected was still unclear.
Then Murielle had a very public breakdown in the square outside Johns. Mags had been in the bar, partially to drown his anger in a very large glass of whiskey, but gossip said it was mostly to get away from her. Their marriage was falling to pieces, and fast. Magnus had apparently taken his brother’s advice to grow a spine to heart, and taking it completely too far according to Sloane, who said she heard them fighting all the time. Both Gilmore and Hawker had tried to intervene, but it hadn’t helped. Then Murielle had suddenly been standing in the square, crying and making threats to kill herself and even though most seemed to think that it was all for show, the doctor had been worried enough to admit her to a private resting facility. I hoped it would help her, and had told Mags to let me know if I could do anything for them. Since she blamed me for most of what had happened, he’d bluntly told me that the best help would be
if I stayed far, far away from her, so I did. I didn’t like her, but I hadn’t wanted their family to break up, and I hoped she’d get the help she so clearly needed.
Jinx had been the one that finally got through to Allie, by providing answers but mostly, I thought, by her calm way of dealing with the girl. When Murielle had left, Mags surprised everyone by accepting an invite from Jinx and Dante, promptly packed his two kids and a few bags into his car and went to Marshes for an extended stay. Jinx told me the kids were doing well and that Magnus was adjusting, which I assumed meant he still felt like shit.
Dante was going through Wilder’s step-father’s study, and so far, he’d mostly found evidence around the small-scale drug smuggling which Paolo Fratinelli had been involved in. Paolo Fratinelli had also wanted Wilder’s crystal, believing that it would make him rich, which we already knew. His cousin Francesco had confirmed this again, as well as our suspicions that the whole thing had been orchestrated by the cell called Perdita Frato. Dante had interrogated Francesco several times, and so had others from the government, though he seemed to have been a pawn in the bigger scheme and knew very little. He hadn’t been part of what happened to Jinx and had just stumbled on her as he brought a shipment of drugs into our country. He had however been part of the group kidnapping me, although mostly by providing a place to hold me. The others in the drug cartel had always had their faces covered when they met him, and he believed this was standard procedure, which it apparently wasn’t at all. They didn’t know who the leader of Perdita Frato was, and Hawker’s contacts in the drug cartel assured him that they were rogue, and not a part of their organization anymore, something Hawker didn’t believe at all.
They argued still about what to do about Jamie Jamieson. Hawker was convinced the man was involved somehow, but both Jinx and Dante were adamant that he wasn’t, and neither side was willing to give in. The latest I’d heard was that Snow would meet up with Jamie in Prosper for a causal dinner, to see how she felt about him, but I didn’t know what had come out of that.
There were many more details, and I found it all fascinating, but also a little bit unreal. If I could help them, I would, but I’d told Miller that I was perfectly happy living a normal life in my small village in the mountains.
