CHAPTER 11

Vicki

Sunsday, Juin 13

I went to the sliding screen door that opened out on a multilevel deck that overlooked the lake. There was a variety of very nice—and very expensive since it was handcrafted—outdoor furniture that I wished I could afford for my screened-in porch. Then again, Aggie thought my secondhand stuff was pretty fancy, so I guess it was a case of “eye of the beholder.”

“Are you sure I shouldn’t be there?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Ilya Sanguinati. “Those sirens sounded like they were at The Jumble.”

The Jumble was my responsibility—at least until I lost control of it—so I should be aware of what was happening. On the other hand, if I wasn’t there, I couldn’t be blamed for whatever had happened. Right?

“I’m sure you shouldn’t be there,” he replied. “The police caused a problem, and they’ll have it fixed before I escort you home.”

He seemed real certain of that. I was almost as certain about something else.

“Someone died,” I said.

He looked up from the papers he had spread over a square coffee table that was bigger than my kitchen table. “Yes.”

“It wasn’t the young officer, was it?” In the thrillers I read, the young, less experienced officer was always the first one killed so the rest of the men would realize there was danger lurking nearby.

“No, it wasn’t the young one.”

“And Officer Grimshaw is all right?”

He studied me. “Is that important to you?”

There was nothing in Ilya Sanguinati’s voice to indicate anything but mild curiosity, but I had a feeling Grimshaw’s future depended on my answer.

“He was kind,” I replied. “And he’s a police officer you can depend on when you need help.” Unlike Detective Oil Slick, I added silently.

I had revised my opinion of Officer Grimshaw during our second encounter, when his presence had helped me deal with Detective Swinn and the discovery of the theft of the items in my safe-deposit box. When he came to The Jumble, I was plenty nervous about leading him to a dead body, but he might have been nervous too and sounded a bit testy because of it. After all, cops really didn’t like coming to Sproing because at least two of them had ended up inconveniently dead after responding to calls around here. At least, that’s what I remember from the carefully edited news reports that were on TV a while ago. And now, if I understood what Ilya meant about a problem the police had to fix before I went home, they had at least one more reason to avoid the village whenever possible.

I returned to one of the chairs around the coffee table, determined to understand the papers the dead man had carried with him, but I kept looking at the items neatly lined up near the table. A knapsack and a thermos; a silver pen and pencil set; a silver business card holder; and a money clip, sans money.

I didn’t know which kind of terra indigene would be interested in the knapsack and thermos, but I could guess who had taken possession of all the shiny items—and how much having to give them to Ilya had ruffled the Crowgard’s feathers.

“Shouldn’t those go to the police?” I asked.

“Why?” Ilya Sanguinati looked amused. “I believe the human phrase is ‘finders keepers.’” After a moment, he added, “The Sanguinati didn’t take those items, but I did require that they be brought here in case there was anything of import inside them.”

“Like the papers.” I almost pointed out that the police would like to have all this stuff for evidence, but being an attorney, Ilya already knew that—and he didn’t care because, right now, helping the police investigate the first dead man meant helping Detective Swinn, and my yummy vampire attorney wasn’t going to do that.

“Like the papers,” Ilya agreed.

I looked through the papers again. After a few minutes, I shook my head. “This is wrong. This is all wrong.”

“What, exactly, is wrong?”

I heard no condescension in the question, so I pulled out the first papers, which were an artist’s rendering of cottages and the social center for a luxury resort. “All of these papers are plans for a luxury resort, very exclusive since there would be twenty-four row cottages as well as the social center, which would provide fine dining and an activities room, library, card room, et cetera. Within the grounds, the rendering shows tennis courts, as well as two docks. And look!” I jabbed at the rendering. “Motor boats. Who was the bozo who put this proposal together without looking at any of the conditions and restrictions? Because this . . .” And the last piece of paper was the one that tipped me over into pissed off and fighting mad. Which was quite an invigorating feeling—as long as I didn’t have to fight with anyone who was bigger, stronger, or meaner than me. Which was just about everyone.

Unfortunately, the only person to fight with was a vampire. Who was my attorney. Whom I couldn’t afford in the first place, so I probably didn’t want to alienate him to the point of not helping me.

“This is The Jumble,” I said with more control. Okay, I was gritting my teeth and kind of scratching at the paper, but I wasn’t going all wild woman. Except for my hair. But that was its usual state. “When I took possession of the property, I studied the map that came with all the original documents that dictated what the person who owned the buildings could and couldn’t do. So I know this is a map of The Jumble showing where all these luxury cottages would be located, where the tennis courts would go. And a parking lot, for crying out loud. None of which are permissible under the land-use terms of the original agreement.”

I’d fretted over where to put cars if I actually had more than six lodgers. There were places near the cabins where you could park, but you reached those areas by driving on what amounted to an open track in the woods—single lane, unpaved. The grass between the tire tracks looked mown, more or less. Grazed might be a better description. Maybe that’s why the old records that I’d been given had mentioned goats—nature’s lawn mowers.

“What were the terms of the original agreement?” Ilya Sanguinati asked.

“If I could just get my papers, I could show you how this resort goes against the agreement.”

“We don’t need your documents. I already have the second set of originals.”

I blinked. “You do?” I imagined giving myself a head slap. “You wrote up the original agreement.”

“Not me personally. That was a bit before my time.”

He looked to be in his mid- to late thirties. So either the Sanguinati aged differently than humans, which was likely with them being Others and all that, or he was lacing the words with dry humor when he said a few human generations was a bit before his time.

“A couple of residents from Silence Lodge did create the original contract, and we’ve enforced the terms of that agreement ever since.”

“But I never saw you until now. No one came to check on the work to make sure it complied with the agreement.”

He smiled, and I realized how naïve I sounded. Of course they’d checked on the work.

“We thought knowing about our presence might distress you, so we kept our distance. Now?” He did one of those subtle shrug movements with his shoulders. “Someone was interfering with you, so it was time to step in. Please tell me your understanding of the original documents.”

I took a breath. The anger had burned off, leaving me a little shaky. “Well, the gist was that the person who owned The Jumble couldn’t add more buildings and couldn’t add on to existing structures to increase the overall square footage of any of the buildings, but could ‘renovate and update the buildings to be in keeping with the times and local customs.’ Only so many acres could be cleared for crops that would be used as a food source for the residents or to trade for other items. Trees could be cut for firewood or if they became a hazard to a structure due to death or disease. Any other changes could be made only with the consent of the land managers. Since there wasn’t any contact information for these land managers, I was very careful about updating only what I needed to in order for the buildings to be sound and have the amenities paying guests would want, like en suite bathrooms, electricity, a roof that didn’t leak, and plumbing that did what plumbing is supposed to do.”

I finally took the next step. “Whoever that man worked for wanted to turn The Jumble into a posh lakeside resort. Which would mean buying me out—or forcing me out.” I looked at Ilya Sanguinati. “Would someone really kill a man and try to implicate me in his death in order to get access to The Jumble? There has to be other land where someone could build a resort.”

He took his time before answering. “There isn’t any human-controlled land in the Feather Lakes area, so there isn’t anyplace where a new resort could be built. Investors would have to buy the buildings and the land lease for an existing place—and there are a few places similar to The Jumble throughout the Northeast Region where humans can take a lakeside vacation or fish in the streams without having to totally ‘rough it,’ as I think you call it. But those places would have the same kinds of restrictions as The Jumble, and none of that land is ‘owned’ in the same way as The Jumble, making it even more dangerous for someone to come in and try to interfere with what already exists. And that doesn’t take into account the difficulty of acquiring building materials—something the human who drew up those plans clearly hadn’t considered.”

Huh. Hadn’t thought about that. After I arrived in Sproing and made a list of what I knew would have to be updated in the main house and the three lakeside cabins, I’d contacted companies in Bristol and Crystalton, the two towns of any size that were within range of Sproing. I’d ended up going with the companies in Crystalton—companies both Ineke and Julian Farrow had recommended. Well, Julian had recommended companies in Crystalton in general. It was Ineke who gave me specific names of contractors in Crystalton who could do the big renovations, as well as the names of reliable people in Sproing who could fix a leaky faucet or paint the rooms for a fair price. The Crystalton contractors said there was a waiting list for building supplies because there were further limits on raw materials after the war humans had foolishly waged against the terra indigene last summer.

Then the men had winked and said they would put in a good word for me. I don’t know who they talked to or what they said, but the supplies came in and the work was done.

“Are the Sanguinati the land managers for The Jumble?” I asked, wondering how much financial interest the residents of Silence Lodge had in the land on the other side of the lake.

“No,” Ilya replied.

“Then who is?”

A hesitation. “The rest of the terra indigene call them the Elders.”

“You mentioned the Elders when Officer Grimshaw called about the new trouble. Who are they?”

“They are Namid’s teeth and claws.”

Oh crap. “So they’re what, the world’s hit men?”

He blinked. Then he laughed, a rich, deep sound.

Personally, I didn’t think the question was that funny, especially when I started wondering how the dead man ended up dead.

“That is one way of putting it,” Ilya finally said as he wiped his eyes.

Since he found that amusing, I really didn’t want to know what other ways you could put it.

“If the Elders are the land managers, I’m guessing they aren’t going to rub their paws together in greedy glee over the prospect of having the woodland overrun with humans.”

I suddenly remembered a couple of bad jokes that were going around last summer just before Yorick started divorce proceedings and told me to find an apartment because he was keeping the upscale home in Hubbney that, apparently, the second official Mrs. Yorick Dane coveted.

Joke one. Why did the Bear chase the track team? He wanted some fast food.

Joke two. What do you call a flock of chickens caught in a fire tornado? Shake and bake.

On second thought, maybe the Elders would be happy about easy meals on their land—like campers who talk about tossing a line in the water and catching a couple of fish for dinner.

“Twelve cabins updated to match the times and social customs,” Ilya said, sounding serious now. “No more and nothing more.”

I pushed my fingers through my hair and wondered just how badly I’d been played. “What was that man doing here? I certainly wasn’t going to try to build a resort on this land.”

“Clearly someone thought it could be . . . finagled.”

“Who? I could see my ex-husband showing up now that I’ve had a few months to realize how hard I’m going to have to work for so little return.”

“Little return in human terms, perhaps, but there are other ways to measure a rich life,” Ilya countered.

I tipped my head to indicate agreement. “But going with the reasoning in human terms, I could see him offering the cash equivalent of The Jumble as it had been valued at the time of the divorce settlement, completely ignoring all the money I’d put in for capital improvements. I could see him doing that, but he wasn’t the person who emptied out my safe-deposit box.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“As long as I have the original documents that show Yorick ceded The Jumble to me, I can block whoever is trying to push in and change things.”

“Yes, you can, and I will help you do that.”

I nodded. I wasn’t in the mood for self-examination, so I didn’t want to wonder why I trusted a vampire more than I trusted most humans. Since I didn’t want to wonder about that, I looked at the screen door and wondered about something else. “Do the Sanguinati have trouble with mosquitoes?”

“You mean, do the big bloodsuckers get pestered by the little bloodsuckers?”

Judging by my attorney’s laughter, if I failed to turn The Jumble into a viable business, I could always get a job as a stand-up comedian in a vampire bar.

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