by Pam Uphoff
"Hold on Honey! We'll get you down!"
And stranded just below his fence, a young woman hanging on to the rough rock face. She looked around and grinned happily, let go of a hand grip and waved. "Red and Brown!"
"Oh . . ." Definitely not police.
A man galloped down the steps of Axel's home. "There's no one home! I'll have to try to . . ." His gaze shifted to Axel, as he strode across the street.
"I'm almost home. Come on." He trotted up the steps. Heard the clicks of the locks and shoved the door open. "Home again." Dropped his groceries on the way up the stairs and out the door to the second floor patio.
The girl waved. "Red and Brown!"
Axel shucked his suit coat and hopped to belly-up on the fence. One shove and my splattered brains on the rocks below will be a regrettable accident.
A strong grip on his legs. "Can you reach her?"
"I'd better." Because even as he said it the girl let go with both hands, and teetering on her toeholds, reached for him.
He avoided her grab, and closed his hands around her upper arms and heaved. Swung her up and around, onto the fence, got an arm loose, grabbed her leg and tumbled her over onto his neglected lawn.
One of the grips on his legs disappeared, as the old guy grabbed his belt and pulled Axel off the fence. He staggered back and landed on his butt.
The young woman bounced to her feet and danced around. "Red and Brown!" And dashed off.
Axel took the proffered hand and made it to his feet. Dusted off his ass.
"Thank you so much . . . my daughter's not . . ."
"Bad grow-in?"
"Very. Almost enough to institutionalize her . . ." The old man looked bleakly over the fence. "We may have to. Sooner than we'd thought."
"Perhaps," Axel leaned to look, and could see a corner of a patio jutting out. "Did she climb from your patio? Perhaps replace the fence with a high plex barrier?"
"That might work. She's never done this before. Umm, I'm Mitty."
"A . . ." He caught a flash of movement, high up in the windows. "Oh, she likes heights, doesn't she?" he strode inside. A glance at the front door where the grey-haired woman dithered. "C'mon up, I think she ran upstairs." And hopefully she’s not climbing up from my patio . . .
On that horrible thought, he charged up the steps and headed for the door on the other side . . . reversed course when he spotted her. Dancing around his desk, wine bottle in hand.
Oh shit. Please tell me she didn't drink any of it!
She had the cork in her other hand, and took a big swig.
I'm dead. D. E. D. Dead.
"Red and Brown! I love you!"
She threw herself at Axel and planted a big wine-tasting kiss on his lips.
He disentangled her arms and pried the wine bottle from her right hand, the cork from her left . . . Fighting off attempts to re-grab him, fighting to not grab back, because she was a luscious armful . . . He corked the bottle and set it back on the credenza.
"I think you've had enough, Miss." Holy . . . If your father wasn't right here . . . I'd be doing something I'd feel guilty about later!
"I should think so!" The father sounded shocked. "I'm so sorry . . . Dina! Stop . . . hugging the poor man."
Axel gave up and ducked, grabbed, and lifted the young woman over his shoulder. "Let's go find your mother, shall we?"
At least Dina was a lightweight. Her appalled and frantic father preceded him down the stairs, her mother, halfway up the first flight, scurried back down. Dina giggled.
"Sorry." Axel tried to not laugh at the pure absurdity of it all. "I had a bottle of wine out, and she must have been thirsty."
"Oh, and she didn't hardly eat lunch . . ."
Axel set Dina down and she leaned on him. Giving him big-eyed hungry looks.
"Miss Dina, you are a cheap drunk, and what you need is some ice cream." He grabbed his abandoned grocery sack, then managed to untangle Dina and get her on a stool and himself around the counter in the kitchen. He grabbed four bowls and spoons, then scooped ice cream and got Dina giggling and eating instead of looking like she wanted to climb over the counter to grab him again.
"I'm so sorry, we're trespassing on your home and, and . . . we're eating all your ice cream." The mother looked a little lost.
Axel shook his head. "I was having a horrible day, and not looking forward to the next several. Decided I needed a drink . . . then decided that drunk was a really bad way to face the rest of the week, and that an ice cream binge was probably a better idea. I thank you for distracting me, and adding an actual high point to my day."
"Oh dear! Umm . . ." Mother eyed her daughter, licking her bowl . . . and eyeing Axel like he was next. "I think I'd better get Dina home. Thank you for rescuing her, and the ice cream, and . . . being so nice about it."
She didn't quite have to manhandle the girl out.
The guy, had he said Mitty? Started apologizing.
Axel couldn't help it and started laughing. "I'm sorry, this is all so absurd on top of too little sleep and too much bad news. I tried to remember the last time a pretty young woman threw herself at me, and realized it's never happened before. So even though she was drunk, and dammit, one of the tragedies of modern life . . . Don't apologize."
Axel thought that over. "Actually, you'll probably curse me for that ice cream when the hangover hits."
Mitty laughed, they shook hands.
Axel closed the door behind him, and slid down to the floor. Laughing a little.
Realizing how much trouble he was in. If that little sample I snuck past the Inquisitor and dropped in the wine bottle works . . . Dead. Meat.
I need to study the collection of Mentalist impressions in that wine.
And I need a cold shower.
And to get back to Vinogradov House.
After I finish the ice cream.
Chapter Eight
Domestic Doings
Thursday, November 15, 3738
"He's still not back, but a half dozen police cars just pulled up." Natasha chewed a knuckle, and leaned to watch all the cops leaving their cars. "About half Cyborgs, some old guys and the cute cop from this morning."
"D-didn't think he w-was that good l-looking."
"Ooo, Tash has a boyfriend!"
"Shut up Barf! The most attractive thing about him is that he doesn't look like a relative of mine!"
"So, let's go assist, and pick up some more policing pointers." Dimitri led the way out.
Natasha bounced out to follow him, and ignored the snickers from the other two.
Vlad . . . the senior detective assigned them to assist different groups. Pauli got sent to help the people talking to Mr. Solovsky. Probably to help with the computers, if needed.
Natasha was stationed outside Lord Andre and Lord Nikoli's offices, in case the police talking to them needed someone to run notes, or guide them anywhere.
She noted other servants hovering around, not sure what to do . . . or possibly enjoying the show.
There were two boys down the hall . . . Lenni and Osip, seventeen years olds, too well behaved to be Rangers. But . . . She slipped down close to them. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Trying to find out what's happening." Lenni didn't look happy.
Nor did Osip. "And what that means for us. What's going to happen."
Natasha eyed them. Smart, good manners, dignified bearing . . . "You know, you two ought to grab some tablets and pens, and show up and volunteer to take notes when Lord Axel gets back and talks to them."
They looked at her, and back at each other.
"Because if you can establish yourselves as secretaries, they might want you to have executive plates."
"Wow."
Osip nodded. "Yeah. But where . . ."
"Oh." She slipped into Lord Axel's office. Found pads, and two ordinary pens. "It's like taking notes in class. Just . . . skip the name calling and stuff. Be stiff. Write things like 'Lord Axel objected to the idea' instead of Lord Axe
l called them utter morons and thirty seconds of the twins cussing at him."
They nodded and followed her back down the hall, stopping where they could barely hear the questioning. They stayed out of sight, as this probably wasn't the sort of thing they wanted a record of.
Natasha leaned closer to the boys. Barely breathed, "And never, ever, gossip."
And Nikloi's raised voice. "I never touched the chair! I certainly didn't pull it over! Go find out how that good-for-nothing Axel murdered Father!" The sound of chairs scraping. "I don't have to put up with this! In my own house!"
They all skittered back into Lord Axel's office. And heard Andre yelling, "It's not your house!"
More stomping feet and the raised voices retreated. Natasha peeked out. Nothing to see but the policemen walking out into the Grand Hall.
". . . passed my challenge a week before you . . ."
". . . doesn't matter since . . ."
Then a pause in the yelling, apparently to redirect it.
"Where the Hell have you been!"
"About time!"
"You said you'd keep us informed, then you ran off without us!"
"What did you do at the bank?"
And Lord Axel's voice. "Showed my credentials, went over the Trusts and accounts. May need an official audit, if I can't straighten out some documentation issues, but it's a small percent of the Historical Trust. The Family Trust . . . we'll talk about."
They started yelling and demanding to know what was wrong and where was their money . . .
Natasha stood on her toes and spotted Lord Axel shaking his head, but with a little curl of a smile. I wonder what he's so happy about? Humph! Him and his damned secret life. Working? Playing, more like.
And then Lord Axel's raised voice. "If you two would ask your wives to step down to . . . how about the breakfast room? That ought to be about the right size. I'll bring you up to date and tell you what I'll be doing. Then you guys can discuss everything privately."
Natasha looked back at Lenni and Osip. "If they send someone for their wives, approach them about taking notes. If they go themselves, wait till they come back. Good Luck!"
Over the noise echoing around the Hall, she had trouble separating out Lord Axel's voice once he'd stopped trying to override the twins . . . But the breakfast room . . .
Everyone else migrated to the long, back corridor. Windows and occasional doors to the outside, the high frosted windows of the offices on the other side, and the breakfast room in the corner, sunny with windows on two walls, a table that could hold a dozen if they were friendly . . .
Natasha dashed upstairs, down the hall and around the corner to the interior stairs that only the servants and Lord Axel used regularly. Then back down to the first floor and cracked the door for a view down toward the table.
There was a chair on the landing, for a servant to sit and watch, signaling to the kitchen staff below when it was time to bring up the next course, then scurry out to pick up the used dishes. Unfortunately, by design or accident, the acoustics were such that she wasn't going to be able to hear a thing.
She watched as Lord Axel sat in the center of the long side and opened his computer. The late afternoon sun slanted through the south windows, the lights over the table were on, dispelling the shadows.
Andre, who'd been planning to grab the head of the table, frowned, then circled to sit across the table from Lord Axel. Nikoli sat beside him and their wives flanked them.
The cute detect . . . He's a Lord. I'd be nothing but a casual bedmate to him. Except Lord Axel told him about my no-show Executive Plate . . . so he wouldn't trust me to not influence him in his sleep. I'd be a quickie and nothing else.
Dammit.
. . . Senior Detective Lord Vlad Gagarin sat next to Lord Axel, probably so he could see both the screen and the people across the table.
Drat. I can't see them from here.
Other policemen were taking notes, and she caught a glimpse of Osip maneuvering himself toward a corner of the room.
As a silent play, it was mostly unedifying. Even if, at one point Andre pounded the table and threw his arms out wide. His wife ducked in time. His brother didn't.
Lord Axel sat back, arms crossed, until the brothers were paying attention again.
Nikoli pointed at Lord Axel, Lord Axel shrugged and brought up something else on his computer.
Then the meeting was over, and Andre and Nikoli stomped off angrily. One of the other policemen asked Lord Axel something, nodded at a reply. Then they all left.
Natasha headed back up . . . decided to not risk meeting the two Ladies and went up to the third floor, which by dint of having been remodeled fewer times than the first and second floors was less of a maze, and took the cross hallway back to the front stairs to the Grand Hall.
The senior detective was frowning around the front hall, and spotted her. "All right. Can you explain this house to me? I'm afraid if I go wandering I'll get lost and they'll find my mummified body in a couple of years."
She laughed at that. "It's all the times it's been renovated. Think about two rectangles, or two race tracks, one inside the other. One goes around the outside, windows and glass doors and such. The other goes around the inside. On all four floors, except where the old Council Hall interferes with it all."
He looked both ways. "All right, I see that the outside corridor goes to the Council Hall on the . . . is that east? More northeast, really, isn’t it? And then the corridor runs full length of the front face of the house to the . . . west corner and turns the corner to go southish. And the stairs run along the corridor both ways."
"Yep. See up there at the top of the stairs? Step left and those doors go into the top tier of the Council Hall, step to the right, and there's stairs to the third floor. That whole end of the third floor was Lord Axel's parents' space. They blocked off the outside corridor, and opened up the rooms that were between the two race tracks to the windows outside."
"Wait . . . no rooms had windows?"
"Yeah. I don't think Ivan the Founder was an architect. At any rate, he was thinking offices, for the government, not places to live. Then when Lord Andre and Lord Nikoli married, they did the same thing to the rooms on the second floor on the south side and around the corner to where the top of the council Hall blocked them."
"Hence the long rooms with the windows at the end. So . . . what's on the inside of the smaller racetrack?"
"Offices for clerks and secretaries and such, bathrooms, there are ordinary staircases that mostly only the servants use. All the plumbing and air ducts and . . . stuff. There's a couple of elevators, too, but they really need to be replaced. Nobody quite dares to use them."
"Yikes."
"Yeah. Well, they walled off the inner racetrack on the front—west side. Who knows why? There's a hidden entrance between the small parlor and the large dining room, behind that little table there. And the back corridor got taken out for a bit more room for the large dining room, and, I guess you know about that door."
"It'll be a decade before they find my desiccated bones."
She snickered. "Then they took out the wall to the back corridor so Lord Vladimir's office is larger and has windows and a door to the back garden. I . . . suppose it has a door to the inner corridor . . . I don't actually know much about what's up there, or back there.
"The basement in the east is the kitchens and stuff, on the west there's a huge gym and servants' quarters, but we mostly live on the fourth floor, for the light. We leave our doors open a lot."
She looked up the broad mahogany stairs of the west wing. "Umm, Lord Vladimir didn't let many people go up there. Just the housekeeper and a few maids. I suppose, with just him, most of it was closed up." She bit her lip and looked up at him. Opportunity! "Want to go exploring?"
Chapter Nine
Labyrinth
Thursday, November 15, 3738
Vlad was lost in three turns. And there'd been more than three turns.
He suspec
ted the girl was lost too. It wasn't very dusty, just a faint hint of "unused" about the plain pale gray walls, void of pictures, regularly spaced doors, about half locked. The ones they checked were either empty or full of stacked furniture. Staircases. And decided against adding a third dimension to their disorientation.
It was somewhere between amusing and exasperating. In the movies, I'd at least get to kiss the girl. Or she'd be frightened by a spider and leap into my arms, or . . . Sheesh! Concentrate, Vlad! Get your mind off the pretty girl.
Natasha looked around, frowning. "We must be past the inner core by now, unless I've gotten turned around. We're going south aren't we?"
"I thought east. Let's just go straight until we find an outer wall." Vlad opened a door . . . "Well, this is a bit different. Looks like a throne room."
He walked in. "That looks like the big chair the movies always show the Founder sitting in."
"Wow!" Natasha walked in. "I wonder if that's the original one?"
Vlad looked around the room. Here there were pictures on the walls, thick rugs on the floor . . . except the direction the Throne faced. No artwork and the last six feet of the floor was bare apart from something laying on the bare concrete.
A bar of glassy material, two and half feet long, six inches wide and half that deep . . .
Natasha walked up beside him. "That looks like . . . it can't be a dimensional beacon."
A long pause while they looked at it.
"It's probably just a movie prop that got left behind . . . sometime."
Vlad nodded. "Yeah. But . . . let’s find a way out, and then get an expert in to be sure."
She looked around. "And hope we can find it again?"
"Oh." He pulled out his phone. "No reception. That's odd." He stepped out the door. Still nothing. He smoothed down the hairs on the back of his neck.
Natasha gulped, and half closed her eyes. "Axel, Axel, Axel! You have to be close enough . . . It's important. I think . . . We're on the second floor West wing. It’s a real maze up here and we found . . . Vlad. I mean, the Senior Detective . . ." She opened her eyes. "Axel's coming. I telepathed him . . . Oh . . . Did I say it all out loud? Oh man! He keeps telling me to practice just thinking the words, but . . ."