by Price, E A
Kylie blinked as she realized he was talking to her. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
The left-hand side of his mouth curled up. “I said, nice day.”
“Oh, right, yes,” she blushed.
She watched, eagerly, as he trailed around the store. He paused to look at several items, but he never touched any of them. After about five minutes spent perusing the merchandise – during which time Kylie barely took her eyes off him or breathed for that matter – he stopped at the counter and gave her a small smile which sent butterflies crashing into one another in her stomach.
“Are you Bea?” he asked in a smooth voice.
Kylie contained her wince. The guy probably didn’t know that Bea was in her sixties, but it wasn’t fun when someone mistook her for a sexagenarian. “No, she’s away in New York at the moment. I’m Kylie.” She giggled in what was supposed to be a flirtatious way but probably sounded closer to the croak of a frog.
“Nice to meet you, Kylie. I’m Holling.” He said it with effortless ease and sexual appeal. Kylie almost felt her knees buckle as she shook his hand.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” she offered. True, she would be hopeless when it came to antiques, but she could do other things, like point out the best restaurants in town and she’d even be generous enough to join him for dinner…
Holling stared at her for a couple of beats. His face betrayed no emotion, and Kylie prickled a little under the scrutiny. The guy’s poker face was incredible.
“You’re new in town, right?” she babbled, trying to fill the silence. “If you need someone to show you around, let me know.”
He cocked his head on one side, and her stomach clenched as embarrassment spread down to her toes. Yet, she carried on regardless. “Have you seen the hanging tree? I mean, it’s not much, it’s just a tree when all is said and done but, you know, it has a history. Plus we have a fantastic seafood restaurant that…”
“Perhaps you can pass on a message to Bea,” he said, slowly, cutting through her verbal diarrhea.
Kylie sighed inwardly, a mixture of relief and disappointment. “Sure.”
“Professor Hardcastle died a couple of nights ago.”
“What?!” squawked Kylie as he stood there, placidly telling her that someone she knew had just died as easily as if he were telling her that his toaster was malfunctioning. “How? When? But, how?” she spluttered.
“Two nights ago,” he told her with razor-tipped patience. “The doctor believes it was his heart. He wasn’t a young man; it was only matter of time.”
“He seemed so full of life,” she muttered as cold, sadness trickled through her heart. He had been a strange man, that was for sure, and she wouldn’t exactly say they had been friends, but to hear that he was gone was depressing.
The shop was deafeningly silent as the words of condolence were left unsaid. Kylie felt a burst of anger towards Holling for his unfeeling stance.
“Who are you, anyway?” she demanded, crankily.
If her tone bothered him, it certainly didn’t show. But then he could be angry as holy hell, or as happy as a clam at that moment, and Kylie doubted she’d know the difference.
“I’m a friend of Andrew Hardcastle’s; he’s…”
“The nephew,” interjected Kylie, a little sourly as she remembered her encounter with him. “How is he taking this?”
That earned her a lip twitch that looked a little like a smile. “I don’t think they were very close,” he replied, evasively. “But I understand that Bea was a friend, and his butler Gustave thought she should know.”
Shit – Gustave. He probably would be the most affected by the loss. “How is Gustave?”
“He has left the house.”
Kylie wrinkled her nose. “Already?”
Holling ignored the question. “I can trust that you’ll inform Bea.”
“Yes,” she sighed.
He nodded. “See you around.”
He turned and strode out of the store, only stopping to scoop up his umbrella. Kylie, in spite of her annoyance, couldn’t help but stare at his taut butt as he walked. Yes, she was hopeless and a little surprised at the pang of guilt that washed through her. Ogling men’s butts was natural, why would she feel guilty about that? But for some strange, unexplainable reason, she felt like she was being disloyal to someone. Which was dumb.
She felt uneasy about the situation. Okay, so yeah, the professor was no spring chicken, but this was incredibly sudden. She didn’t really have a lot of experience of people dying – other than her parents but that happened when she was too young to understand. Was it normal for it to have been this… this… unexpected? And what was with Gustave? Why had he already left?
Kylie drummed her fingers on the counter and barely even noticed as Hurricane Maggie erupted into the store. Raindrops gleamed on her and as she walked they splattered onto various antiques.
“Careful, you’re getting water everywhere,” said Kylie, mechanically and without much conviction.
Maggie shook her head and raindrops sprayed in every direction. “Who was that guy walking out of your store?” she demanded.
“Some friend of Andrew Hardcastle’s.” Kylie had long since gotten over her amazement at the fact that Maggie spied on all the other stores on the street when she was bored.
“He was hot,” she gushed enthusiastically. Maggie bouncing up and down was a good indicator of just how much of a rarity a man like Holling was in Devil’s Hang. “Although, I bet he’d look better with a nose ring.” Maggie tapped her chin thoughtfully as she considered just how much of an improvement facial jewelry could bestow on people.
Unhappily, Kylie explained about the professor’s death, and Maggie was suitably upset. Maggie had never liked him, but she recognized a fellow oddball when she saw one, and she was always impressed when he pissed off the town council. It was something she had never managed to perfect. They embraced all the crazy things she did – two months ago when she spray painted the town cats pink actually increased tourism, so they were grateful.
“Shit, does that mean that Andrew the asshole will be living here full-time?”
The nickname Andrew the asshole was perhaps a little harsh. Andrew was only guilty of being slightly obnoxious and a little flashy. They were traits found in most people who lived in cities when they moved to small towns. Except for Kylie, but that was more to do with the fact that she didn’t have enough money to be flashy. Maggie, though, could be absolutely merciless.
“I guess,” Kylie murmured. Although, she couldn’t imagine the young man settling there - the drafty, old building hardly seemed like a place he would want to be. Perhaps it would be better if he sold everything and left. Kylie thought of the professor’s vast collection and felt another twinge of sadness. He had loved his collection. Kylie thought it was crap, but he had loved it, and she knew he wouldn’t have wanted his nephew to sell it.
Oh no! What was going to happen to the gargoyle named Lucifer? Her heart twisted as she thought of the gargoyle being sold, or worse, destroyed. No, she couldn’t let that happen.
Chapter Six
“What did she say?”
Holling sneered at the gargoyle in front of him and adjusted the sledgehammer in his hands. “Nothing, she wasn’t there. I spoke to her idiot niece.”
With a mighty roar, he brought the hammer down on the offending statue and was gratified when a crack appeared. It wasn’t important. Oh, the thing was probably worth some money to a collector, but it was only an imitation. It wasn’t a real gargoyle. This was just stress relief or possibly practice. They were close; he could feel it. Once they found the gargoyles and figured out how to wake them, any gargoyles that didn’t get with the program could look forward to this kind of treatment. Course, it wouldn’t be him persuading them, or even leading them, but they would be at his disposal, and nobody would argue with a guy who possessed the loyalty of terrifying, flying monsters.
“You mean the dumpy, hippyish loo
king girl?”
Holling grunted and took another swing at the statue. Pieces of it flew across the old professor’s study, and Lara growled at him to be careful. Holling glowered her into silence, and she resumed fiddling with her oversized engagement ring.
“Have you even managed to find any of them yet?” she asked, sulkily.
The tightening of his jaw told her all she needed to know.
“Maybe he doesn’t have any. Maybe we’re wasting our time,” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear. “I don’t know why you think that Bea woman would be any use. Gustave certainly wasn’t.”
Holling scowled at her. Perhaps bringing Lara here hadn’t been the best idea, but Andrew was so much more manageable when she was around. The problem was that while attractive, she was clingy and irritating. She did as Holling bade her out of some simpering sense of loyalty to him, not because she was really committed to their cause. And that irritated him even more. Still, she had her uses.
He had spent years tracking the whereabouts of the gargoyles, and he wouldn’t be here now if Lara hadn’t seduced her way into Andrew’s life. The fool. Pity the professor hadn’t been quite as malleable. He would have preferred to keep the old man around, but, in spite of not possessing magic, the old goat was wily. Keeping him alive and under control would have been difficult.
“You’re too impatient,” Holling said, tersely. “We’ve barely even begun to look.”
Although he wouldn’t admit it, he was somewhat surprised at how hard it was to find the missing gargoyles. He assumed that the professor kept them in a basement or an attic or even, because the old bastard was tediously old school, in a secret room. But having already scoured the house, there was no sign of them. The attic was filled with broken antiques and cobwebs while the basement was actually a wine cellar. The house, although of a strange construct and possessing more than one corridor that simply went nowhere, possessed no hidden rooms. Their research couldn’t be wrong, though. The professor had inherited at least twenty gargoyles from their previous caretaker over forty years ago. The damn things had to be somewhere. Giant stone statues don’t just disappear into thin air!
Holling slipped the sledgehammer behind a curtain as Andrew entered the room. Lara barely even reacted, and Holling gave her a sharp look. Meaning he sent her a mind jolt. It was not particularly painful, but she still leaped out of her seat as if she had been stung on the rear by a giant bumblebee.
It was not a special talent, but was very common in Holling’s family. Most of his family members had been able to delve into the minds of other beings - or at least, weaker beings.
Lara marched over to Andrew and threw her arms around him theatrically. Holling balled his fists to fight the rage he felt. He had come too far to allow a selfish bitch like Lara ruin it all. If Andrew suspected that Lara was anything but sincere about her feelings, and impending marriage to him, they would lose access to the professor’s collection and everything that he had worked so hard for would disappear in a puff of smoke. Of course, if necessary, he could kill Andrew and continue searching, but that probably wouldn’t go unnoticed, and he could do without the distraction of a murder inquiry.
However, Andrew – the dolt – didn’t seem to notice Lara’s childish behavior. He was wearing somber black and sporting a matching expression. “Have you seen Gustave?”
Lara inhaled and shot Holling a panicked look. Couldn’t the damn woman manage subtlety?
“I’m afraid not,” replied Holling, calmly.
“I haven’t seen him all day,” he said, gloomily.
“He said he needed to get away,” blurted Lara. Andrew blinked at her in surprise, and when he turned his back, Lara gave Holling a triumphant look. Holling wanted to run over to her and wring her scrawny neck. She actually thought she’d done something clever.
“Get away where?” asked Andrew, slowly. Clearly surprised that this was the first he heard of it. It was the first any of them was hearing it.
“Perhaps he decided to go and stay with relatives or friends,” suggested Lara, digging that hole ever deeper.
“That’s not like him…”
“Grief does strange things to people,” said Holling, authoritatively as Lara floundered. “You said he was very close to your uncle?”
“Yes, they’ve known each other for years.”
“I expect he doesn’t know how to handle his grief.”
Andrew nodded, but he didn’t seem overly convinced. “I just wish there was some way to contact him.”
Lara – who was clearly testing the limits of her brain – snapped her fingers. “Why don’t we report him missing and say he stole some of the family silver?”
“That would draw too much attention,” chastised Holling as Andrew looked at her aghast.
“And he didn’t do anything like that,” said Andrew, disapprovingly.
Holling clapped a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “We’ll look for him, quietly. Don’t you worry about it; I’ll handle everything. In the meantime, you should get used to living in your new house.” And preferably, stay the hell out of his way.
Chapter Seven
Bea sneered at the invitation for the fifth time that morning.
“Cordially invited… housewarming… not even dead a month,” she muttered.
Kylie sighed and continued dusting a large hat rack shaped like a giraffe. Kylie called her Geraldine.
They had received an invitation to a party at Andrew Hardcastle’s new home. Or, to be more precise, Professor Hardcastle’s old home that now belonged to Andrew. Kylie assumed that everyone in town had received an invitation. She already knew from Maggie’s shrieking phone call that her friend had both received one and was going to the party. Either to be annoying or to steal the silver – she hadn’t decided yet.
On the other hand, Bea was not a happy antique shop owner. “He doesn’t return my phone calls, but then he wants me to attend a party at his house,” she grumbled out loud. “His uncle’s barely cold in his grave… well, cold in his urn,” she amended.
It had been three weeks since Professor Hardcastle’s cremation, so Kylie figured by now, he had to be pretty darn cold. The service had been depressing. Apart from Bea, Kylie, and Maggie, the only people there were Andrew Hardcastle, Holling and Hardcastle’s icy fiancée, the loathsome Lara. Kylie was a little disappointed that no one else from town turned up, and she was outright amazed that Gustave was a no show.
“Have you asked about buying some of his antiques?” prompted Kylie.
“Several times,” she admitted, glumly. “He says he doesn’t want to sell anything at the moment.”
“Nothing? Not even some of the, oh I don’t know – the statues?” Kylie hoped she sounded more nonchalant than she felt.
“He says he isn’t sure what he wants to do with anything except for the stuffed animal heads – he’d love to get rid of those - but I don’t want them. Those hideous things never sell.”
“So you’re not going to the party?”
Bea sniffed. “No, I need to go to Chicago. A friend of mine wants me to appraise a piece she just bought, and I haven’t seen her in a while. So I thought I’d stay with her for a couple of days if you don’t mind watching the shop.”
“Of course not, it’s what you pay me for,” said Kylie, cheerfully.
“I don’t pay you very much,” Bea admitted, bashfully.
Kylie flopped into an armchair. “Well, I don’t work all that hard.”
Bea chuckled. “It’s a terrible thought, but I’m glad you had to come and live here. It’s nice having you around again. I missed you after you went to live with Magda.” She shook her head. “But she insisted that she get a chance to look after you.”
Kylie hid her smile. Magda was fun in her own, special way. Magda believed in homeschooling, except she wasn’t all that strict about it and wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about any subject. Their lessons were mostly on literature – meaning that they both read books and then talke
d about what they liked most about them. Plus they went on lots of nature hikes.
“Take care with that Andrew Hardcastle,” said Bea in her most mothering tone. “Edwin never had a good word to say about him. Not that he ever had a good word to say about anyone.”
“Edwin?”
“The professor.”
“His name was Edwin?” How had she not known that? “Suited him.”
“And I don’t like the look of his friends,” she continued in her best wagging finger tone. “There’s something not quite right about them.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Chapter Eight
Maggie snagged four mini spring rolls and inhaled them all at once. The young man currently trying to annex her attention pursed his lips for a few seconds, but he managed to slap the slightly dazed look back on before Maggie noticed. Disappointed that this hadn’t worked, Maggie crammed five mini quiches into her mouth. He looked slightly shocked, but he didn’t waver. Maggie stalked away in a snit, and the young man followed. If he were a puppy, his tail would be wagging.
Kylie shook her head; she didn’t know whether she was more amused at her friend or the young man. Maggie had a habit of trying to scare, or at least disgust, men away. For someone as slim and pretty as her, it was harder than it sounded.
If Kylie acted like that, men would probably just think that was normal for her. Eating like a pig really was a thin woman’s game.
She had to admit, it was a nice party. There were professional caterers and the room actually looked like it had been cleaned – it was a world away from anything she could imagine going on there while the professor still lived.
