by Rinelle Grey
She didn’t have to. He knew. She could see it in the way his eyes narrowed.
Was it really the first time he’d been through this? Or did he know all the questions, all the ways of avoiding them? Had he deliberately given her a fake name so she didn’t find his records?
“Look, you’re going to have to give me something.”
He heaved a sigh. “Twenty-four, Harmony Drive. But it won’t help you. I haven’t lived there for years. I doubt there’s any record of me being there.”
Hailey immediately knew where that was. Just around the corner from her own house. She could even picture the young couple that lived there.
He certainly didn’t. She was sure she would have remembered him if he’d lived there. Which fitted with his assertion that he hadn’t lived there for years, but not with the rest of his story.
Hailey raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said your family just kicked you out.”
He was lying. She was sure of it.
The question was, what was he hiding?
She typed the address in anyway, and scanned through the very short history on file. Most of the addresses in Mungaloo had pretty short histories, if they had any at all. This one listed two domestic disputes. One about thirty years ago, and one about twenty-five years ago.
Not relevant to this strange man, she guessed, but she scanned them anyway. The occupants name, Renee Taylor, was enough to make Hailey look further. A relative of Patrima… no, Patrick’s perhaps?
Police had been called to the house by a neighbour, who’d heard yelling late at night. In both cases, by the time the police arrived, all was quiet. The woman, Renee, had answered the door, and insisted there had been no disturbance. A search of the house had revealed she was the only adult present.
In the second case, there was a brief mention of a child. A young boy, four or five years old. He’d seemed distressed, but hadn’t responded when police had asked him what had happened. He’d just hid behind his mother, clutching at her hand.
The next mention of the house, just six months later, was about completely different occupants.
Hailey stared up at the man, and he stared solemnly back.
Not a complete lie then. This mystery just made her even more curious. And made him more fascinating.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” His voice was rough. As though he didn’t want to talk about it. His eyes warned her not to ask more.
She did anyway.
“I take it when you say you lived there years ago, you mean about twenty-five?”
She watched his face carefully, not missing the flicker of pain in them. Enough to tell her she was onto something.
Then his face closed down. “Does it matter? It’s not relevant now.”
But somehow, his denial just made her certain it was. “Where did you go?” she prodded. “Why did you leave? Was your mother running from something?”
His eyes darkened, and the frown he gave her was deeper this time. “It’s none of your business. You have what you wanted, proof that I am who I say I am. Let it go.”
It was a warning, clearly.
One she should heed. He was right, she had all she needed.
She needed to let this go, and focus on what she was going to do with him now. She needed to find somewhere for him to stay. In the city, someone would have driven him to a hostel, and that would have been the end of it. Out here, it was a little more complicated than that.
The nearest hostel was forty-five minutes drive away, in a bigger town nearby. She couldn’t leave her post for that long to drive him. Mike was on call, of course, if she needed help in an emergency, but this didn’t feel like an emergency. Certainly not a big enough one to get someone out of bed on Christmas Eve.
A perfectly valid reason for not making the call.
She ignored the more honest one.
She didn’t want to let him go.
Surely it didn’t matter if he stayed for a while?
Tomorrow, when Mike came in for his shift, she could figure out somewhere for him to go.
She gave him a smile. “How do you feel about staying here with me tonight?”
He didn’t seem as excited. “Are you arresting me?”
Hailey’s heart sank. He saw her as a threat. As the enemy. She didn’t want that.
“No, of course not. Nothing like that. It’s just that I can’t let you go to just wander around town by yourself, and I can’t take you to a hostel right now. I can in the morning though.”
“What’s a hostel?”
Hailey frowned. Did he really not know? But he looked serious, so she gave him the benefit of the doubt. “It’s a place where people who don’t have a home can stay.”
He frowned. “I don’t need somewhere to stay. I can take care of myself.”
“Well, where are you going to go?” she challenged. “You need a home, you can’t just wander out into the bush and live there.”
She’d meant it as a bit of a light hearted joke, to make him see that he didn’t have any other options, but she could see something flicker in his eyes.
“Why not?”
Hailey stared at him in disbelief. “Because… You need food, and a bed, and…”
She trailed off. He wasn’t looking convinced. In fact, he looked… amused?
“You… people, are so soft. Of course you can live in the bush. It’s not that hard to find food, and sleeping on the ground never hurt anyone.”
For the first time he sounded confident. As though he knew what he was talking about.
And remembering how assured he’d been at the canyon, she could easily believe it.
But it only made Hailey feel more concerned, as possible connections fired in her mind. “Is that where you went?” she asked quietly? “Is that why you can’t give me a more recent address?”
The wary expression was back, and he closed his mouth, almost glaring at her.
Hailey turned back to the computer and this time, typed in the woman’s name, Renee Taylor.
There were no more records of her after those two incidents at Harmony Drive.
That didn’t mean anything of course. It was entirely possible that there just had been no more reason for her to be in contact with the police after those two, isolated incidents. But Hailey wasn’t convinced.
There was more to him than met the eye, and she wanted to know it all.
She shouldn’t. It would get her in trouble, she was sure of it.
She didn’t care.
Chapter 6
As fascinated as he was by her, Hailey’s questions were getting too close to the truth for comfort. Patrima hadn’t expected her to find any record of his life in Harmony Drive, much less any indication that something had gone wrong there.
That must have been the visit he remembered, but other than the police talking to his mother, he didn’t remember anything. Had something else happened that he, as a child, had missed?
He wished he could read what her computer said about him, torn between wanting to know, and wanting to leave that all far in his past.
There was no point in digging at old wounds. What was done, was done. He needed to move on.
For that, he needed to convince Hailey he didn’t need any help. That he most certainly didn’t need to go to this ‘hostel’ she spoke of.
That he could manage perfectly fine on his own.
Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe trying to convince her was just wasting his time.
Maybe what he needed to do was to get out of here, before she dug any further into his past, and before he became to tempted to tell her the truth.
Or maybe it was already too late for that.
He needed to just get out of here.
He stood up. “Thank you for your assistance, but I’ll be fine now.”
“Sit down, buddy,” Hailey said firmly. “You’re not going anywhere until I’m satisfied that you have a home to go to. And at this poi
nt, some way to get there.”
Patrima wasn’t sure why he was hesitating. She was a small, puny human. Even with his wounds, he was far stronger than she was. She couldn’t stop him if he decided to just walk out. Yeah, maybe the police would keep a record of it, but it wouldn’t make any difference to him. He didn’t intend to come anywhere near the human town again once he’d left.
It wasn’t that he was worried about what she might do.
So what was it?
Hope.
Patrima berated himself for the thought, even as he clung to it.
Why did it matter that the human seemed to care if he had somewhere to go or not? Why did he want to tell her more about his life, to tell her exactly what had happened and why he was here?
Why did he feel like she might understand? Might be sympathetic?
Why did he want her to understand so desperately?
If it were dragon sympathy, he would reject it without a second thought. The same with his mother’s sympathy.
So why was this woman, Hailey, so different? Why was he tempted to stay here, as she had told him to?
“I won’t have a home any time soon,” he said pointedly. “I can’t stay here with you forever, can I?”
Her eyes flew to his, and there was something in them. A heat that sparked an answering heat in his own belly, surprising Patrima with its intensity.
It must have surprised her too, because her eyes widened.
She cleared her throat, and looked away. Patrima was sad the connection was broken.
“No, of course you can’t stay here forever,” she said briskly. “As I said, in the morning I can drop you off at a hostel, once my shift is finished. They’ll help you get back on your feet.”
Patrima’s heart sank. He’d forgotten about the hostel. Of course she had the perfect solution.
Of course she wasn’t going to offer to help him herself.
He’d reject her help, of course. He didn’t need it. But it would be nice if she wanted to.
He gave himself a shake. What was he doing, succumbing to a human’s charms? If he did that, he’d be no better than the dragons in the clan who had done so.
He needed to get away from her. None of the other humans would managed to get him to stay for so long. He would have walked out on them long ago. As he should do now.
So why wasn’t he?
A loud noise startled him out of his thoughts.
The woman didn’t seem surprised, she just picked up an object in front of her, held it up to her ear, and said, “Mungaloo Police Office, Senior Constable Lyons speaking.”
There was a pause, as though she were waiting for someone to respond. Was she expecting him to say something? But no, she had a faraway look in her eyes, and she stared past him, to the wall.
Patrima looked, but there was nothing there.
“Sure, I’ll be right down.”
She put the object down again and looked at him calculatingly. “I need to go take care of something. I can’t leave you here alone though.” She considered for a moment. “You’d better come with me. This won’t take long.”
Patrima had no objection to that, even though he wasn’t sure where they were going.
Well, it wasn’t like he had anywhere better to be, was it?
He followed the woman out to the car. She hesitated, this time opening the front door, next to her.
He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he’d been granted a privilege.
One he’d better not take advantage of.
She didn’t say much as she drove through the town, so Patrima didn’t either. He just watched her.
Where were they going, and why? He couldn’t help feeling curious.
All the dragons had been told to watch out for the police, but she didn’t seem that threatening. Well, aside from her threatening to arrest him. That was probably what he was supposed to watch out for.
He bit back a laugh.
Well, he’d really put his foot in that one, hadn’t he?
He was still berating himself for his stupidity in coming here when Hailey turned down a street and all Patrima could do was stare. He was sure his jaw had dropped, but he couldn’t help it.
The whole street was lit up with a blaze of colour. Lights blinked and flashed and changed colours. Mechanical statues of deer moved their heads up and down. A large, plump, red and white man wriggled and writhed, his belly seeming to almost be bouncing with laugher.
Santa.
A lie human parents made up to try to get their children to behave for the rest of the year, Patrima tried to tell himself.
But despite his best efforts, the scene somehow made him feel happy.
“What is this?” he asked, turning to Hailey.
She gave a laugh. “The town has a Christmas lights competition each year. Most people just put out a few lights and leave it at that, but for some reason, a lot of the people in this street have really gotten into it, and they seem to delight in out-doing each other. It gets bigger each year.”
Patrima stared a little longer. The humans really put a lot of effort into something that was so pointless. Why?
He felt that he was missing some piece of the puzzle. That if only he could find it, everything else would suddenly become clear.
Hailey pulled up in front of one of the houses. A rainbow of lights flashed around the roof, and there wasn’t a square meter of the yard that wasn’t covered in some kind of light or decoration.
Actually, that wasn’t quite the case. In one corner, up near the house, nothing blinked or glittered. The area was a dark shadow.
Near the shadow stood a man, scowling, staring down at the car, and at Hailey and Patrima.
“Wait here,” Hailey ordered him. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Can’t I come? Maybe there is something I could do to help.”
What he really wanted was to get a closer look at the lights, but admitting that, even to himself, twisted his stomach in knots. As if he was going to get into trouble for just wanting to look.
“Thanks, but I don’t need any help. You need to stay in the car,” Hailey said firmly.
Well, fine then, if that’s what she wanted.
The sooner she was done here, the sooner they could leave. Then he could get back to figuring out what he was going to do with his life.
Chapter 7
Hailey headed up the path through the lights, trying to ignore the urge to look back at the car to be sure that Patrick, or Patrima, or whatever his name was, wasn’t following her. She shouldn’t have even bought him with her, but she couldn’t leave him at the station either.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with him. Especially not with the way he tied her stomach in knots.
She pushed those thoughts away. She couldn’t let his presence distract her. She had a job to do.
“Thanks for coming, officer.” Ted Orville was always polite. The old man gave her a tight-lipped smile, his agitation overcoming his usual effusive enthusiasm.
“That’s okay. What seems to be the problem?”
“Someone’s cut the lead on several of my lights, over there.”
Ted pointed to a corner of his yard, the only bit that didn’t seem to be glowing and sparkling.
Hailey squinted. It was hard to see past the bright Christmas lights, but she could just make out the leads and light bulbs, their usual glow absent.
She nodded. “When did you last notice them on?” she asked.
“They were working just fine when I turned the lights on at seven o’clock,” Ted said. “I came out to check them just half an hour ago, and noticed they were off. When I went to check, the wires were cut.”
“You didn’t see anything unusual, other than the lights I mean?” Hailey asked.
Ted shook his head, but the movement was jerky. He glanced towards the house next door, one of the few dark ones in the street. “I think…” he hesitated, then said in a rush, “I bet it was Kyle. He’s been glaring at me a
ll week. He hates the fact that everyone in the street has lights. He says it’s all a waste of electricity, and it’s causing light pollution. But he was here this evening, walking around, looking at all the lights. He stopped for an extra long time in this corner, I’m sure.”
Hailey glanced next door. There wasn’t even a light on inside now. If Kyle was home, he was either asleep, or hiding. She didn’t think it was likely that he was responsible though. Kyle was a quiet man who kept to himself, only ever responding with a short reply if he was engaged in conversation. She’d seen nothing to indicate he’d go so far as to sabotage Ted’s light display.
“Look, I’ll call in next door and see if Kyle is home. Maybe he saw something. But I don’t think you should go around accusing him without any evidence.”
Ted opened his mouth, and Hailey interrupted before he could say anything, “And not liking Christmas lights is not a crime. Even if it is rather lacking in Christmas spirit.” She gave Ted a smile, hoping to take the sting out of her words.
He smiled unwillingly. It was clear he still didn’t agree with her, but he didn’t repeat his accusation.
Hailey was about to ask Ted if he’d seen anyone else around that evening, when she heard the car door open.
Patrima. What was he up to?
She spun around, intending to tell him to get back in the car.
He had climbed out of the car, but he didn’t come towards her. Instead, he pointed to the opposite corner of the yard wordlessly.
Hailey turned to look, seeing immediately what he was pointing at. Two shadows moved across the yard, their presence only noticeable when they passed in front of the lights, blocking their glow.
Someone who had come to look at the light would have no need to hide, despite the police car’s obvious presence. The shadows had to be up to no good.
As Hailey watched, they began moving faster. One of them gave a muffled curse as they tripped over a blinking candy cane.
Hailey and Ted towards the shadows without a word.
The shadows moved too, standing up and running now.
“Halt,” Hailey called out. “Police.”
The words only made them run faster.