“Sure, we can hang out upstairs. When is Daddy due back?”
“I think he’s hiding from me. He’ll probably show up again around dinner time.” As Dot spoke, she walked past them to wave in the cleaners.
“Come on, before she realizes what she said,” Nesta said, pulling Ian toward the stairs.
“Nesta, I think it would be safer for us to get out of the house.”
“We can watch television in my room. I’ll be good, I promise.”
“You are good— that’s the problem.”
Nesta sat on the bed and took off her shoes as soon as they entered her room. “Oh, no, I meant to go back down and get us snacks before I took off my shoes,” she said while she was turning on the television.
“No problem, I’ll go. What do you want?”
“Just grab me a pop and get whatever you want.”
“By pop you mean soda, right?”
“Yes, Ian, a diet soda.” She playfully rolled her eyes. “Can I borrowed your cell phone?”
“Sure.” He handed her the phone before he left the room.
She immediately hit the redial number.
“How did it go, boss?”
“It was great, Rico, but as you can tell this is Nesta.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I look forward to meeting you, Rico, but I don’t have a lot of time so I’m going to talk fast. Okay?”
“No problem. Is Ian all right?”
“He’s fine. I’m calling because I’m having a painting delivered to his house and I wanted to give you a heads up. It’s a surprise, so don’t tell him.”
“I won’t, but Ian has really strange taste in art. . .”
“Don’t worry about that, he’ll love it. It’s an oil painting of his parents.”
“His parents, how?”
“It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“Do you need the address?”
“No, my uncle Ogo gave it to me?”
“Fox is your uncle, holy shit! Uh—oh, no, I apologize for that, please don’t tell Ian I cursed at you.”
Nesta laughed. “Don’t give that another thought. . .”
He interrupted as the next thought crossed his mind, “And oh my God, please don’t tell Fox!”
“My relationship with you will be separate from my relationship with Ian and my uncle, deal?” She heard him exhale.
“Deal. I’ll take care of the painting. I know just where it will go.”
“Thank you, Rico.”
He laughed. “I just wish I could have been there when Ian found out that Fox is your uncle.”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”
“Now I know why Ian sounds so happy.”
“Does he?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”
“Deal. Take care. And thank you, Rico.”
“Thank you. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to make my life easier.”
Ian returned with a tray. “Your mother did this.” He put it down on her night stand.
“Where does she find the energy?”
“What were you grinning about when I walked in?”
“How can I not be happy to look up and see you walking in the door?”
He sat next to her on the bed. “You would have made a great Hunter.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You flirt like one of the female Hunters.”
“Umm, so I was right, Kitty was flirting with you?”
He grinned. “Maybe, but she didn’t mean anything by it.”
She laid back and stretched out. Since the door was open, Ian felt safe in joining her. “Are you saying she wouldn’t have followed through?” Nesta asked.
“Why are we wasting our time talking about Kitty?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She scooted closer and rested her head on his chest. “How would you like to use the time?”
“That’s not a fair question. I’ve already told you I won’t make love to you in your father’s house.”
“My mother and I live here too. Doesn’t our votes count?”
He ran his hand through her hair and left it to rest against her head. “You think you mother wants us faire l'amour?”
“If that means having sex, I don’t think she cares one way or the other. But I’m fairly certain she wants me to be happy.”
“Umm.”
“Ian, did you notice that you just spoke French?”
“I didn’t notice, but Rico says I do that a lot when I’m comfortable. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s no big deal. I was just wondering, how many languages do you know and how does it work?”
“I don’t know how many I can understand. I hope that doesn’t sound pretentious. What I mean is. . .for example, when I first went to Brazil I already knew Spanish, so I could understand a lot of what was being said in Portuguese before I learned it. That’s true of Italian too.”
“That makes sense. Do you know how many you actually speak?”
“I’ve never tried to figure it out. There’s at least three languages used widely in Mali that I grew up hearing. When I’m with a bunch of Hunters we tend to use whatever language has the best word for what we’re saying.”
“That’s so cool.”
He fingered her ringlets of hair again. “It’s so cool that these things excite you. A lot of young people would be bored to death.”
“You think so?”
“I’ve spent enough time in colleges to know so.”
“You’ve been to more than one college?”
He sensed that his truthful answer would frighten her, but he didn’t want to start off marriage with lies. “I work at night. And, as I’m sure you can imagine, it’s a job that doesn’t lend itself to having the interaction of a lot of human friends. Over the years, I’ve found that I can stay in touch with young people by attending university.”
“And you think saying the actual number of degrees you hold will bother me?”
He instinctively held her tighter. “Yes, I do.”
“More than ten?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the weirdest?”
He laughed. “I love you, Nesta.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She poked his side. “What’s the weirdest?”
“Okay, I have a Bachelor’s degree in divinity from Oxford and a doctorate in Judaic studies. . .”
She started laughing.
He grinned. “Wait, there’s more. I also have classes in Hindu Studies, but I was called to Brazil before I finished.”
“What’s with all the interest in religion?”
“I’ve always been fascinated in faith, I don’t know why. The so-called hard sciences never interested me enough to study them, although I was considering medical school before I moved to North America. But even that came to me through studying Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Are you familiar with her work?”
“Isn’t she the woman who classified the stages of grief?”
“Yes.” He kept his voice neutral, but it thrilled him that she knew the answer. He wouldn’t have expected one so young to have given grief a second thought.
“You should talk to my mother about her— she’s a fan of her work.”
“Thank you, I will.”
With the possibility of sex removed from the equation, the couple spent the next hour and a half eating from the snack tray and getting to know each other better. When the carpet cleaners finished, Dot decided to let them know. With the bedroom door open, she found them fully clothed sans shoes and sound asleep in each other’s arms. The loving picture they made gave her chills.
Chapter- Twenty-Six
Ian smelled it as soon as he went downstairs. At first he thought it was a strange carpet detergent scent that just happened to smell similar to something else, but as he and Nesta moved toward the kitchen, the odor became stronger.
Dot was sitting at the kitchen island wri
ting.
“Dot, there’s a smell in the house that scares me,” he whispered.
“It’s just wet carpet. Why are you whispering?”
“Fox, can you come here for a minute?”
Nesta and her mother exchanged looks.
“I smell it.”
They all looked toward the back door where Fox was standing and speaking like he’d been there all along.
“Smell what?” Nesta asked as she walked across the room and stood next to Ian. She had been standing next to her mother.
Both Dot and Fox noted that in fear she went to him. They both would have predicted she would have come to them. Nesta herself would have predicted that she wouldn’t have needed to go to anyone.
“I’ve checked, there’s nobody here. . .”
They all heard Kingsley’s car door slam. Four sets of eyes were directed at him when he walked in the door. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I smell it,” he said before any of them answered.
Kingsley went to a wood block cutlery set and pulled out a butcher knife. He put the case he was carrying next to his wife.
“There’s no one here. It was the carpet cleaners, probably just one of them,” Fox said.
“No,” Dot said. “I walked around the house with those guys. “They were big, but not particularly tall, and they both had a lot of color. Actually nice-looking young guys.”
Fox and the two Hunters exchanged looks. “Maybe they were Hispanic, black or mixed race?” Ian suggested.
“That’s possible, but it wasn’t my impression. They looked like two well-fed white guys who spent time out of doors.”
Kingsley looked at Fox. “This is like when we had the refrigerated wine cabinet delivered last year.”
Fox nodded.
“What?” Dot stood. “What about the wine cabinet?”
“It was nothing, Dot. . .”
“I was talking to my husband, Ogo!”
“Dot!”
“No, Kingsley, she’s right.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, Dorothy Jean.”
She smiled. Fox tended to pick and choose when he called her that, and at least half of the time it made her smile. When she turned to face her husband again, her view was blocked by a bouquet of roses. “Thank you, Ogo, but that wasn’t necessary.”
Ian realized at some point, Nesta had taken his hand. She was squeezing it tight enough to hurt him.
Dot moved the vase to look at her husband. “What about the cabinet?”
“Right after the guys left who delivered it, I smelled Sangsue in the house. They were big guys too, and neither one was over six feet tall.”
“What does it mean?” Nesta asked, not directing her question at anybody in particular.
“We think it’s their way of telling us they know where we are and they can get to us if they want.”
“Could there be a bomb or something in here?” Nesta asked.
“No, they don’t operate that way,” Ian said.
“And I checked,” Fox added.
Ian knew there was something that wasn’t being said. He wondered how and when that discussion would take place.
Dot saw a look that her husband gave Fox. “Ogo, why don’t you and the Hunters go to Kingsley’s office and talk? I hate that feeling that comes after you stop time.”
Ian saw the look Kingsley gave his wife. It was an expression that, to him, was the definition of love.
“Stop time!” Nesta said. She dropped Ian’s hand and braced herself against the island.
Ian went to her and rubbed her back as he spoke for her ears only. “We’ll talk, I promise.” He caught up with Fox and Kingsley, who were headed to the office.
“Where were you while that thing was in my house?” Kingsley asked Ian as soon as the door closed.
“I. . .”
“Where were you last year, brother?” Fox interrupted, in a normal voice.
Kingsley pursed his lips. He looked at Fox, who smiled, and then back at Ian.
Ian was not one to back down from a fight, even with a brother, but this was the father of his wife-to-be. “Kingsley, I would give my life for Nesta and Dot. I had no idea we were in danger.”
Fox sat on the edge of the desk. Ian noticed he was holding one of his crystal glasses. He assumed the two inches of liquid in it was cognac. “You weren’t in danger. That’s not why they do this.”
“What was it, Fox?” Ian asked.
“I think they just do it to fuck with us.”
“It happens a lot?”
“I don’t know any retired Hunter who hasn’t been visited. They want to mess with our minds about the safety of the party.”
Kingsley nodded in agreement.
“But what I’m concerned about is the fact that they are changing. Dot would have known Sangsue at a glance, and she wouldn’t have let them in. You’ve both heard the talk about the hybrid experiments?”
Kingsley and Ian nodded.
“A Tracker was ambushed in Miami. She said he was at the grocery store in broad daylight and she didn’t know him.”
“Is she okay?” Ian asked.
“Oh yeah, she kicked his ass. But I had to do a lot of memory clean up because the police got involved.”
“Umm,” Kingsley mumbled.
“And these goddamn cell phones! A video of the fight ended up on YouTube, and that took some work to eliminate.”
“How can you be sure it wasn’t downloaded and won’t end up reposted?” Ian asked.
“That’s the part that took the work. I had to eliminate it on fifty-six computers!” Fox chuckled. “But it was something to see. That girl wore his ass out.”
“I want to see it,” Kingsley said. “Who’s the Tracker?”
“You know her by the name Amina.”
“Amina! Yes, she’s from my village. As a child I probably played with her grandparents. She’s built like a cougar.”
Ian wondered if Kingsley knew the word had a modern definition that didn’t have anything to do with mountain lions.
“Come look at your computer screen,” Fox said.
Kingsley sat in his chair. Ian figured he had avoided sitting to see if Fox was going to take the chair. After seeing Dot rebuke Fox and Fox’s reaction, he wondered how much deference, if any, was required of Kingsley and his family. He’d seen very few people confront Fox, and of the three so far, two had been wives of Fox’s friends.
The computer wasn’t on, but Fox looked at the screen and an image appeared. There was no sound, but onscreen were was a tall woman and a man who appeared to be arguing. She was wearing dark glasses and all black. Her pants and top looked like they were painted on, and Kingsley was right, she was very well built. It appeared that the person who’d captured her image was taping before there was any reason to believe they would fight. No doubt he was a man who appreciated her body. Getting the fight on video was just an added benefit.
The Tracker tried to push her grocery cart around the man. She looked around, clearly not wanting to attract attention. She tried again to push past the man. Hunters and Trackers are taught to avoid public confrontations. Again he blocked her exit from the store. Again the Tracker looked around. This time she looked right at the person taping, but she didn’t seem to notice. Ian suspected that he was somehow hiding the telephone.
Apparently thinking she was unnoticed, Amina stepped around her cart and with one hand grabbed the man by the neck. She lifted him off his feet.
“Damn,” both Ian and Kingsley said in unison.
She let go of him; he fell to the floor. Before he could stand all the way up, she body- slammed him against the nearest wall. He dropped again. She looked around to make sure nobody was looking while she dragged him behind a bank of gum ball machines. Her feet weren’t on screen, but it looked like she kicked him before she recovered her cart. She walked out of the scene. The cameraman panned down to the man’s feet sticking out from one side of the machines.
The camera man must have de
cided to look for Amina again. The camera seemed to search for a while in front of the store before the picture disappeared.
Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel)) Page 28