Crowbones

CHAPTER 23

Vicki

Thaisday, Novembros 1

Grimshaw and I moved cars and watched the Cornleys scamper off. Something about the way the husband looked at Grimshaw, then at me, before driving away gave me a funny feeling.

I don’t want to be the morality police, and I’m hopeful that someday I’ll wrestle my trust and man issues into submission enough to entertain the possibility of being a consenting adult, but . . . “They’re not married, are they?”

A beat of silence. “Not to each other.”

I sighed. “I guess that explains why they looked so happy to be together.”

“Don’t,” Grimshaw said.

“I didn’t—”

“You’re thinking your dickhead ex-husband looked that happy when he went off for a romantic weekend with someone else, leaving you home to do the laundry and pay the bills, and maybe you really weren’t interesting enough or sexy enough for him to want to take you on a weekend adventure.” He looked at me. “Am I close?”

Right on the nose. “No comment.”

He kept looking at me, which wasn’t comfortable because Grimshaw was a large man with a gun and all those other nifty cop accessories.

“You’re nervy about some things, and having met your ex, I can see why, but you’ve got more sand than Yorick Dane will ever understand or appreciate. Maybe you should look for someone who can accept the nerves and the trust issues and also appreciates that sand.”

I stared at him. Was he suggesting . . . ? No. Did he . . . ? Gods, no. I did like the man most of the time, but . . . Not Grimshaw.

Besides, when I was badly injured this past summer, I received a transfusion of Grimshaw blood. So anything of a romantic nature between us would be kind of, sort of, almost like kissing my brother. If I had a brother.

“Good pep talk, Chief.” I punched the air. Don’t know why, except it was safer than punching Grimshaw.

“Well, I’m glad of that, because now it’s time to gather your Crowgard employees so that we can all have a talk about crime.”

A car drove up the access road. “Oh, look! There’s Julian and Natasha!”

Grimshaw closed a hand over my arm and tugged me to the side of the road to let Julian drive up to the main house and park near the door.

“Come on.” He tugged me toward the house. “The sooner we’re done, the sooner you can join everyone else in checking out the books Julian brought to sell.”

“More than the Wolf Team books I requested? How many books? Can I just see . . . ?”

“Show your sand, Vicki.”

“I’d probably get arrested for doing that,” I muttered.

The darn man not only laughed; he scooted me right past those boxes of temptation, not even letting me get a glimpse of the top layer of book covers as Julian hauled one box out of his trunk and Natasha picked up the other box with an ease that told me who I was going to ask for help the next time I couldn’t open a jar of pickles.

Apparently Grimshaw thought if he released me I’d make a dash for the library, where the Sanguinati youngsters and I had set up a long folding table as Julian’s auxiliary bookstore. Making a dash to another room for just a minute or ten to look at books wasn’t the same as evading the long arm of the law, but Grimshaw chose not to test that idea and didn’t release his hold on me until we reached the dining room, which I newly renamed the interrogation room.

Ilya was already there with Aggie, Jozi, and Eddie. He pulled out a chair for me. Aggie and Jozi immediately moved their chairs to tightly bracket mine while Eddie stood behind me.

Grimshaw and Ilya sat opposite us.

“Are all your friends accounted for?” Grimshaw asked the Crows.

“Yes,” Aggie replied. Then she hesitated, leaned in to look at Jozi. “Well . . . Maybe Clara?”

“What about Clara?” Ilya asked when it seemed like Aggie wasn’t going to say anything else.

“She was a friend,” Eddie said. “But her feathers got ruffled when she wasn’t chosen to work at The Jumble, so she wasn’t spending much time with us anymore.”

Chosen? Who had done the choosing? I had acquired terra indigene employees because they had decided I needed them, but I didn’t remember being approached by a Crow named Clara.

“Two Crowgard males came to Lake Silence recently,” Jozi said. “I’m not sure where they were from originally. They haven’t come into The Jumble, but Clara met them one day just beyond the boundary, near the farm track, and has been spending time with them ever since.”

The farm track ran between The Jumble and the Milfords’ orchards. It was also the place where Aggie found the dead man with the squooshy eyeball, and that was the reason I had called the police and had ended up in all kinds of trouble.

“They didn’t want to meet us because we work for Miss Vicki and have been contaminated by humans,” Eddie said.

I think Eddie made air quotes when saying the last few words, but he was behind me, so I couldn’t be sure.

“Have you been contaminated?” Ilya’s voice was silky in a quiet, terrifying sort of way that made me glad he was my attorney and on my side.

I still made a mental note not to annoy him anytime soon. I made another mental note to ask if he understood air quotes.

Maybe I should ask Natasha about that instead.

“No!” Aggie said fiercely. “We don’t think so, but they didn’t want Clara to have anything to do with us.”

“But they wanted to know everything she could tell them about The Jumble and Miss Vicki,” Jozi added. She leaned her head against my shoulder and sighed—such a sad sound. “She thought they were smart and dedicated to . . . something secret. They wouldn’t tell her what it was until they could be certain she would be loyal to the cause.”

This wasn’t surprising since it sounded like Clara had told the Crows here all kinds of things about her new friends. If I wanted to keep some scheme or cause a secret, I sure wouldn’t tell someone like Clara, who, it seemed, didn’t understand the concept of keeping a secret from other Crows, even if they were no longer friends.

“She didn’t want me to go with her when she went to meet them, didn’t want them to know we were still sort of friends,” Jozi continued. “But I followed her one time to find out why Clara wasn’t acting like Clara anymore, and I saw them, heard her say their names before they noticed me and shushed her. They looked angry and mean, and I got scared, so I flew away fast.”

“Who are they?” Ilya asked.

“Civil and Serious,” Aggie said.

“Their names are Civil and Serious Crowgard?” Grimshaw asked.

The Crows nodded.

I’d noticed that all the Crows interacting with humans in The Jumble had chosen first names that fit in with human names. But Civil and Serious? That said these two Crows wanted to call attention to themselves and stand out as different from humans as well as other Crowgard.

“We got worried when Clara stopped coming back to The Jumble,” Eddie said, “so I flew around looking for her and saw Civil and Serious talking to humans, and I got angry because it was all right for them to deal with humans who were acting sneaky but it wasn’t all right for us to help Miss Vicki and learn about humans properly?”

“Would you recognize these humans?” Ilya asked.

Eddie shrugged. “Maybe the younger one. Couldn’t see the other human’s face.”

“Where is Clara now?” Grimshaw asked.

“She’s around,” Jozi said, but I heard uncertainty.

“You’ve spoken to her?” Grimshaw leaned forward. “Have you seen her?”

They hesitated, then shook their heads.

Feeling chilled, I looked at Ilya. “Is Boris at Silence Lodge?”

Ilya nodded. “Do you need a driver?”

“No.” Breathe, Vicki. “I think the Crowgard should send a message to all the terra indigene around Lake Silence that Clara is to report to the Sanguinati at Silence Lodge immediately. No delays, no excuses. If she doesn’t show up at the Lodge within an hour, the Sanguinati will come looking for her.”

“If the Crows broadcast a message like that, the Sanguinati will not be the only form of terra indigene that goes looking,” Ilya warned.

I looked at the leader of Silence Lodge and Sproing’s chief of police, two strong males who believed that I had sand. I said, “I know.”