“Of course.” He turned toward me. “Do you know how to kill a human, Victoria? Could you kill a human?”
Anybody could kill another person. You could throw a rock in anger and have the bad luck of hitting just the right place to kill someone. You could push someone and have that person fall and break his neck. But that wasn’t what Ilya meant.
I shook my head. “No. I couldn’t kill a human.”
“I can,” he said quietly. “I have.”
Suddenly I was very aware that I was in a car with two Sanguinati who might have missed breakfast.
“Those men are predators,” Ilya continued quietly, looking away as he opened his briefcase. “You are prey.”
Like I needed the reminder. Yorick and his pals certainly saw me that way. But Ilya, who nature shows would call an apex predator, saw me as prey too. The difference was my attorney seemed to be struggling to look past that sharp reality and help me.
He removed a couple of sheets of paper from his briefcase. “When we get to the Mill Creek Cabins, which is where you’ll be staying for the time being, I need you to sign these revised rental agreements that indicate you rented one of the lakeside cabins to Aggie, Eddie, and Jozi Crowe.”
“I didn’t rent to the three of them.”
“This new document says you did. If Aggie stays there alone, she’ll be too vulnerable, and the new caretakers can limit the amount of time any friends can stay with her. But three of them listed on an official document? One can always keep watch on the cabin.”
“So we’re going to forge a document?”
“Why not? They did.” Ilya smiled. “Besides, our document won’t be forged since you and Aggie will sign this one just like you signed the original. The agreement is merely revised. Something Mr. Dane doesn’t need to know.”
We turned off of Mill Creek Road—which was Main Street within the village limits—and drove down Mill Creek Lane. Like the access road to The Jumble, it was gravel, not paved. But it looked well tended.
“Why did you let them push me out?” I asked.
Ilya said nothing until the car pulled up at the second-to-last cabin and the driver got out and walked toward the water mill that generated the electricity for The Jumble as well as the cabins.
“Do you recall Julian Farrow’s reaction when you all played Murder?” Ilya asked.
“Something upset him.”
“His ability as an Intuit is to sense places. It’s one of the things that had made him such an effective police officer and also the thing that had saved his life. In that, his ability makes him—and other Intuits like him—an effective barometer for the health of a place.”
“But Julian is rubbish at playing the game,” I protested.
“But that night, the game was altered to represent The Jumble, even to the point that some of the players were represented by teenies. It turns out that was enough of a difference for Julian to get a sense of place.” Ilya looked me in the eyes. “He called me that night. When I met with him and Officer Grimshaw, Julian told me that once the businessman predator arrived, you would die if I didn’t get you away from The Jumble.”
I wanted to deny it, but Julian and Grimshaw had been acting weird since that night.
I shook my head. “Yorick would push me until he got what he wanted—he knows exactly how to push my buttons—but he wouldn’t kill me.” I couldn’t have married a man who would do that, could I?
“Yorick isn’t the dominant male. Vaughn is the leader of that pack, and he is a predator who could kill another human.” Ilya patted my hand. “But Vaughn is also a small predator who believes he is powerful and does not yet appreciate how many other predators are now watching him. He will appreciate it very soon.”
“And while you and Grimshaw and Julian get this straightened out for silly, incompetent me, I’ll just sit in a corner somewhere and do nothing, because that’s all I’m good at.” I’d meant it to sound humorous—don’t ask me how it could—but even to my ears it sounded bitter. Defeated.
“Can you kill a human, Victoria?” Ilya asked.
“No.”
“Then let those who can deal with these predators.”
“That’s your plan? Kill Yorick and those other men?”
“Not if I can find a better way to solve the problem.”
Oh, that did not sound good. I had a feeling that “better” meant a solution that was just as lethal but not as bloody.
“So while you’re dealing with Yorick, what am I supposed to do?”
Ilya laughed softly. “First, you’re going to sign this revised rental agreement. Then you’re going to figure out how you want the furniture from your suite arranged in the cabin. And then you’re going to decide which items you want stored in three of the other cabins that are available—we’ll leave the one closest to the main road empty. The larger items that won’t fit in the cabins will be stored in the outbuildings at Silence Lodge.”
“My suite was basically an efficiency apartment within the main house. Everything I had there will fit in the one cabin.”
He just smiled and escorted me into the cabin that would be my new home.
CHAPTER 52
Aggie
Sunsday, Sumor 4
As soon as she heard the front door lock and the cars start up and pull away, Aggie flew down to the hall and landed near the office doorway. She shifted to human form, pushed the door open, and watched the female Sanguinati quickly filling a box with file folders Miss Vicki kept in the cabinets.
“Those belong to Miss Vicki,” Aggie said.
“Yes, they do.” Natasha looked at Aggie, then looked past her.
Aggie held out her arms like they were wings as she left the ground and landed several feet into the room when Cougar gave her what was meant to be a nudge.
“What are we going to do about this?” Conan asked, coming in behind Cougar.
“Call in all the terra indigene living in The Jumble who are willing to help,” Natasha replied. “Fetch the packing boxes that are up in the attic. Fetch Miss Vicki’s luggage as well. Trucks will begin arriving soon, but we’ll need the donkey carts as well to take the items from two of the lakeside cabins down to the water. The supply barge will take those things to Silence Lodge.”
“The Crowgard will pack up Miss Vicki’s personal personal things,” Aggie said. When Natasha gave her a questioning look, she added, “We’ll be careful, and we won’t take any little treasures.” All the Crowgard would help Miss Vicki, who was not only their friend but the Reader. “And we’ll pack up the books. Miss Vicki says they’re a different kind of treasure, and she would want them in her new nest.”
Natasha nodded. “All right. But we need to move fast. Everything has to be done, and we all have to be gone before the humans return tomorrow morning.”
“How much are we taking?” Conan asked.
Natasha pointed to a thick file folder on the desk. “If Miss Vicki has a receipt for it, we’re taking it.”
CHAPTER 53
Grimshaw
Sunsday, Sumor 4