“You can’t do that.” A vein in Yorick’s temple began to throb as he turned to Grimshaw. “He can’t do that.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Grimshaw replied.
“Fine,” Vaughn said, looking like he would explode any second. “Yorick will reimburse Vicki for the capital improvements. You’ll have a cashier’s check first thing tomorrow morning. Now I want her out of here.”
“The check will be drawn from a bank in the Northeast that is still viable,” Ilya said. “And, yes, Ms. DeVine will leave now. So will all of you. Until the check is deposited—and the bank it was drawn on is verified—Mr. Dane is within his rights to evict Ms. DeVine, but he has no legal rights to the buildings. We’ll meet at the bank in Sproing at nine a.m. tomorrow. I’ll hand over the keys at that time.”
Ilya turned to me. “Please fetch your purse and all of your keys.”
I thought he was helping me. Now I wasn’t sure. When I looked at Grimshaw, he dipped his head in the tiniest nod, and I wondered if he knew something I didn’t. Maybe Julian had said something?
As I walked across the hall, I dug the office key out of my pocket. I had gotten into the habit of bringing my purse downstairs and leaving it in the big bottom drawer in the desk, so at least I would have that much. But what about my clothes, my bits of jewelry? They didn’t cost much, but I felt like I was being stripped of everything for the second time, even if Ilya had said I would retain my personal possessions.
I walked into the office and spotted Natasha Sanguinati, who raised a finger to her lips before I could say anything and alert everyone else to her presence.
She approached the desk, making sure she was still out of sight. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “We’ll take care of this.”
I felt sick, and my hands shook as I took the purse out of the desk drawer.
Natasha held out her hand. “Ilya is giving you a ride. Give me your car keys. I’ll make sure the vehicle gets to you.”
The car keys were on their own ring, so I gave them to her and made sure I had my keys to the main house as well as the set of master keys for all the cabins. I left the office, closing but not locking the door. I gave Ilya all the keys, including the loose office key. He put the master set in his briefcase, along with the loose office key.
“It’s time to go,” Ilya said, staring at Vaughn.
“We’ll stay a bit longer to look around,” Vaughn said.
“You’ve already looked around while you posed as guests.”
“You need help with the vermin?” Conan asked as he and Cougar came into the hall from the direction of the kitchen.
Cougar’s lips peeled back in that disturbing smile. “Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
I was pretty sure the boys weren’t going to be invited to the main house to watch cop and crime night on TV.
“Let’s go,” Grimshaw said.
“Don’t get comfortable with your promotion, Chief,” Vaughn said as he walked out the front door.
Everyone who could be seen walked out of the house and watched Ilya lock the front door. Yorick took a step toward me, but Ilya got between us and hustled me to the black luxury sedan. We were the first to leave, but when I looked back, I saw Conan and Cougar standing guard at the front door and Grimshaw having words with Yorick and Darren. I also noticed an unfamiliar car parked next to the UV that belonged to Hershel and Heidi. Made sense. Eight people couldn’t have come in one vehicle, but I wondered where they had rented a car.
“Could you drop me off at Ineke’s?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I would make it that far before I needed to throw up, but I really wanted to talk to a friend, and I wasn’t sure Ilya qualified right now.
“They still have rooms there until checkout time,” he replied, “and all of Ineke’s rooms are booked for the week. More important, you would be more vulnerable to attack if you stayed at the boardinghouse.”
“Yorick got what he wanted. There’s no reason to attack me.”
Ilya sighed. “You have so little faith in my skills as your attorney.”
I guess Mount Victoria still had a little lava left. “Your skills? I didn’t have a chance to see The Jumble before I had to accept the settlement or lose out on getting anything, but six months to clean up a place that hadn’t been used for decades and bring in paying guests is ridiculous! I never signed that document. My signature was forged!”
“I know.”
The calm acknowledgment stunned me. “You know?”
“Of course.” He turned toward me. “Do you know how to kill a human, Victoria? Could you kill a human?”
Anybody could kill another person. You could throw a rock in anger and have the bad luck of hitting just the right place to kill someone. You could push someone and have that person fall and break his neck. But that wasn’t what Ilya meant.
I shook my head. “No. I couldn’t kill a human.”
“I can,” he said quietly. “I have.”
Suddenly I was very aware that I was in a car with two Sanguinati who might have missed breakfast.
“Those men are predators,” Ilya continued quietly, looking away as he opened his briefcase. “You are prey.”
Like I needed the reminder. Yorick and his pals certainly saw me that way. But Ilya, who nature shows would call an apex predator, saw me as prey too. The difference was my attorney seemed to be struggling to look past that sharp reality and help me.
He removed a couple of sheets of paper from his briefcase. “When we get to the Mill Creek Cabins, which is where you’ll be staying for the time being, I need you to sign these revised rental agreements that indicate you rented one of the lakeside cabins to Aggie, Eddie, and Jozi Crowe.”
“I didn’t rent to the three of them.”
“This new document says you did. If Aggie stays there alone, she’ll be too vulnerable, and the new caretakers can limit the amount of time any friends can stay with her. But three of them listed on an official document? One can always keep watch on the cabin.”
“So we’re going to forge a document?”
“Why not? They did.” Ilya smiled. “Besides, our document won’t be forged since you and Aggie will sign this one just like you signed the original. The agreement is merely revised. Something Mr. Dane doesn’t need to know.”
We turned off of Mill Creek Road—which was Main Street within the village limits—and drove down Mill Creek Lane. Like the access road to The Jumble, it was gravel, not paved. But it looked well tended.
“Why did you let them push me out?” I asked.
Ilya said nothing until the car pulled up at the second-to-last cabin and the driver got out and walked toward the water mill that generated the electricity for The Jumble as well as the cabins.
“Do you recall Julian Farrow’s reaction when you all played Murder?” Ilya asked.
“Something upset him.”
“His ability as an Intuit is to sense places. It’s one of the things that had made him such an effective police officer and also the thing that had saved his life. In that, his ability makes him—and other Intuits like him—an effective barometer for the health of a place.”
“But Julian is rubbish at playing the game,” I protested.
“But that night, the game was altered to represent The Jumble, even to the point that some of the players were represented by teenies. It turns out that was enough of a difference for Julian to get a sense of place.” Ilya looked me in the eyes. “He called me that night. When I met with him and Officer Grimshaw, Julian told me that once the businessman predator arrived, you would die if I didn’t get you away from The Jumble.”
I wanted to deny it, but Julian and Grimshaw had been acting weird since that night.
I shook my head. “Yorick would push me until he got what he wanted—he knows exactly how to push my buttons—but he wouldn’t kill me.” I couldn’t have married a m
an who would do that, could I?
“Yorick isn’t the dominant male. Vaughn is the leader of that pack, and he is a predator who could kill another human.” Ilya patted my hand. “But Vaughn is also a small predator who believes he is powerful and does not yet appreciate how many other predators are now watching him. He will appreciate it very soon.”
“And while you and Grimshaw and Julian get this straightened out for silly, incompetent me, I’ll just sit in a corner somewhere and do nothing, because that’s all I’m good at.” I’d meant it to sound humorous—don’t ask me how it could—but even to my ears it sounded bitter. Defeated.
“Can you kill a human, Victoria?” Ilya asked.
“No.”
“Then let those who can deal with these predators.”
“That’s your plan? Kill Yorick and those other men?”
“Not if I can find a better way to solve the problem.”
Oh, that did not sound good. I had a feeling that “better” meant a solution that was just as lethal but not as bloody.
“So while you’re dealing with Yorick, what am I supposed to do?”
Ilya laughed softly. “First, you’re going to sign this revised rental agreement. Then you’re going to figure out how you want the furniture from your suite arranged in the cabin. And then you’re going to decide which items you want stored in three of the other cabins that are available—we’ll leave the one closest to the main road empty. The larger items that won’t fit in the cabins will be stored in the outbuildings at Silence Lodge.”
“My suite was basically an efficiency apartment within the main house. Everything I had there will fit in the one cabin.”
He just smiled and escorted me into the cabin that would be my new home.
CHAPTER 52
Aggie
Sunsday, Sumor 4
As soon as she heard the front door lock and the cars start up and pull away, Aggie flew down to the hall and landed near the office doorway. She shifted to human form, pushed the door open, and watched the female Sanguinati quickly filling a box with file folders Miss Vicki kept in the cabinets.
“Those belong to Miss Vicki,” Aggie said.
“Yes, they do.” Natasha looked at Aggie, then looked past her.
Aggie held out her arms like they were wings as she left the ground and landed several feet into the room when Cougar gave her what was meant to be a nudge.
“What are we going to do about this?” Conan asked, coming in behind Cougar.
“Call in all the terra indigene living in The Jumble who are willing to help,” Natasha replied. “Fetch the packing boxes that are up in the attic. Fetch Miss Vicki’s luggage as well. Trucks will begin arriving soon, but we’ll need the donkey carts as well to take the items from two of the lakeside cabins down to the water. The supply barge will take those things to Silence Lodge.”
“The Crowgard will pack up Miss Vicki’s personal personal things,” Aggie said. When Natasha gave her a questioning look, she added, “We’ll be careful, and we won’t take any little treasures.” All the Crowgard would help Miss Vicki, who was not only their friend but the Reader. “And we’ll pack up the books. Miss Vicki says they’re a different kind of treasure, and she would want them in her new nest.”
Natasha nodded. “All right. But we need to move fast. Everything has to be done, and we all have to be gone before the humans return tomorrow morning.”
“How much are we taking?” Conan asked.
Natasha pointed to a thick file folder on the desk. “If Miss Vicki has a receipt for it, we’re taking it.”
CHAPTER 53
Grimshaw
Sunsday, Sumor 4
Grimshaw watched Officer Osgood enter the police station with a delivery box from Come and Get It.
“I heard you didn’t eat breakfast this morning,” Osgood said as he opened the box and pulled out a thermos and a covered dish. “It’s a bit early for lunch, but the meatloaf had just come out of the oven, so Helen made you a sandwich and coffee. There’s also some sliced fruit in there.”
Just the idea of having breakfast at the boardinghouse had burned a hole in his gut after Yorick Dane had waved that eviction notice in his face—not even having the decency to wait until he had gone to the police station and officially begun his workday. He’d walked out, saying they could meet him at the office. Since most of the residents in The Jumble woke up with the sun, he didn’t think Vicki DeVine would sleep in, but he wasn’t going to give Dane and his pals the satisfaction of rousing the woman out of her bed in order to kick her off her own property.
He’d toyed with the idea of calling Ilya Sanguinati and had come to the reluctant conclusion that that would be seen as taking sides and could get him called back to Bristol if Vaughn and his ilk complained to the right, or wrong, person. But he’d counted on there being enough of the Others up and about to see the cars crawl up the access road, forced to follow him at the speed he’d set. He’d counted on the couple of seconds of lights and sirens to draw attention to their arrival. And they had drawn attention, the best kind of attention. He’d breathed easier when Ilya had strolled in from the kitchen, as if he’d already been at The Jumble for an early-morning meeting.
He didn’t know what was going to happen now. He just hoped he’d enjoy it more than he had carrying out the law this morning.
Grimshaw didn’t touch the food. Not yet. One reason he had preferred to remain in the highway patrol division was that you didn’t have to trust anyone but yourself. “Sit down, Officer.”
Osgood sat in the visitors’ chair in front of Grimshaw’s desk. “Sir?”
“Something has been bothering me, and if we’re going to continue working together, I need an answer to a question.”
Osgood looked puzzled but not alarmed—and not too eager to be helpful. “What’s the question?”
“Why do you think Swinn tapped you for this assignment?” He’d been trusting the baby cop because Osgood had survived the Elders’ attack on the rest of the team. Now he needed to know if that trust was earned.
Osgood met his eyes and didn’t flinch. “There were rumors at the academy about a special group, a club that could provide ways to enhance a career. When Detective Swinn said he’d heard good things about me, that I had a good record at the academy, I thought this might be an audition of sorts for the club. But the drive up to Sproing was long enough to convince me I didn’t want to be beholden to someone like him, and I’d already decided I wouldn’t join the club if I was invited.” He hesitated. “So either I was tapped for the assignment to find out if I should be considered for membership . . .”
“Or?” Grimshaw prompted when Osgood hesitated again.
“Or Detective Swinn brought me along as the expendable member of his team.”
“That meshes with my thinking.” Grimshaw opened the thermos and poured a cup of coffee for himself, then gently wagged the thermos at Osgood in invitation—and felt the last whisper of suspicion quiet when Osgood fetched a coffee mug from his desk and held it out to be filled.
Grimshaw almost offered to share the meatloaf sandwich. Then he took the first bite. Nope. Not sharing. Best damn meatloaf he’d ever tasted.
He finished the sandwich, set the fruit aside, and sipped his coffee. Osgood sat across from him, waiting.
“Franklin Cartwright was working for Yorick Dane. When Cartwright is found dead, Swinn comes running up here to handle the investigation.” Grimshaw weighed what he knew and balanced it against what he could see coming even before he went over to Lettuce Reed and talked to Julian. Then, to Osgood: “You sit there and just listen.”
He called the Bristol Police Station and waited for Captain Hargreaves to come on the line. “Captain? It’s Grimshaw. Could you call in another favor with the source who knows the ITF agent who has a direct line to the governor? I need a background check on some people and
don’t want to alert anyone in the Hubbney police force in case a member of a certain club hears that I’m digging. I especially need to know if any of the people I’m checking have had any combat training, even unofficially. We may have a lethal situation here.”
CHAPTER 54
Them
Windsday, Sumor 5
Yorick opened the passenger door, tired of listening to Vaughn lay on the car horn and worried that the man might try to drive through the thick chain across the access road. Swinn and Reynolds were mad enough about being stuck in that camper site because there was nowhere else to stay in Sproing, and Swinn wasn’t about to use up his personal fuel coupons to drive back and forth from Bristol or, gods help them, Crystalton, with all its freaks. If Vaughn wrecked Swinn’s car trying to prove some point, it would be hard to find another ride. They had tried to lean on the bank’s former manager for the loan of his car or the use of his house, but the man had run off with his family to parts unknown—something the rest of the Clippers weren’t going to forget when the idiot came back looking for another cushy job.
“I’ll move the damn chain,” he said, getting out of the car.
The creep who had opened it the other morning had made it look easy, but the chain was heavier than he’d expected. He dragged it to one side of the gravel road and left it there. He didn’t think Vaughn would leave him to make his own way up to the main house since he had the keys, but he didn’t want any delays.
They’d done it. The whole thing had played out just like Vaughn said it would. Well, except for Franklin Cartwright ending up dead. But Yorick had a prime bit of real estate back in his possession, and once Vaughn and Hershel figured out how to get around the restrictions in the original agreement, they were all going to make a bundle of money, not just from creating a luxury resort for the discerning elite, but from the acres of timber waiting to be cut and sent to the sawmills as well.