Always a Wanderer

by Danica Winters

  She thought of some of the waiters who still refused to speak to her. He wasn’t wrong to say her family was still plagued by the stigma of their kind.

  “But what does it matter? We can’t go to changin’ nothin’.” He shook his head and took a long drink. “We can’t really complain. You’ve been gettin’ along right well with the hospital and all. Are you nervous about today’s grand opening?”

  In truth, she hadn’t given the opening much consideration. Every thought had seemed to center on what they had witnessed at the equestrian center, or the state of her relationship with Graham. It seemed like everywhere she looked, there was something she had to work to understand, to fight, to reveal, or conceal.

  “Aye...the grand openin’.”

  “It’s goin’ to have to be done real careful now that the HG are in town for their rally with their leader, Benjamin Poole,” Da said, pouring more water into his drained cup.

  “The HG?” She’d heard about the rally, but she’d never heard of the HG.

  “They’re a vigilante group. Kinda like Red Hand Defenders in the North or the KKK in the States.”

  Her stomach fell. Of course she knew hate groups existed. There were radicals everywhere in the world, but she’d never been this close to a large group of them, and she wasn’t sure if she should be angry or afraid at their presence.

  “They hate...who?”

  “They hate anyone different. Their name says it all. The Humanity Group—as in, only humans like them matter.” Da came back and sat down across from her at the table. “They’re this century’s version of the neo-Nazis. White men with blue eyes and an athletic build. Everyone else...” He sighed, not wanting to finish the sentence.

  Had the men in the barn been from that group? Was that why they had been spewing hate about her kind?

  “Are they against supernaturals?” she asked, trying to control the wave of nausea passing over her.

  Da shrugged. “Aye. They’re against anyone who they think isn’t like them—and supernaturals, they’d be enemy number one.”

  “Are they here because of the grand openin’? Do ya think the HG knows about us?” Her skin prickled with fear.

  The men in the barn had been talking about getting things ready for their plan—had that meant they were planning on sabotaging the hospital’s ceremony? Hundreds of supernatural people and their families would be there.

  Oh Jaysus, they have to be...

  They had to be stopped.

  She tried to recall exactly what they had said, but in her memory that time was just a jumble of words and feelings. All she could remember was that they had spoken freely of being responsible for Neill’s death, and that they had said something about a staff member. Was the staff member one of their people? Someone from the hospital?

  Someone in her inner circle must have been working for the HG. But who? And why? Why would anyone want to join a group that wanted to kill those they deemed different?

  She took a long breath and tried to concentrate on the tea rather than the feelings that threatened to overwhelm her.

  No one was safe. Not when a group of hate-spewing killers were on the loose.

  *.*.*

  Graham’s mobile rang, pulling him out of his stupor. For hours, all he had been able to do was stare up at the darkened ceiling of his bedroom as he thought about Helena and the men they had seen in the stalls.

  Someone wanted her dead. Yet Helena had seemed almost indifferent to the fact. He had offered to stay and stand guard for the night—that was, to sit outside their cottage with the promise that he wouldn’t enter unless it was an emergency. But she had declined.

  The only thing she seemed consumed with was pushing him away, and he just couldn’t understand it.

  He had desperately tried to make her see what kind of trouble she and her family were probably in, but she had waved off his concern.

  The phone rang again.

  He glanced at the screen as he picked it up. It was her.

  Maybe she had come to realize that what he had said, and the warnings he had tried to give her, were real and legitimate reasons for him to come back. Even if they weren’t going to talk, or try to make sense of the mess their relationship had become.

  “Aye?” he asked warily.

  “Did ya know about the HG?”

  “What about them?” he asked, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes.

  “Did ya know who they are?” she asked, her voice frantic with fear.

  He stood up and slipped on his clothes. As he looked back at the bed, his thoughts instantly went to the day Helena had lain on those white sheets, waiting for him to make love to her.

  How things could change in the blink of an eye.

  “Sure, I know who they are. Why?”

  “Apparently they’re the ones puttin’ on the rally in Adare—it’s a hate rally. How did ya not know about this?” she asked, an accusatory edge to her voice.

  Did he really have to remind her of everything that had been happening over the course of the last few days? It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep, let alone follow events in the village. He tried not to be angry; she wasn’t upset with him. More than anything, she was likely scared—just as she should have been.

  He knew about the HG. Not even a year ago they had taken credit for hanging a somewhat well-known psychic from the cliffs of Moher. Three years ago, it had been rumored they had been behind a large fire that had killed twenty in a government-run Traveller campsite. In neither instance was a single person prosecuted for the events.

  Though it never made the news, it was an acknow-ledged fact that when it came to Traveller communities, law enforcement often felt it was a waste of resources to investigate anything. When they were called out about it at press conferences, high-ranking officials often hedged their statements by saying things like: “We appreciate the special circumstances of the gypsy and Traveller culture. While we believe in justice, we also understand the special needs and requirements of their society. As such, we allocate resources according to where they will do the most good.”

  They didn’t care what happened to Travellers as long as their problems didn’t overflow into the lives of country folk. Which meant everything the HG took part in was firmly rooted in the world that rested just outside the sphere of his normal life—and outside the police’s sight.

  That reality kept Helena’s kind hobbled.

  “What are we gonna do, Graham?”

  His mind was groggy from exhaustion, and no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on what needed to be done, it felt like he was attempting to capture raindrops in his open hands.

  “I don’t know.” He slipped on his shoes and made his way downstairs. “But I’ll come pick you up, and we’ll get some coffee—maybe in town, so we can catch a glimpse of exactly what and who we are dealing with. And then maybe we can come up with something.”

  “We’re dealin’ with the men from the stables, Graham. We’re dealin’ with murderers.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE RIDE TO ADARE WAS spent in silence. Perhaps it was the early morning hour and the way everything around them seemed to still have the residue of sleep smeared over it, or perhaps it was the events of the last few days, but every time Helena tried to start a conversation with Graham, he barely spoke.

  She couldn’t blame him, though. Not really. Not after what she had done to him, what she had said.

  Looking over at him, she saw his dark brown eyes were shrouded in shadows, and the thin lines around his lips seemed deeper, as if he had grown older overnight. She had done that to him. She had broken his heart.

  Didn’t he understand he had broken hers as well? It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, or that she didn’t care—her love was the reason she’d had to break up with him. She needed to protect him.

  The old adage came to her mind that sometimes, when you loved something, you had to set it free.

  Yet, what if they didn’t really want to be free?
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br />   Or what if he did? What if he just didn’t know how to deal with her now that they weren’t an us? A little prick of hurt rose inside of her, but she quickly squashed the feeling. She had no right to feel hurt.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to find the men from the stables?” she asked, in an effort to fill the tense silence between them.

  “They can’t be too far away, or too well hidden. As long as we talk to the right people, I’m sure we can at least narrow down the possibilities.”

  “Did you call Giorgio? Maybe he can help us.” She knew she was grasping at straws. Giorgio hadn’t seen the men, but they had to do something...anything that would help them keep others from being hurt.

  “I did. He’s looking into the hospital for us, seeing if he can follow up on the nurses who didn’t have alibis for their whereabouts on the day of Neill’s murder. Right now, it sounds like there are three possibilities—a nurse who works in the med surg unit, and two from rehab. He said he was leaning toward the med surg nurse, a man named Blane.”

  “Blane?” She remembered the man she had hired. He had come from Northern Ireland and been working in the medical field for the last ten years. He had seemed intelligent, well-spoken, and ambitious—even asking if there was a leadership position that he could apply for. Had it all been because he had been hired by the HG to infiltrate their hospital? Had it all been a show?

  Nothing about the man had put her off, but that didn’t mean she, and the others seated on the board for the interview, hadn’t made a mistake.

  “Why does he think it’s Blane?”

  Graham shrugged. “He’s been looking into each of the nurses’ lives. Blane was involved in ALF when he was in college.”

  ALF was an antagonistic group working for animal rights and environmental protection. They were known for infiltrating organizations with known questionable practices or inhumane treatment of animals, in some cases even bombing the buildings and headquarters after they had saved the creatures.

  The organization certainly used the same tactics as HG. But how could someone who spent their days helping others, guiding them through the terror of injury and health issues, also want to hurt someone—or kill them? It seemed against the nature of a nurse to act in that way—especially a nurse like Blane, who’d seemed, above all other things, kind.

  Humans were crazy. No matter how hard she tried to understand them, she would never be able to truly understand the why and how of how they worked.

  Heck, maybe Graham was wondering the same thing about her—how, if they cared for one another, she could want to push him away.

  He pulled the car to a stop in front of a small coffee shop just down the road from Barbara’s Books, her favorite bookshop. Anytime she’d been lost, she’d always found her way to that place and sought comfort in the pages of a novel. It had been her escape.

  She turned to ask Graham if he’d like to go to the bookstore after coffee, but he was already out of the car and closing the door. Had he really wanted to escape their close quarters so badly that he’d nearly jumped out?

  He must hate her right now.

  Maybe she was crazy to think she should stay. She loved healing, but often it was only the afflictions of the body she seemed to really be able to fix. Injuries of the heart and the head—well, those were entirely different things. And most who came to the hospital weren’t there for injuries to their bodies.

  Graham walked around and opened the door of the car. He held out his hand to help her out. As their fingers touched, she felt the warm buzz of electricity that had always seemed to come at the beginning of their relationship. Had some of their old attraction returned? Or did it have to do with the science of their bodies? Now that they weren’t as directly connected, were their bodies trying to pull them back together? Or was the feeling of electricity a warning that they should stay apart?

  She stood up and stepped onto the path, letting go of his hand. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing the skirt of her polka-dotted dress.

  “You look nice today,” he said, motioning toward her.

  “Ach, thanks,” she said, with a dismissive wave.

  Normally she was the type to just wear jeans and a pullover, but she had been feeling down, and she found that sometimes the best way to start feeling better was by looking good. Deep down, though, she couldn’t deny that perhaps part of the reason for the dress was to remind Graham of how beautiful she could be.

  It didn’t make any sense that she’d want to attract the man she’d broken up with, but so much of her just wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  They walked into the coffee shop in awkward silence. She opened and closed her hands, trying to rid herself of the numbness that had come after he let her go.

  “’Ello,” a stout woman with white hair called from the kitchen. “Top o’ the morning to ye. I’ll be along in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. So make yourselves comfy.”

  “And the rest of the day to yourself,” Graham said, returning the greeting.

  Helena smiled at the woman’s enthusiasm. It felt good to be around someone who seemed free and unweighted by the world. She led the way to a table by the window, a place where they could look out onto the street and wouldn’t be forced to stare at one another.

  The menu was simple, either a fry-up or oatmeal and toast. She skimmed the menu, but she wasn’t hungry, especially not once Graham’s knee grazed hers, sending another buzz of electricity up to her core.

  The white-haired woman made her way toward them with two mugs and a pot of coffee. “Fine mornin’, ain’t it?” she asked, motioning to the gray, overcast sky outside. “At least we ain’t gettin’ buckets.”

  Graham gave her a polite smile. “It is. Been busy this morn’?”

  The woman glanced around the empty shop as if in answer. “It’ll get there. Lots of people on holiday comin’ and goin’. You must be goin’ back up at the manor.”

  “Aye, it’s been right busy the last few days,” Graham said in a noncommittal way.

  The woman sat the mugs down on the table and filled each of them without asking whether or not they wanted coffee. “There’ve been some strange folks comin’ through here. Say they be comin’ your way. What kind of things are you doin’?”

  “What do ya mean?” Helena asked, maybe a touch too excitedly, and Graham sent her a look.

  The woman gave a light smile and shrugged. “Well, ’twas one guy...he kept askin’ me if I was excited about the change.” The woman fanned her face like she was having a hot flash. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him I went through the change decades ago.”

  Helena laughed, and the sound filled the small shop. Graham’s cheeks took on a light blush that made him look handsome in the thin morning light streaming through the windows.

  “Now, I ain’t assumin’ he was talkin’ ’bout my bits and bobbles. Do you know why he was talkin’ ’bout the change?” she asked, putting air quotes around the words.

  Graham shook his head. “Nah, ma’am. I dunno.”

  “Ain’t it a little late for you all to be busy up at the manor? It ain’t the holiday season anymore. Or does this have to do with the rally that’s been going on in town? Have you seen the kind of men and women that thing is attractin’? It’s like a swarm of blowflies.”

  “You had any other run-ins with them? Or have they been good customers?” Graham asked, carefully avoiding the woman’s prying questions.

  “Ach, they’ve been fine. Just fine. It’s always good to be busy. Mostly they keep themselves to themselves.” She looked up like she was trying to catch a drifting thought. “Actually, truth be told, most o’ the time they seem to stop their chatterin’ anytime I come around. They must think I’m some kind of nosy Nellie, ya know.” She said it as if people were committing some mortal sin by keeping their business from her.

  “I’m sure that ain’t what it is,” Helena said, putting her hand on the woman’s.

  “I thought maybe I was making something out of nothin�
��, but ye know people around here—the locals—we ain’t nothin’ like that. We stick together.” Some of her animation returned.

  “Have you seen a man around here—balding, gray haired, a little stout?” Graham asked, obviously thinking of the man they had seen last night in the stables.

  “Aye, boy, that could be about all the men over forty who come through these doors.” She laughed. “Really though, I see that kind of man almost all day, every day. You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific.”

  They could hardly tell her the man might be a murderer involved in the HG.

  “He’s probably runnin’ with another man,” Helena offered.

  “Again, love, that’s how men of a certain age are. They run in packs.”

  Helena laughed, imagining a group of sixty-something men moving through the street like wild dogs.

  “If you want, loves, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. Maybe you can catch him in today’s comings and goings. I’ll get you a couple of fry-ups goin’. You must be famished.” With that, the woman spun on her heel and moved toward the kitchen as though she couldn’t wait to tell the cook that the son of the manor’s owner was sitting in the front with a girl.

  Helena was sure it would reignite any gossip that had been lying dormant through the village about Graham and his gypsy—if nothing else, at least the woman had been kind to her.

  She and Graham sat in silence for a moment. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say, or how to bridge the distance that seemed to be growing between them.

  “Is there anything else we need to do for this afternoon’s ceremonies?” he asked, finally speaking up.

  Of course he would go straight to business.

  She shook her head. “Everything’s in place for the luncheon. Mary’s in charge of the food and the staff has been preppin’ for days. It should go off without a hitch.” The blood drained from her face. “Ya don’t think the HG has infiltrated the manor, do ya?” She leaned in so she could speak without being heard. “Ya don’t think they’d poison the food or anything?”