“I’m not poaching,” Michael said.
“Since books aren’t rabbits, taking one is called theft, not poaching,” Julian replied. But Michael didn’t seem in the mood for teasing.
“I’m not sure if it’s clear to Vicki yet, but I can see how you feel about her. I don’t intend to be competition. It’s just . . . It’s time to leave Ravendell, and as a writer, I can live anywhere.”
“And you’re thinking of relocating here.” Now this conversation was starting to make sense. “And you’re thinking of staying at The Jumble.”
Julian felt a twinge. Not jealousy, exactly, but he carried scars and a lot of emotional baggage. Michael carried neither. A steady, stable man who should be a better fit for helping Vicki with her own baggage.
Should be. But wasn’t.
“You do realize Vicki only provides breakfast?” Julian said.
Michael grinned. “I got that part. And pizza and salad on cop and crime nights. I also got that the kitchen is a communal space and guests are free to make their own meals as long as they clean up after themselves.” His grin faded. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a long-term resident of The Jumble—or this village, for that matter. But there’s a good energy here, and some fresh inspiration. That’s why I came in the first place, to have a chance to observe the Others up close.”
“Got more than you bargained for.” Julian opened the books in preparation for Michael signing them.
“I did. We did.”
Julian thought about that for a moment. “Is Ian thinking of relocating too?”
Michael shook his head. “He’s more rooted because of his existing commitments, but he would like to spend some time in Sproing. There’s a need here, Julian, and Ian has a feeling he can help a few people.”
A bitter smile. “Like me?”
“Maybe. Mostly he’d like to continue helping the Sanguinati and the Crows who were traumatized by what happened here.” Michael hesitated. “You wouldn’t fit in Ravendell anymore. I wondered why you didn’t come back after you left the police force, but seeing you in this village, among these people? I don’t wonder anymore. We were friends once. I’d like to think we still are. But the close friends you have now aren’t people who write about characters who make brutal choices and carry them out. Your close friends are the people who make brutal choices and carry them out. And you’re like them. That’s why I wanted to know if you’d have a problem with me staying here over the winter, maybe longer.”
“No, I don’t have a problem with that,” Julian said as Michael signed the books. “If you and Vicki can’t come to an arrangement for renting one of her cabins, you can check with Ineke Xavier. You’ll get meals at her boardinghouse. And there may be an opening at the Mill Creek Cabins. I heard the Sanguinati are implementing new rules for the universities that are renting their cabins.”
“A lot of things to think about,” Michael said, signing the last book.
Yes, Julian thought as Michael walked to the back of the store to look at the new books. A lot to think about.
CHAPTER 96
Grimshaw
Earthday, Novembros 11
Grimshaw met Captain Walter Hargreaves at a truck stop located between Sproing and Bristol. As usual, Hargreaves had arrived ahead of him.
Not many customers at this time of the morning, which was what he’d expected—and the reason he’d asked Hargreaves to meet him on an Earthday.
“I ordered the breakfast special for you,” Hargreaves said.
“Thanks.” He slid into one side of the booth moments before the food arrived.
The waitress distributed the plates and poured coffee before hustling to check on the customers in the other occupied booth.
“Read your report,” Hargreaves said, applying butter and syrup to his pancakes. “You going to stand by it?”
“I am,” Grimshaw replied.
Hargreaves nodded and focused on his meal for a minute. Then he drank his coffee, waited for the waitress to come by with a refill, and said, “Now tell me what really happened.”
* * *
* * *
Two days earlier
Fear was a powerful motivator, especially when Sanguinati paid a call on government officials and police chiefs received phone calls from sources who didn’t supply any names, just a list of catastrophic consequences that would happen in the Northeast Region of Thaisia if police in other towns didn’t help the police in Sproing find out about two humans named Richard Cardosa and Ellen Cardosa Wilson.
The information supplied wasn’t new, but it was confirmation of what Grimshaw and Julian and Ilya had already put together.
Richard and Ellen Cardosa were siblings as well as sophisticated predators who had a taste and talent for psychological brutality and emotional torture that sometimes included physical abuse. Children went missing. Children were found in shallow graves in another part of the Northeast. And some survived Ellen’s form of maternal care to become her “monstrosities” and carry out their own forms of brutality—brutality enhanced by drugs Ellen provided as rewards.
Richard didn’t want the messiness of living with his subjects, but working at colleges gave him access to youngsters who were the right age for his experiments—and gave him access to the terra indigene youth who were drawn by curiosity or hunger to that herd of malleable humans. That was where the contamination of Crowgard and Sanguinati started, but Cardosa always moved to another college in another town before a connection was made between him and the violence and suicides taking place among students.
Grimshaw’s insistence on knowing where new residents had lived before coming to Sproing put pressure on Ellen Cardosa Wilson, especially after the Elementals locked down the entire area to prevent the Trickster Night visitors from leaving. Suddenly her “monstrosities,” whom she had summoned to Sproing, were trapped and were not only colliding with some of Richard’s subjects—they were colluding with them. That had infuriated her enough to give her boys a hefty dose of gone over wolf and send them out to eliminate her rival.
Richard Cardosa was Deceased, Location Unknown, and that DLU form was sent to the last college where Cardosa had worked, as well as to the authorities in that town who would have the futile task of finding and informing next of kin.
Ilya pointed out that they had circumstantial evidence that supported what they believed about Ellen Cardosa Wilson, but where could she stand trial, and for what specific crime? Since Ellen often claimed Theodore became ill after eating something from the diner or the Pizza Shack, she could say that her ravings when Julian entered her house were due to distress that her son had eaten cookies and had an allergic reaction. They couldn’t find a convenient box of poison to prove she’d intended to kill the neighbor’s dog.