by Jody Klaire
Was she kidding me? “Apart from your warmth? Try the case you’re working or the long list of enemies you made switching sides. Did Joey do the same?”
Iris tucked her neat, dated, blonde cut behind her ear. She still looked like she wore shoulder pads but maybe it was just she walked around so tense that her shoulders nearly touched her ears.
“I’m a good prosecutor.” She scowled. “I enjoy putting guilty cretins behind bars.”
There was an original line. “Because of me.”
She glared at me. Yeah, she’d been a prosecutor since she didn’t have the guts to defend me. Guilt had made her change her stance. Go figure, she had a heart after all.
“If you don’t think I can’t pull up every sordid detail of your day on there,” I motioned to the dash, “you’re dumber than you look. You know the law and I’m an agent asking you for an answer.”
I tried to keep the shock of my words under control. I sounded like I knew what I was doing. I’m glad my mouth did. Again, it was firing off without me having any idea. Frei had said it was training. I hoped it was. Did Iris have to answer?
“Joey left the firm. He owned three big call centers in the city,” Iris said, glowering away. “He sold them. People were jealous.”
“The market research ones?” Renee let out a long groan.
I kept quiet. I didn’t have one iota.
“No, the business ones.” Iris folded her arms.
Renee met my eyes. She eased her foot down and I gripped on. “Pyramid schemes.”
Iris’s aura flickered with rage. “It’s completely legal.”
“Try telling that to the guy Joey upset.” Renee’s voice remained calm and controlled. Iris could get under most folks’ skin. Not Renee’s. Not in Agent Black mode. Man, she was so cool. “We’ll assume that you could still be a target.”
Iris rolled her eyes. “How wonderful.”
I narrowed mine. “Unless you want us to drop you right next to the kid with a gun, you’ll find some manners when Agent Llys is talkin’ to you.”
Renee raised her eyebrows.
Iris furrowed her penciled brow. “Is that a threat?”
“It sure sounded like it, didn’t it?” I held her gaze and she averted her eyes. I was a lot bigger now and not nearly as patient.
“We’re here,” Renee said as she pulled the car up a long dirt track. “Wherever here is.”
I looked out the front. Trees, a small river trickling under a hump bridge. It was a little stone cottage. Cute. There were cattle in the fields and what looked like a ranch but I couldn’t tell from this distance. “Feels friendly.”
“Feels?” Iris snapped.
“Agent Lorelei has the best intuition I’ve ever seen,” Renee said, getting out of the car and holding the door open for Iris. “If she says it’s friendly, it is.”
“What does she have on you?” Iris shot back.
I was kinda thinking the same thing.
Renee just held her gaze. Her aura and her face gave nothing away. “Not as much as I have on you.”
Didn’t that make Iris’s face drop. I tried not to chuckle and turned to look at the cottage. “Maybe I should knock first?”
Renee nodded, complete confidence shining through her eyes.
“Great Blackbear in a box, what they been feedin’ you?” I turned at the sound of a familiar voice but a voice I knew I hadn’t heard before.
It ain’t often I meet somebody who is my height let alone another woman. Another woman who had my eyes.
Huh?
“You must be Bess,” Renee said, striding past and holding out her hand. “Bess Lorelei?”
Me and Iris looked at each other. For once neither of us had anything to say but, “huh?”
The tall, blonde woman had my color skin. My eyes, my build but not as pronounced. She had been weathered for certain but there was a pulsing of energy from her, restless energy.
“That I am, Blondie, an’ I’m guessin’ that this little mountain is none other than Aeron.” A grin split across her face. I knew I had the exact same one. Renee must have felt the same, judging by the chuckle rippling through her aura.
“One an’ the same,” I said as Renee was enveloped in a huge bear hug. Her surprised “Oh” made me chuckle. “Somebody gonna fill me in ’cause I’m guessing we share a gene pool.”
“This is your aunt,” Renee told me, pulling Iris over by the arm. “Lilia’s sister.”
I cocked my head, knowing I was gonna be squeezed myself so I beat Aunt Bess to it and threw my arms around her. I didn’t know why I felt so glad to see her but at least I knew I wasn’t the only giant in the family. Felt good.
She couldn’t feel freaky stuff like me, but her heart shone like Nan’s had. She was a whole lot like Nan. I loved that about her. I knew that second, I loved her like I did Nan.
“So what can I do for you, ladies?” Aunt Bess said, tucking me under her shoulder. It had been some time since anyone had been tall enough to do that.
“This is Iris,” I said. “We need to wait for someone who she trusts to come get her.”
Aunt Bess’s aura rumbled. “The chump who didn’t defend you?”
Iris sucked in her breath through her thin lips.
I nodded. “Her husband has been shot.”
Aunt Bess put her hands on her hips. “Uh huh. She still didn’t defend you.”
Iris looked her up and down then had the good sense to shrink back. “Why would I defend someone who is guilty?”
I squeezed Renee’s shoulder before she launched into a defensive volley. Aunt Bess walked into Iris’s space and stooped over until they were nose to nose.
“You calling my niece a murderer?”
Iris’s fear pulsed out from her in waves and she shook her head.
“You think such a hero like her would hurt a kid? Would hurt anybody?”
Iris swallowed so hard that I swore she’d grown an Adam’s apple. “The evidence was overwhelming.”
“Sam,” Renee whispered.
Iris snapped to stare at her. “Nonsense.”
“Sam Casey and his father were rotten through an’ through.” Aunt Bess’s deep voice rumbled from her. “Anybody with one iota of sense could see that.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. I hadn’t seen it. No sense? That about summed it up.
Renee took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“If you ask me, seems like the only person guilty is you.” Aunt Bess poked Iris in the shoulder with a long large finger. “An’ you got some nerve looking all sour-faced when our Shorty just got you out of hot water.”
I blinked back the sudden rush of tears. Nan called me Shorty. She sounded so much like Nan. Renee squeezed my hand again.
“Now, what you say to the girl after she stopped in the middle of a rescue to help you?” Aunt Bess folded her arms across her bust and I fought the urge to bury myself in her arms. She was awesome.
“Thank you,” Iris whispered. “I need your help.”
Aunt Bess nodded a curt nod and turned to me. “Now, you girls go on in the house. Your mother says Blondie needs to call her. Then we’ll get some food in you, and get this madam her ride home.”
Aunt Bess wrapped an arm around me and led us all in the direction of the cottage. “Last time I saw you, you were a peanut on a machine. I couldn’t get much from that but you turned out pretty good.”
“I guess Lilia called ahead, huh?” Would have been nice of her, of anybody, to tell me I’d had an aunt. I smiled at Renee. She’d wanted it to be a surprise. It was a pretty cool surprise.
“Gotta say, I admire your heart.” Aunt Bess smiled at me. “After all these folks put you through, you still got love for them.”
I shrugged. All I could think was how much better it would have been to have grown up with Aunt Bess instead. Why couldn’t I have lived with her?
We walked into the little cottage. It was simple, a rocker in the corner, big furniture, and paintings on the walls
. She looked like she’d been settled here a while.
“How come you left home?”
Aunt Bess closed the door and motioned to a battered sofa. Renee and Iris took a seat but I ran my hands over the paintings.
She never fitted in. They wanted her to be a housewife and she wanted adventure. Her passion for painting wasn’t a proper job. It was an easy choice. There was a lot to learn.
“Guess I understand that.”
Aunt Bess stood looking at me and Iris rolled her eyes. “More of her nonsense.”
I sighed. “I’m a lot like Lilia and Nan.”
She smiled. “That ain’t an easy path.”
“No, it ain’t.” I watched her take up the rocker like Nan had and pick up her knitting. “Are these paintings yours?”
She nodded. “Some of them. I sold a lot on my travels.”
One was of some seaside someplace, lighthouses and buildings that looked different to the ones I’d seen before. “You ever find a place you felt comfortable?”
Aunt Bess shook her head. “Not really. My heart prefers travelling. It’s just that age is catchin’ up.”
It was hard thinking on that. She was a lot older than my mother, I knew that much. “So you’ll go home . . . to Oppidum?”
She chuckled at me. “You seem pretty set on that.”
“I am.” I smiled. Yeah, it was a great idea. “You could stay at the cabin. Nan left it to me but Lilia and—”
She held up her hand.
Yeah, I was overexcited. “I mean, if you ever want to stay, you’d be welcome.”
Aunt Bess took a long look at Renee. “An’ Blondie okay with that?”
Renee raised her eyebrows but I smiled at her. Her opinion was important too. I nodded in encouragement. Iris let out a huff of derision but Renee cleared her throat.
“Of course . . .” She fiddled with her nails. “It’s more Mrs. Squirrel you need to worry about.” She shrugged as Iris tutted at her.
“Ah, she must be Tink’s girl.” Aunt Bess let out a chuckle and clicked her knitting needles.
“Tink?” I cocked my head.
“As in Tinkerbelle, she was the sneakiest critter you ever set eyes on but I loved her like . . . like . . . like the thief she was.” Her aura filled with pinks and golds as she beamed.
I met Renee’s eyes as she shook her head. Yeah, a kindred spirit alright.
“Now, Blondie, you gotta call Lilia or she’ll have a hissy and I better rustle up some food for this one or she’ll get grumpy.” She winked at me as she got to her feet. “Lot like her aunt.”
“No doubt you eat alone. As if you could have a husband,” Iris muttered as she sat there stewing. “Not at your size.”
“I had three in fact,” Aunt Bess shot back and winked at me. “Ain’t my fault they couldn’t keep up.”
Renee walked over to the phone and picked it up as Aunt Bess set about the kitchen like Nan used to. I took a seat at the kitchen table just to watch her. She wasn’t Nan of course, but she was family and I was pretty thankful just to know I wasn’t the only odd one out.
Chapter 23
RENEE SMILED AT the paintings on the walls. They were happy pictures, bright colors. Aunt Bess’s style was very modern yet held something quite . . . quaint . . . about it. It was different to Frei’s work. Frei could paint and draw to such a high standard. The paintings made Renee realize how much she missed seeing Frei wielding a pencil.
When they’d first met, Frei had carried a little sketch book. She would normally write codes, thoughts, people’s tells but sometimes there’d be a sketch.
She loved those sketches.
She chewed on her lip. Aeron had seen Frei as a young girl. Not a flash or a vision but an actual memory. It worried her that, although some of it was accurate, that it wasn’t how Aeron worked normally. Aeron looked pale, gaunt, and exhausted. Renee didn’t like it.
The phone call with Lilia hadn’t made her feel a lot better either. Lilia had been calm, said that Renee should just make sure that Aeron had sugar, make sure that she was eating and resting. How could Aeron rest? Renee couldn’t. She hadn’t been able to sleep with the worry. It was hard trying to hide it. She was trying to be calm, controlled but Aeron could read her. She must see the panic.
Lilia couldn’t understand why Jessie had run and neither could Renee. Did Jessie feel insecure at the base? Had they misjudged her personality and put her in too responsible a position during their escape? Jessie was barely sixteen: Small, wiry, and capable of doing silly things. Who wasn’t at sixteen? Maybe they needed to have taken her behavior in Caprock under consideration. Slavery or not, she’d climbed up a tower with a rifle. Regardless of her actual intentions, it had been dumb.
Renee sighed.
Aeron would say they needed to have faith in the girl. Aeron talked more and more about faith, about meditations. She understood it but logic didn’t make it easy to take in. It wasn’t easy to let go and believe in something she couldn’t see, something she couldn’t touch.
She looked at the pictures.
They were . . . expressive. Something that ran in the Lorelei blood. Every woman she’d met with the same genes had been vivid, expressive, unique in the most beautiful of ways.
And she wasn’t expressive. She wasn’t that kind of painting.
She was more like a technical drawing—detail, clear lines, plenty of shaded areas. Accurate and representative of what she wanted to depict. She fit into a frame . . . at least most of her.
“When are you going to accept it?” she muttered to herself. She thought she’d found some kind of balance with everything, with her feelings, but she felt more embarrassed and unsure now than she had as a scared teenager.
She sighed again. To be a nice sweeping landscape with effortless flourish. Expressive. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Frei was like her. She understood. She was a detailed sketch. A fine-lined picture with all the artist’s flourishes removed. She represented what she wanted the viewer to see. All the wrong scratches and scrapes erased. Sad that she knew a lot about Frei but never enough to know how she’d become the woman she was. Snippets, sketches, but never a full image.
And who was she to talk? Isn’t that what she was doing to Aeron? Logic reminded her that she was analyzing herself, that such comparisons only let out repressed emotion. Emotions that had no place in her busy schedule. She needed to stay focused and her heart needed to have a timeout until it learned to behave itself.
“Which is crazier, the fact you talk to Nan or talk to yourself?” she mumbled and touched the painting.
She could feel an . . . essence . . . of new love, of excitement, of joy tingle through her. Feelings that weren’t hers. Feelings that Nan had told her were side-effects of Aeron healing her.
Although she understood that a former person had told her that, Lilia had been guiding CIG for years, and she’d seen Aeron in action, somehow logic still waved a flag at her. The logic that she was more than likely losing her mind.
Love had driven her crazy.
How very original.
“You comin’?” Aeron poked her head through the doorway, energy splashing from her in little flicks of light, despite the fact she leaned heavily on the door frame. Her eyes were filled with excitement even with dark rings under them. Her smile infectious even through the tiredness.
“Be right there,” she whispered, attempting to mask her concern with a smile. “Go wash.”
Aeron grinned and ducked back out. Her energy trailed like a jet wash.
Logic or belief? Expression or detail? Was it much like that?
Her logic wanted her to systematically search for Frei in the manner that she’d been trained to, that she understood. Her trust in Aeron, in Lilia, drove her to place it to one side and follow their lead.
So which was the right option?
She tapped the cell to her chin, then placed it in her pocket. Eating dinner with Aeron’s aunt was something that, at any other time, she woul
d relish being involved in. Only, her best friend was out there, somewhere. A cherished friend who had come to her rescue more times than she could count.
And Frei was hurt. How badly, they didn’t know but her stomach ached when she thought about it.
She needed to rescue Frei now but instead she was eating a meal. Guilt wriggled in her gut and she looked up at the picture. Expressive had saved Oppidum from Sam, St. Jude’s from Yannick, and liberated the children from Caprock.
Frei believed in expressive. Frei would tell her to stop whining about it and trust Aeron. She sighed. Frei had a lot more guts than she did.
Maybe the whole point was that she didn’t have to understand or believe for now. She just had to find that trust and give Aeron every bit of love and support she could.
Love, now that was something she couldn’t see, yet knew ran through every pore.
Love.
She wandered out of the room to the kitchen. Aeron sat at the gigantic table beside her aunt. Iris glowered as she sat as far away as she could manage. Aeron and Aunt Bess chatted as if they’d spoken every day.
Love.
Love had a power all by itself.
She could work with that.
Love.
Chapter 24
FREI DRAGGED HER body along the cold, wet floor. It stank of river water from outside. She shuddered, fighting the gag reflex the smell provoked, the fear of water. She was better than this. Jessie needed her to be better. She just needed to master her own body.
She gripped onto the divot in the stone, finding a hold with her fingers, and she pulled herself further. Jessie was asleep under her jacket. Frei needed to get them out before the kid’s inhaler ran out. It was the least she could do.
“You took longer than I expected.”
She heard Huber’s tone and tried to focus on her surroundings. The memories were getting harder to escape. There was nothing she wanted to relive in them. She didn’t have time to wander through useless thoughts. It was an irritation.
“Maybe that’s because I got you what you wanted?”
