The place was a mess.
The kitchen seemed okay, but the home office to the right of the door had clearly been riffled. All of the books had been taken off their shelves; some left open while others had had their pages torn out. In the living room, someone had flipped the coffee table, gutted every cushion in the room, and then flipped the couch itself for good measure.
The washer and dryer opposite the bathroom were untouched, as was the bathroom itself. Dolf’s bedroom looked like a hurricane had hit it. Nothing was broken, mostly because there hadn’t been anything particularly breakable in the room, but Helena and Dolf’s clothes and possession were strewn about everywhere.
Working together, she and Van Hoorn got Declan situated on Dolf’s bed.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Helena.
“Don’t bother,” said Van Hoorn. “I can fix this.”
Then she unceremoniously shoved Helena out of the room, slamming the bedroom door shut behind her.
Left alone in the hallway, Helena suddenly felt very cold.
Tea, she thought. Tea will make me feel better.
Going to the kitchen, Helena set about boiling a pot of water, noting in passing that her hands were shaking again.
Stupid hands.
Helena dropped the first mug that she tried to get down from the cupboard, the useless thing shattering into about a million pieces on the tile floor.
Glaring at it – or rather, at its remnants – Helena cursed.
Can’t anything go right today? Helena wondered, annoyed, as she returned to the cabinet.
She’d clean that first mug up after she had enjoyed her cup of tea, because clearly, her nerves needed settling.
Helena was reaching for a second mug when a man’s bloodcurdling scream rang out, chilling her blood in the veins.
Turning to face the bedroom, Helena barely felt it as this second mug slipped from between her numb fingertips.
Another mug was lost to the kitchen’s tiles.
Dolf!
She stood still, rooted in place, listening hard.
I should have ignored her and called an ambulance, thought Helena, fear clutching at her heart. I should have ignored him and called an ambulance.
She deeply regretted everything.
Helena heard it when the bedroom door swung open, its hinges squeaking, and she heard the pad of footsteps in the hallway, followed by the thump of boots.
Then Declan – barefoot, bare-chested, and wearing what must have been a pair of Dolf’s sweatpants – walked into her field of vision, looking almost like he had never been hit by anything. And it was only almost, because of the dried blood. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been dying ten minutes ago.
Helena burst into tears.
In a perfect world, Declan would have put his arms around her and told Helena that he was fine, not to worry, everything was alright now.
What her cousin actually said was “Oh man, this place is a mess! Dolf is gonna be pissed. He hates messes.”
And Helena actually found it within herself to cry harder.
She didn’t want Dolf to be mad at her for breaking his mugs!
There was a yelp, high and masculine, and Declan hissed “Really? You just finished patching me up!”
“Don’t be such a baby,” scoffed Van Hoorn, also in an undertone. “She’s obviously in shock. Be sensitive.”
“Don’t worry about breaking… whatever it is that you broke, Helena,” said Declan. “I’ll clean it up. Just stop crying.”
He yelped again, the sound nearly covering Van Hoorn’s muttered “You absolutely suck at this, da Luz.” Louder, she said “Your shins are bleeding, Helena. You’d probably better let me have a look at them.”
“Okay,” hiccupped Helena, who was still crying, although less now.
I wish that Dolf was here, thought Helena. Somehow, things never seemed so bad when Dolf was there.
Roughly, she dragged an arm across her face, and tried to stop crying. It didn’t really work.
“I’m going to go get a pair of shoes,” Declan announced. “I’ll be back.”
He disappeared back down the hall to Dolf’s room, leaving Helena to find her own way out of the two broken mugs. At least she still had her shoes on.
Van Hoorn met her at the other side of the broken ceramics minefield. A hand on Helena’s arm, and she firmly but gently guided Helena next door to the bathroom and Dolf’s home medical kit. When Van Hoorn tended to Helena’s shins, Declan tended to the mess in Dolf’s kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” said Helena presently, when she had more or less gotten the tears under control.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Van Hoorn, not looking up from what she was doing. “You’ve had a very hard day.”
“I’m not the one who got run over,” said Helena, and then shuddered at the memory.
“Eh, he’s fine.”
“How did you do that?” asked Helena, her natural curiosity stirring. It diverted her neatly from how she was handling the afternoon. “I thought for sure that he was dying.”
“He was. And now he’s all better.”
“But how?”
Van Hoorn looked up at her.
“Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?” she inquired, her smile taking most the sting out of her words.
“Yeah, but satisfaction brought him back,” retorted Helena, and Van Hoorn laughed.
Which actually brought Helena to another point: Declan. She was curious as to why Declan had turned into a giant jaguar, not a dragon. He was her cousin. He was supposed to be a dragon, like his mother, like all Tarletons did, forever and always, world without end, amen.
Except he very obvious wasn’t.
Had her aunt not married a dragon then?
She must not have, thought Helena, turning the thought over in her head.
Dolf had already put forward the theory that Helena might not turn into a dragon at all, but she hadn’t really given it much thought. Not like she should have, apparently, because there was her cousin: not a dragon. And Declan was just as much Tarleton as she was.
Unless he has three forms? Helena wondered, knowing that she was clutching at straws, but doing it, anyway.
It was possible. She’d certainly heard of such things before, although it was said to be pretty rare.
Although, if Declan had been able to turn into a dragon, lightning or otherwise, he probably would have; an adult dragon beat a car, hands down, every time. No, Declan probably only had two forms: the jaguar and the human ones.
“Do you turn into anything?” Helena asked Van Hoorn.
“I turn into an absolute monster if I don’t get any coffee,” joked the other woman, something that prompted a wan smile from Helena.
“There you are,” said Van Hoorn, pleased. “You’re looking better.”
“Thanks. And also for my shins.”
“It’s what I do,” said the other cheerfully. “Any other scrapes or bruises?”
“I don’t think so? Except maybe where I landed? Declan knocked into me pretty hard.” That sounded ungrateful, especially given how badly he had gotten hurt saving her, so Helena hurriedly added “Not that I’m complaining! Getting hit by that car would have been much worse.”
“Definitely!” Van Hoorn made a twirling motion with her finger. “Let me see the places you landed.”
So Helena pulled up her shirt, showing Van Hoorn her side and then her back.
“Mmmmm, this needs a bit of work,” said Van Hoorn. “And it’s going to be sore tomorrow.”
Helena nodded.
“Do you have a first name?” asked Helena, as Van Hoorn dabbed at her back. It only stung a little. “I don’t want to keep thinking of you only as Van Hoorn.”
“Most people probably do think of me like that, and I don’t mind it,” said Van Hoorn. “But my first name is Cherisse, Cherisse Van Hoorn, although most people call me Cherry.”
Cherisse sat back on her heels, saying with evident satis
faction, “There you are. All done.”
“Thanks!”
“No problem,” said Cherisse, although she smiled at Helena’s gratitude.
Maybe people don’t thank her very often, thought Helena. Then she remembered the scream – Declan’s scream – and wondered if maybe having their injuries seen to by Cherisse was more harrowing for most people than it had been for her.
Although no one can argue about the quality of her work, decided Helena. After all, Declan was still alive, wasn’t he? And back then, even he had thought that he was dying.
Emerging from the bathroom with Cherisse, Helena discovered two things. Firstly, that Declan had already finished cleaning up the kitchen. And secondly, that the police had tracked them down.
Helena wondered if they had come about the thing in the parking lot, dragging a naked and dying man back to Dolf’s apartment, or the blood chilling scream. Any of the above, she figured, would have slated them for some official questions from official-type people.
Honestly, it’s probably a wonder that they didn’t come by here sooner, decided Helena.
And it wasn’t like they didn’t have their own complaint to make. Someone had very obviously broken into Dolf’s apartment and tossed the place. That deserved official notice.
Of course, the police had a lot of questions for them, so very, very many. And, frustratingly, Helena knew the answers to almost none of them. Outside of a factual accounting of what had happened in the parking lot and all of the things that she had done after that, she was useless.
But one thing was for sure: they weren’t just trying to kidnap her any more.
Unless they’re trying to kill Declan? After all, Grandfather can’t marry my listless remnant to Uncle Frank 2.0, if I’m dead, thought Helena. Thus, the entire point of the Severing and also of hiring the hellhounds in the first place.
No, if there was one thing that she was certain of, it was that her grandfather wanted her alive. It wasn’t like her death would get her mother’s portion of his trove back. Mother had seen to that a long time ago, when she had set up the trust fund for Helena and any siblings that Helena might have had. To the Tarletons, Helena would always be worth more alive than dead.
So maybe the Ferrari wasn’t trying to run me over? Helena thought hopefully.
Of course, if the cobalt blue Ferrari hadn’t been after her, then it had to have been after Declan, and that was no good either. She didn’t want anyone to kill her new cousin.
But if it hadn’t really been after her or Declan, then the Ferrari had been after Dolf. The two men bore a certain superficial resemblance to each other – big, fit, muscular, dark-haired, and male – and seen at a distance, a person who was not intimately familiar with either of them might mistake one for the other.
As soon as she thought the possibility, Helena realized that she hated it too. She didn’t want Dolf to be in trouble either.
Which brought her back to square one, in which the driver of a cobalt blue Ferrari had hung out in a parking lot in order to later make their absolute best effort at killing her and Declan for absolutely no at all reason, and that just didn’t make sense.
The driver had been after one of them: her, Declan, or Dolf.
When the police left, Cherisse left with them, saying only that she was needed across town. Alone with her cousin, Helena finally asked the question foremost in her mind.
“So were they after you or me?”
“You,” said Declan. “I haven’t been in town long enough to annoy anyone except Dolf, and he’s not the sort to try to run anyone over in a parking lot. He’d just punch me.”
“But your apartment!”
“Did you go through my apartment while you were in there?”
Heat flashed up Helena’s throat scalding her cheeks.
Declan laughed knowingly.
“See? That was just the hellhounds following your trail. And then, when you weren’t there, they probably got frustrated and wrecked the place.”
“Sorry.”
“For what? Going through my stuff? I would have done the same thing in your place.”
“And for getting your place trashed,” said Helena, although now that he had said that, she did feel better about snooping through his stuff.
“There was nothing really valuable in it. I just need to make time to clean it up, I guess.”
“Well, we could start now, I guess,” offered Helena, uncertainly. Cleaning wasn’t something that she was demonstrably very good at. She looked around at Dolf’s place. “After we fix up what the hellhounds did to this place,” amended Helena, and Declan flashed a grin her way.
“This wasn’t the hellhounds,” he said, surprising her. “Totally different M.O. and not a claw mark in sight. There’s not even a whiff of hellhound in here. This was the Ferrari.”
Fear clutched at Helena’s heart.
“Really? But why would they have done this? To get at Dolf?”
“No, to get at you.”
“I don’t have any enemies! Well, except Grandfather.” But that was more of a family affair.
“Well, you didn’t,” said Declan. “I can think of a few million reasons someone might hate you now.”
“My trust fund?” asked Helena. “Because my family won’t get a cent of that, if I die. Mother made sure of it.”
Her cousin barked a laugh.
“No, I meant the Rothschild fortune. Whoever did this did it for those wills you found, the ones that we turned into the police,” said Declan. “They probably hoped that you still had them hidden somewhere around here.”
“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense,” said Helena.
Mr. Lazarus was dead, presumably killed for those wills. If someone had done that, what was a little breaking and entering – or a couple more murders – to them?
She wasn’t the only one with inheritance problems.
“When they didn’t find what they wanted here, they must have assumed that you were carrying the wills around with you, just like your friend did,” said Declan, echoing her previous thoughts.
“Good thing that we already turned them over to the police.”
“Well, yes and no,” said Declan. “Someone needs those wills, either to inherit under them or to make sure that they inherit under a previous version of them. Whatever their reasons, they’re never going to believe that you don’t have the wills anymore. You could show them the receipts from the police, and they still probably wouldn’t believe it’s over. They’ve already gone to too much trouble to turn back now – or ever.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Helena, quailing.
“Be careful, at least until we can sort this out,” said Declan. “And no going places by yourself. You aren’t used to keeping a look out for potential murder attempts.”
“No,” agreed Helena, who was feeling dizzy and light headed. “I’m not.”
Declan patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Dolf and I are used to this sort of thing. You’re going to be fine.”
But would they?
“And we’re going to call Sharkbytes.”
“Who?”
“Our office’s hacker,” said Declan. “I think he’s technically a contractor, and possibly his title is something more like ‘technical support’ then ‘office hacker’ but that’s not really the point. The point is that he’s good at computer stuff.”
“And… we need someone who’s good with computers?” queried Helena, feeling lost.
“Well, yeah. Aside from the police, I can only think of one person who ever even suspected that you might have those wills: Pamela Pommard.”
“Mr. Lazarus’ little sister?”
Helena had almost completely forgotten about Pamela Pommard, right down to the fact that they had ever even met. Maybe she was still in shock – or maybe it was the shocking fact that her new cousin had nearly died protecting her from an unknown assailant – but that morning seemed a lifetime ago.
Pamela Pommard just didn’t matt
er to her. Losing track of Mr. Lazarus’ copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea – hers now – mattered more to her than his money grubbing little sister. She was exactly like a hundred other girls that Helena had met over the years. Helena couldn’t even remember what she looked like.
“Yeah,” said Declan. “I’d find it interesting to know what kinds of cars she has access to and where she was while person or persons unknown were playing roller derby with us in the parking lot.”
“Okay,” said Helena, who was beginning to feel more like herself. Tangible plans of action were grounding like that. “That’s a really good idea.”
“I know.”
Helena grinned. Her cousin definitely didn’t have any self-worth problems.
Well, except maybe with relation to his twin’s soul mate.
I’m going to have to look for the right moment to talk to him about that, thought Helena. It was a delicate topic, but he was her cousin. His happiness was becoming important to her. And he had nearly died for her. She definitely owed him.
“And while you call… Sharkbiter?”
“Sharkbytes,” corrected Declan.
“Sharkbytes,” Helena obediently repeated. “I’ll start cleaning up the bedroom.”
“We don’t normally make our clients help clean our apartments. It’s probably against company policy.”
“Oh, but it was my fault!” protested Helena. “No one would have broken into this place, if I hadn’t been here. And those hellhounds never would have broken into your apartment, if I hadn’t been there first! I should definitely help to clean up my own messes.”
That was something that Helena had learned since leaving home. It was part and parcel of not being rich – or living like you were rich, Helena guessed, since her bank accounts were once again back on the table.
She could have a maid again, if she wanted one.
Of course, there are definitely benefits to not having a maid, decided Helena. Privacy, for one thing.
“Well, if you put it like that…” said Declan cheerfully, and Helena smiled.
So while he made his phone call in what was left of the apartment’s office, Helena went to see what could be done about the mess in the bedroom.
She ended up sorting the things strewn around the room into three piles: hers, his, and things that might or might not be broken. The camp cot, for instance, was in pieces, but Helena wasn’t sure if that meant that it was broken. Maybe that was one of its features.
The Wyvern's Defender Dire Wolf Page 18