Solomon's Sieve (7 page)

“I’d, um, like that.”

“Sure. I’ll come get you. You know Rosie’s not here though. Right?”

There was another pause. “Not there as in…what do you mean?”

“Not here as in gone, Glen.”

“Gone where?”

“We don’t know. Precisely.”

There was a pause. “For how long?”

“We don’t know that either. Actually I was hoping
you
might shed some light on the situation. I know it’s prying and might only be considered my business indirectly, but do you think her sudden need for time away has something to do with you?”

After another pause, he sighed. “Maybe.” He said it quietly with a hint of something that might have been embarrassment.

“Well? Talking or leg breaking? Which will it be?”

“You don’t scare me, Mrs. I know you’re more powder puff than demon.”

“Yes, well, I admit to being fond of you, but understand this. I’m obligated to like Rosie more. Capiche?”

He chuckled softly. “As you should. Given the threats, I’m going to need some guarantees of my safety before I risk dinner. Not to mention the passes.”

“No worries. I’ll be bringing the handcuffs.”

“Funny.”

“You know I’m not joking. No handcuffs, no passes. That’s the rule. You have a reprieve until tomorrow night. Then you have to face the parents and blab.”

Again, he didn’t answer right away. “What are we having?”

She laughed. Any doubt that the caller might have been masquerading as Glen dissolved with that question.

“Nine o’clock. Your time.”

“Okay. I’ll be the cute one in the hallway outside Sol’s conference room. I mean outside the Sovereign’s conference room.”

“The cute one?”

“Okay. I’ll be the only one there.”

She chuckled at him and disconnected.

Glen sat on the edge of his bed and continued to stare at the phone wondering why he’d thought there was something, anything, in the world that could override the ache in his heart from being separated from Rosie. When she’d issued an ultimatum, “Call by Thursday night or else,” he’d reasoned that starting a long-term relationship with caving to demands would set a dangerous precedent and an expectation of servitude. Nothing about that sounded appealing to a werewolf. Even a quarter werewolf.

So he had deliberately let the deadline slide thinking her burn would cool and they would work it out. He was practically watching for the clock to roll over midnight, just past ultimatum, so he could call. She had said supper Thursday. He did the math. The Storms usually had dinner at seven Pacific time. There was a three hour time difference between New Jersey and Napa Valley. That meant ten his time. So he decided to wait a couple of hours past to prove his point, save his pride and their future.

At exactly midnight he tapped her contact number. She didn’t answer so he left a message and followed that with a CALL ME text. No reply.

It was the first time he’d gone for ten days straight without seeing Rosie since she’d been born and he was feeling the loss in painful ways. He couldn’t begin to estimate the number of messages he’d left. A hundred maybe.

He didn’t think there was anything funny about being forced to call her parents for information, but he was getting borderline desperate. He needed to get in touch with her and sort it out.

Storm was in and out of Jefferson Unit frequently, helping out with keeping things in order until the new Sovereign took over. Although no one knew when that would be because there was no one on the horizon.

If people with the profile and qualities of potential Black Swan knights were rare, the profile and qualities of a Sovereign were practically non-existent. It had to be someone who had once served as an active duty knight, who could tolerate administrative work, with the common sense of a problem solver, the judgment of a sage, and the charisma of a leader.

Good luck finding all that in one package.

Storm made a point of taking Farnsworth into the club lounge for coffee in front of the fire or having lunch with her twice a week. Nobody had ever specifically taught him that friends look out for the widows of friends, but he felt like that was the right thing to do. Although Sol and Farnsworth hadn’t been married when he died, Sol had told Storm that he was surrendering his bachelorhood in the very near future.

Farnsworth was touched by Storm’s attentions and came to lean on him for emotional support, which he offered freely. When the initial haze of grief began to lift from her heart, she occasionally had thoughts about something other than the hole left in her life.

“Sir Storm.” She set her cup into its saucer and looked over at Storm who sat cattycornered in a plush chair. “The night before Sol died, we talked about something from my past. I had a teenage pregnancy and gave the baby up for adoption on the advice of counselors.”

Storm looked solemn, his dark eyes reflecting a little of her sadness. On several occasions Farnsworth had thought that she’d never known a better listener. He nodded for her to continue.

“Sol thought I should try to find her and I feel…” She paused to take a couple of deep breaths and look away. When she felt like her composure was restored, she said, “I feel like I need to do that for me and also for him.”

“You want Black Swan to locate her? Gather some information?”

Farnsworth nodded. “Her birthday is April 22nd. She’ll be twenty-eight. The adoption took place in Fall River.”

“Is that in…?”

“Massachusetts.”

“I’ll get the ball rolling. The report will come into the Sovereign’s office. Do you mind if Glen sees it? I might not be there whenever…”

“No. I don’t mind. The course is locked in. Really has been since I made the decision to tell the story to someone. To Sol,” she added.

“Is there something else?” Storm’s question was prompted by instinct. He couldn’t have explained it, just the feeling that something had been bothering her since Sol’s death. Something beyond mourning.

She blinked like she was surprised and looked around like she was afraid someone had heard her thoughts. She looked at Storm and swallowed.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know I’ll never break your confidence.”

She stared at Storm for a minute and then smiled. “A confessional.”

“You need to confess something?”

“You’ll hate me after you hear it.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

The expression on her face changed from uncertain to determined. And hardened.

“I killed him.”

Of all the things she might have said Storm wouldn’t have guessed that in a thousand years. His jaw dropped and he gaped openly while his brain tried to piece together how she might have come to such a conclusion.

“Were you driving?”

“No.”

“Then what makes…?”

“I heard the paramedics who put him in the ambulance that took him away. They said that if I had done a tourniquet, that it wouldn’t have saved his leg, but it would have saved his life.”

Storm’s face transformed into an expression of the most abject sympathy. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to believe that she’d not only lost the love of her life, but that she was also responsible for his death.

“Susan. Have you ever been instructed on how to apply a tourniquet field dressing?”

Her brow furrowed and she searched his eyes. “No?”

“It was a thoughtless thing for those idiot medics to say and an easy thing for them to say. Tourniquets are second nature to them. They know how to do it. They know it so well they don’t remember when they didn’t know how to do it. Plus,
they
weren’t in shock. You almost certainly were. Weren’t you thrown from the vehicle when it turned over?”

She looked down at the floor. “Yes.”

“Did you lose consciousness?”

“I think so. I don’t know for how long.”

Storm cursed under his breath. “Please excuse me. I’ve got to go get some morons fired and the Cape May Emergency Services Department is going to give you an apology or there’ll be the devil to pay.” Realizing what he’d just said, he hoped she didn’t know about his mixed heritage.

“No, Storm, I don’t want this made public.”

“What they said…it’s not right. Passing judgment like that, on an injured, traumatized person?” Storm’s gaze jerked up to hers. “Did they send just one ambulance?”

“Yes.”

“Where did they have you ride on the way to the hospital?”

“They didn’t.”

“What do you mean they didn’t?”

“They left me on the beach.”

Storm stood up so fast she flinched. He looked furious, but what he was feeling was even darker and more intense than that. “You can’t ask me to do nothing. That goes so far beyond incompetence.”

Looking around to see who was watching, she took his hand. “Sit down. Please.”

He sat, but wasn’t having much luck controlling the battle urges. “How did you get to the hospital?”

She studied him for a few seconds trying to decide whether or not to answer, because she knew that anything more would just be throwing kerosene on the fire. Finally, she decided that Storm might have a point. She didn’t know how to apply a tourniquet and she bet that those paramedics didn’t know how to do many things that were so routine to her that they were second nature.

“The paramedics said that there would be another ambulance coming. The man who helped me, he lived in one of the houses on the beach, waited with me, but the ambulance never came. Finally, he got his car and drove it as close to where I was as he could. He took me to the hospital, took my phone and started calling contacts. When he called the Operations office, one of the trainees answered and got Glen. At least that’s what I heard.”

“Gods Almighty. It’s a marvel you aren’t a suicide. It’s the cluster fuck that just keeps on giving.”

“What?” Farnsworth’s eyes darted to Storm. He’d never used language like that in front of her before.

Storm leaned to the side so he could pull his phone from his pocket and touched Monq’s name. “Code P. Someone has a story for you. We’ll be down in five minutes.” Storm ended the call and looked at Farnsworth. “Now listen to me.

“It hurts my heart that you’ve been carrying the burden of somebody else’s mistake. I’m glad you told me, but I’m sorry you waited this long. You’re not responsible for what happened to Sol in any way. It was an accident.

“You may not believe me, but I’m just a retired knight. We’re going to go downstairs and tell your story to somebody who
can
actually help you sort this out.”

“Who?”

“Monq.”

“I don’t know, Storm.”

“He can be a character. I admit it. But he’s good at what he does. Let him help you through this.

“You survived. I’m very glad you did and Monq is going to set you on the path of healing so you can live the rest of your life the way Sol would have wanted you to.”

Storm saw the shift that took place in her demeanor when he mentioned what Sol would have wanted. She took in a breath. “Okay.”

“One last thing. Please. I’m begging you, for Sol’s sake and mine, too. Give me permission to get justice from the assholes who wrongly blamed and then abandoned you.”

“Okay.”

CHAPTER 4

Overseer Dimension.

“
He’s one of those.”

Huber had rushed into the Council room to let them know they had a troublemaker whose status had been escalated to need-to-deal-with.

Heralda looked up. “Whose child is he?”

“Oh, you know, could be anybody’s.”

“If he’s causing
that
much trouble, he couldn’t be anybody’s. He couldn’t be Theasophie’s, for example. Or Etana’s.”

Huber pursed his lips intending to look thoughtful, but it ended up looking more like Baby Huey pouting.

“Stop that,” Heralda said.

“Stop what?”

“That ugly thing with your lips.”

Huber looked offended. “Humph.” He crossed his arms over his soft tummy and glared.

“Huber, try and stay focused. What are his traits?”

“He’s sure he knows everything and should be in charge. His spirit was sent to Summerland on Saturnia because the stories his grandmother had told him were the closest thing he had to religion and an idea of hereafter.

“His behavior has been disruptive to the point of being disturbing. We even tried an immersion treatment in the River of Rebirth.”

“Yeah?”