by Tasha Black
“You,” Gil said to Van.
“Oh, hey, did you change your mind about training, man?” Van asked with a wicked half-smile.
“You can stand there and smirk all you want,” Gil spat. “But you’re in deep shit, man.”
Dulcie’s heart was in her throat.
Van played it cool, but it was hard not to notice his smile disappear, and the shimmer of confidence around him dull slightly.
“That’s right, I know that you shift into a giant white dog,” Gil said with a smile. “So, Mr. Gigolo Trainer, you need to leave town right now, or I will turn you in for those two murders.”
“Gil, I know you’re mad at Van,” Dulcie tried to reason with him. “But surely you don’t think he would kill anyone?”
“Frankly, Dulcie, I don’t happen to care whether he did it or not. Though I might respect your opinion on the matter more if you weren’t boinking him. Tell me, does he charge you seventy-five dollars an hour, too? Or is this pro bono?”
Van took a step toward Gil, a low growl rising in his throat.
“No, Van,” Dulcie said, putting her body between them. “Gil, give me a week and I will prove he didn’t do it. I have a plan.
“A week!” he scoffed.
She knew he didn’t really believe Van was guilty. He was dripping with jealous and petty revenge. He only wanted to make trouble for Van. And, missing toe or not, a run in with the police wasn’t likely to end well for Van.
She needed to buy them some time.
“A week and I’ll market your condo again for free,” she offered, trying not to wince at the thought of working with Gil even one more time, let alone without pay, in a building with more security rules than the White House.
He paused to consider, as Dulcie watched his jealousy warring with his greed. It was pretty.
“You rent the condo for free, and I give you a week to get this guy off?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
She only needed a day. But she knew Gil would never accept any deal where he didn’t think he was the one setting the terms.
“Let me tell you how it’s gonna be,” he blustered predictably. “You rent the condo for free twice more, and I’ll give you 48 hours. That’s my final offer and it’s only because that damned condo is such a pain in the ass.”
At least they agreed on something.
“Deal,” she said, extending her hand.
“Forty-eight hours it is,” he smirked, his jealousy forgotten in the wake of his self-satisfaction. “I look forward to doing business with you. Twice.”
Dulcie looked down at her hands to keep from saying all she wanted to say, but she heard him walk to the door, then stop.
“I have it as 5:02PM,” Gil said to Van. “This time, day after tomorrow, you’re out.”
The door slammed behind him, and Dulcie breathed a sigh of relief. A minute later, he pealed out of the drive, sending the pea gravel flying.
“I wonder if he’d be interested in wearing some hand-me-downs from Rudolph Barrymore,” Van offered with a dry half-smile.
Chapter 28
Dulcie woke before dawn, Van asleep at her side. The sight of him there filled her with satisfaction.
She slipped out of bed, spent a moment in the bathroom, and then padded to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The house seemed to be holding its breath in the orange light of morning.
Dulcie knew it would be a day of facing her fears, but she felt brave today. As a matter of fact, she felt unstoppable.
A few hours later, she wasn’t so sure.
They stood at the edge of the clearing before the cabins. She had dreamed of being a butterfly here. And of bad things happening.
“You’re going to do exactly as we planned,” Van said. “No one is home. Templeton is fixing an accidentally broken window at the farthest cabin, and Beryl is cleaning at the Barrymore place. Go in. Find something we can use. Get out.”
Dulcie nodded as gamely as she could.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked gently.
“It’s a walk in the park,” she told him bravely.
He didn’t seem convinced. But she couldn’t risk him breaking and entering. No matter how careful he was, he’d leave human evidence. She didn’t have that problem.
Before he could change his mind about letting her do it, she slipped out of her clothes, and shifted into her butterfly.
Instantly, the trees were an almost unbearable green.
“Be careful,” he whispered.
She caressed his forehead with a velvety wing, and then made her way through the clearing.
Large open spaces like this were nerve-wracking. A larger animal could be observing from the trees. A wind could come suddenly, sending her tumbling away.
She tried not to think about what it would be like to run into Templeton Burroughs.
She and Van had looked up her markings on the internet last night. It seemed she was a Question Mark Butterfly. An interesting, and rare creature that was not native to Indiana. She couldn’t believe she looked like that. The pictures online really were beautiful. And the camouflage on the underside of her wings was so clever.
At last, she made it to the cabin. She fluttered up to the roof and down the chimney. It was a relief to see light at the bottom. That meant the damper was open and she’d be able to access the room.
Unfortunately, she noticed some deterioration at the top of the terra cotta lining, and a build-up of creosote on the way down. They really ought to clean out the flue. Every Realtor knew that chimney safety was very important.
Dulcie folded her wings and dropped the last few inches into the grate. She figured she could be mistaken for a leaf without creating a stir if someone was home, even though she’d watched them both leave.
She ventured out, and had just begun to survey the main living area, when she heard footsteps on the front porch. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
There was just enough time for Dulcie to flutter onto the mantle, where an antique looking pistol with a wood stock, like something out of a pirate movie, laid next to a few little figures, some candles, and one of those plastic cases people used to hold contact lenses.
She pulled her wings up, hoping to blend with the wood grain of the gun’s handle. From this close, she could see the maker’s mark, stamped into the smooth cherry wood: PAVLOVICH - 1860.
The front door creaked open, and Beryl Burroughs dashed in.
Dulcie faced away from the room, but she could observe everything clearly in the mirror over the fireplace.
Beryl ran right to the fireplace.
Dulcie tried not to breathe.
Beryl’s lovely face was gigantic. Dulcie could see every pore and smell the tea on her breath.
Beryl smiled. Then she pinched her cheeks, and smiled again.
As Dulcie watched, Beryl’s smile disappeared and she looked into her own eyes for a long moment. She looked sad now.
Then her face disappeared and there were some loud sounds.
Dulcie realized, in horror, that Beryl was putting fresh logs in the fire. The sound of crackling a few minutes later confirmed her fears.
So much for her exit strategy.
Her wings began to tremble in spite of her efforts to remain calm.
There was a quiet tapping at the door.
Beryl spun around and ran to open it.
Please not Templeton, please not Templeton.
It was not Templeton.
It was Henry Barrymore.
“Come in,” Beryl whispered, pulling him by the collar, and closing the door behind him. “Did anyone see you?” she asked.
What the heck was happening?
Henry smiled down at her.
“No,” he said.
And then she was in his arms.
For a moment, Dulcie felt like she was watching Gone with the Wind. But it quickly turned into something more like late night cable TV, as the two of them scrabbled at each other’s clothes.
“We shouldn’t…” Beryl whispered as she enthusiastically unbuttoned Henry’s rumpled white shirt.
“Of course we should,” he rumbled. “This is love at first sight. You don’t question it, you go with it.”
Wow. Dulcie had sensed a spark between them the other night. It looked like the spark had become an inferno.
When Henry’s shirt was off, Dulcie couldn’t help assessing his lightly muscled form. Hmm. He was pretty built for a guy who made his living holed up somewhere behind a laptop. But not as built as Van, she decided with satisfaction, no one was that built.
Beryl’s long dark hair was down now. She looked like a movie version of Juliet. Olivia Hussey in Zeffirelli’s version, not Claire Danes. Once upon a time, Dulcie would have been jealous of that willowy figure. But Van was making her learn to love her own healthy curves.
The unlikely lovers had taken enough clothes off that Dulcie was feeling embarrassed.
Take it to the bedroom, take it to the bedroom, she implored them silently.
“Should we take this to the bedroom?” Henry asked, as if in answer.
Beryl took one longing look at the fluffy rug on the floor in front of the crackling fire. Perhaps that was the spot she had envisioned consummating their passion.
But she seemed to think the better of it. She nodded shyly, and off they went.
Dulcie forced herself to count to one hundred before fluttering down from the mantle. By then, the sounds in the other room told her they weren’t coming out anytime soon.
When she stood among the waist-high strands of the rug before the fire, she shifted into her human form again.
The room was instantly smaller and grayer.
Dulcie tiptoed to the closet to see if anything incriminating was hidden there.
She found countless jackets and sweaters, a pair of Beryl’s clogs, a single old boot, and numerous pairs of nearly identical loafers that must have belonged to Templeton.
Nothing good.
She had nearly given up, when she felt something behind the scarves and gloves on the large top shelf.
An old wooden box.
She pulled it down and opened it.
Inside, rested a figurine of a dog, no bigger than the palm of her hand, carved to look like a pale white ghost.
Or an Argentine Mastiff.
Normally, she only got readings from living things, but the tiny sculpture positively radiated bad juju. That wasn’t exactly admissible in court, though.
Dulcie studied it more closely, running her fingers over its smooth surface, unable to tell what exactly type of material it had been carved from.
She remembered a tidbit from the forensics chapter of her Crime Solving for Hopeless Morons book. Reluctantly, she held out her tongue and touched it to the back of the figurine. It stuck slightly as she pulled it away. Which meant the surface was porous. Not stone at all.
Bone.
She shivered, and placed the dog back into its box.
Dulcie was contemplating just walking out, naked, box in hand, when pounding at the door changed her mind.
Heart in her mouth, Dulcie stuffed the box back in the closet and shifted again, swarming and then drawing into one butterfly.
A slight commotion in the bedroom, followed by the opening of a window, told her Henry was making a hasty exit.
But why would Henry have to escape? It might be a little inappropriate, but Beryl was an adult.
The bedroom door began to open.
Quick as a thought, Dulcie hid herself among the dead butterflies in Templeton’s collection. The company of her brethren filled her with horror and revulsion. She wondered if butterflies could throw up. Her own wings and thorax ached at the idea of being crucified on a wooden plate.
Beryl scurried to the front door, and opened it.
“Why was the door locked?” Templeton’s voice boomed.
“I… I heard a noise,” Beryl replied. “I got scared.”
“You know there’s nothing to be afraid of out there,” he said, moving to the fireplace and opening the plastic case on the mantle. “Or rather, there is something to be very afraid of, but it answers to us.”
He leaned close to the mirror, holding his eye open wide with one hand, and touching a finger of the other to its surface.
Great. If he was taking out his contacts, it meant he wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a while.
Dulcie tried not to panic
“Templeton, I don’t know about this,” Beryl responded. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Honey, I told you, we’re in it together now,” Templeton said at his usual slow pace. “There’s no way to stop.”
“But that man who got killed…” she began.
Selden?
“A low-life drug addict,” he replied, removing the lens from his other eye and sealing them both in the plastic case. “He won’t be missed. And all the more reason we can’t stop now. We’re on the hook for two murders, and we have nothing to show for it. One more, then it will all be mine.”
He turned away from the fire. The contacts must have contained a dark tint. His eyes, which had been the grey of weathered steel, now flashed a cold, emotionless ice-blue.
“Ours,” she corrected him softly.
“Of course,” he replied.
Then he kissed her full on the mouth.
Dulcie stared at the siblings in shock, nearly forgetting to keep her wings together.
This was getting seriously weird.
Before she had time to consider the implications, there was another knock at the door.
Chapter 29
Van made an effort to knock politely instead of breaking the door down.
They had expected the house to be empty, so Beryl coming home was strange, and Henry joining her was even more strange. But Templeton coming into a house where Dulcie might be a butterfly was unacceptable. The smoke coming out of the chimney was the icing on the cake. He was going to bust her out of there.
Beryl opened the door.
“Mr. Blanco, correct?” she said. “What an unexpected surprise.”
Behind her, Templeton stood at the mirror, frantically putting in a pair of contact lenses.
The better to see you with, Van supposed.
“It’s just Van,” he said, his mind working overtime to come up with an excuse for knocking. “Sorry to intrude. I was going for a walk, and I had some questions about butterflies. I thought if anyone could answer them, it would be Templeton, with him being a lepodiatrist.”
“Lepidopterist,” Templeton corrected. “By all means. Come on in.”
Van stepped in just a gust of wind burst through the open door behind him.
As if in slow motion, Van saw everything go wrong.
The wind caught a few papers on the desk in the corner cascading them to the floor, dangerously close to the fireplace.
Everyone turned to look.
An unremarkable brown butterfly fell from one of the specimen displays, but with more force, heading directly for the flames.
At the last instant, it fluttered to life, vibrant wings, as orange as the fire, flashing in the gloomy room.
Dulcie.
Templeton’s mouth dropped open.
“Polygonia interrogationis!” he shouted.
The room was small. Templeton was practically on top of her. He lifted his hands to capture her.
Van dove for the falling papers, putting himself quickly between them, and allowing Dulcie to flutter out the door.
On his way down, he made sure his shoulder collided with Templeton’s exposed midsection, letting the air out of him with a woomph.
Van stooped to gather the papers, forcing the edge of his crumpled stack into the fire. As soon as the flames caught, he yelled and dropped the smoldering papers onto the thick rug on the hearth, shaking his hands as though he’d burned them.
The rug began to burn immediately.
Beryl screamed and started stomping on the spreading flames as Templeton
tried in vain to catch his breath from Van’s shot to the solar plexus.
“I’m so sorry,” Van exclaimed, backing toward the door. “It doesn’t look like this is really a good time to talk. I’ll come by another time.”
He scrambled out the door, reasonably certain the cabin wasn’t going to burn to the ground.
Dulcie was nowhere to be seen. He headed back toward the edge of the woods whistling, hoping she would hear. At least he could retrieve her clothes and keep a look out from there.
A moment before he reached the tree line, he felt something land in his hair.
He didn’t reach for it.
A moment later, she fluttered down and spread into a sea of color.
In the blink of an eye, she was herself once more.
“Are you okay?” he asked her worriedly. He had promised her everything would be easy. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if she decided never to shift again.
Dulcie dropped her head back and laughed so hard he was almost afraid.
Then she put her hand on his shoulder.
“Van, that was terrifying. But did you see his face?”
Van laughed too, in relief and happiness. Personally, he didn’t find the adventure very funny, at least not yet. He was still too overcome with worry for her. But he was glad she wasn’t frightened.
“Did you find anything in there?” he asked her.
“You have no idea,” she told him, pulling her jeans back on.
Van said a silent good-bye to her gorgeous curves as the clothes covered them up. Something about her infectious smiles always put him just in the mood to claim her.
“Let’s walk and talk,” he said. “I’d like to get out of here before those two have time to regroup.”
Chapter 30
Dulcie explained everything on the ride back to town.
After what she’d just been through, a pumpkin spice latte was more than just a craving.
It was a necessity.
“So he just… kissed his sister?” Van asked, sipping his own black coffee.
“It was so weird,” Dulcie admitted, stirring half a dozen packets of sugar into her latte. “But between that, and his crazy blue eyes, I’m pretty sure that Templeton and Beryl Burroughs are not who they seem.”
