Lake Silence

CHAPTER 51

Vicki

Sunsday, Sumor 4

I had just finished washing the breakfast dishes when I heard a quick whoop of a police siren—a bloop of sound, there and gone so fast I wasn’t even sure I had heard it until Aggie ran into the kitchen.

“Jozi says Officer Grimshaw is here with those other humans,” Aggie said. “He flashed the lights and made the car howl, but just a little.”

Since Aggie was naked and had more feathers than usual in her hair and framing her face, I deduced that she had been in her Crow form when Jozi gave the warning. Or maybe it was more accurate to say Jozi was passing along Grimshaw’s warning.

Grimshaw didn’t make idle warnings.

Trembling, I hurried to the kitchen phone and called Ilya Sanguinati.

“I’ll be there,” he said when I stumbled out the reason for the call. “Make sure the porch door and kitchen door are unlocked. Take your time answering the front door. Make some excuse.”

Doing the dishes. Had soapy hands. Wasn’t sure I’d heard the bell with the water running.

Since I’d seen Ilya flow through a screen door, I figured unlocking the doors was for the convenience of someone—or something—else who would deal with a lock by ripping the door off its hinges. Wanting to save myself the expense of repairs, I made sure the back doors were unlocked before heading toward the front of the house. The doorbell rang again, immediately followed by someone pounding on the door.

“Damn it, Vicki!” Yorick shouted. “Open this door!”

What was he doing here?

“Miss Vicki?”

Had I stopped moving toward the door because I had stopped to respond to Aggie? Or had I frozen the moment I heard the anger in Yorick’s voice? But he couldn’t shove me against the wall and tell me how angry I had made him, not with Grimshaw right there. Could he?

“Better if you’re not here right now,” I told Aggie. “Not undressed in human form.”

She shifted to her Crow form and flew up to the railing at the top of the stairs—not in anyone’s line of sight but able to see and hear everything.

In Crow form, there wasn’t much she could do against a human—not much she could do against a grown man in her human form either—but I felt braver knowing Aggie was there as a witness.

I opened the door and saw Yorick’s fist coming toward my face before Grimshaw grabbed his wrist and stopped the movement.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was washing dishes and didn’t hear the doorbell.”

“Ms. DeVine, we need to come in,” Grimshaw said.

His police-issue sunglasses made it impossible to see his eyes, but I had the impression he was either really ticked off about being here or had a vicious case of indigestion and needed some seltzer. Either way, he wasn’t asking permission to come in; he was telling me I didn’t have a choice.

I backed up and kept moving back as Yorick, Darren, Vaughn, and Hershel strode in, followed by their wives and, finally, Grimshaw, who didn’t fully shut the door.

“Ms. DeVine,” Grimshaw said, coming to the front of the group, “it is my unpleasant task to serve you with this eviction notice, effective immediately.”

“Eviction?” I wanted to wiggle a finger in my ear like they do in movies to show that the person couldn’t possibly have heard what they had heard. “How can you evict me? I’m the legal owner of this property.”

“No, you’re not,” Yorick said, looking insufferably smug.

Grimshaw held out the folded paper. “You have to take it.”

Ilya Sanguinati strolled in from the back of the house, carrying a thin briefcase that must have been really expensive and top quality, judging by the envy in Yorick’s and Darren’s eyes when they spotted it. Even Vaughn looked uncomfortably impressed.

“I’ll take it.” Ilya held out his hand.

Grimshaw didn’t hesitate to hand over the paper. I suppose giving it to my attorney was the same as giving it to me. I wasn’t sure about that, but no one protested.

Ilya took his time reading it. I was too busy struggling to avoid a meltdown to try to read over his shoulder—or past his arm since I wasn’t tall enough to see over his shoulder, let alone read anything.

He folded the eviction notice and handed it to me. When I started to open the paper, figuring I was supposed to read it now, he said in a voice as sharp as a slap, “Don’t bother.”

If Yorick started in on me, I would buckle. I knew it and Yorick knew it. His way of discussing anything had been to yell until I agreed with him.

“Mr. Dane, what makes you believe you are entitled to repossess this property?” Ilya asked, his voice still sharp but now also cold.

“This.” Yorick produced another document with a flourish. He tried to hand it to me, but Ilya reached in front of me and snapped it out of Yorick’s hand. “It’s signed by both of us and it’s notarized.”

“It couldn’t be,” I protested.

“Victoria.”

Ilya using that tone of voice was his way of issuing a warning, so I clenched my teeth to avoid trying to stick up for myself. Of course, if Yorick and I went at it with all his friends taking his side, I’d probably end up in the hospital heavily sedated, so hoping that Ilya had a plan made more sense than having a breakdown.

“This document seems to be more obscurely written than most human agreements, but stripping it down to its essence, it says that since The Jumble had been in the possession of the Dane family for several generations, it came to you, Victoria, in the divorce settlement with the provision that you could prove it to be a viable living so that you wouldn’t be a burden on the Dane family or a homeless embarrassment.” Ilya paused. “Ah. You had six months to do this, and if you hadn’t made sufficient effort to have income coming from the property, it would revert back to the Dane family—specifically back to Yorick Dane.”

I couldn’t stand it. I had to say something. “Even if I had seen that document, it isn’t realistic to think this place could have been ready for paying guests in that amount of time. Not with all the work that had to be done.”

“Vicki, Vicki.” Yorick shook his head and tried to look sad. “You can see your signature right there. You knew the timetable, and you didn’t meet it.”

“I had people working on the main house and the first three cabins all winter, but some things couldn’t be done until the spring! I wasn’t ready for paying guests until mid-Maius.”

“Conveniently two weeks past the deadline,” Ilya murmured.

Just two weeks? I hadn’t worked out the dates in my head. And something about being off by so little time struck me as odd.

“Two weeks, two days, two months, it doesn’t matter,” Yorick snapped at Ilya. “She didn’t meet the terms of the agreement.” He turned to me. “You’re evicted, effective immediately. Hand over the keys and get out.”

“No,” Ilya said mildly. “That’s not how this is going to work. Ms. DeVine will leave immediately. I’ll arrange to have all her personal possessions packed and out of here by the end of the day. You, however, cannot take possession of the property until the utilities are informed that as of 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, you will be the responsible party for payment. Also, before you take possession of the property, I need to know how you are going to reimburse Ms. DeVine for the capital improvements she made on the property.”

“Those are part of the property now,” Vaughn said, narrowing his eyes.

“Not quite.” Ilya smiled, showing a hint of fang. “The document says that if Ms. DeVine fails to develop the property in the agreed-upon amount of time, she will quit the property, leaving it in the same, or better, condition. My client chooses to return the property to Mr. Dane in the condition she found it after his family’s decades of neglect.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper, which he handed to Yorick. “Those are the capital improvements that were made to the main house and cabins. The total cost is listed at the end. You will agree to reimburse Ms. DeVine for all the money she put into this property to make it habitable again, or I can have crews here within the hour to remove the new septic system; dig up the new water pipes and remove all the new pipes that were put into the house and the lakeside cabins; and remove the new circuit breaker box and any other electric work that was done here.”

“You can’t do that.” A vein in Yorick’s temple began to throb as he turned to Grimshaw. “He can’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Grimshaw replied.

“Fine,” Vaughn said, looking like he would explode any second. “Yorick will reimburse Vicki for the capital improvements. You’ll have a cashier’s check first thing tomorrow morning. Now I want her out of here.”

“The check will be drawn from a bank in the Northeast that is still viable,” Ilya said. “And, yes, Ms. DeVine will leave now. So will all of you. Until the check is deposited—and the bank it was drawn on is verified—Mr. Dane is within his rights to evict Ms. DeVine, but he has no legal rights to the buildings. We’ll meet at the bank in Sproing at nine a.m. tomorrow. I’ll hand over the keys at that time.”

Ilya turned to me. “Please fetch your purse and all of your keys.”

I thought he was helping me. Now I wasn’t sure. When I looked at Grimshaw, he dipped his head in the tiniest nod, and I wondered if he knew something I didn’t. Maybe Julian had said something?

As I walked across the hall, I dug the office key out of my pocket. I had gotten into the habit of bringing my purse downstairs and leaving it in the big bottom drawer in the desk, so at least I would have that much. But what about my clothes, my bits of jewelry? They didn’t cost much, but I felt like I was being stripped of everything for the second time, even if Ilya had said I would retain my personal possessions.

I walked into the office and spotted Natasha Sanguinati, who raised a finger to her lips before I could say anything and alert everyone else to her presence.

She approached the desk, making sure she was still out of sight. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “We’ll take care of this.”

I felt sick, and my hands shook as I took the purse out of the desk drawer.

Natasha held out her hand. “Ilya is giving you a ride. Give me your car keys. I’ll make sure the vehicle gets to you.”

The car keys were on their own ring, so I gave them to her and made sure I had my keys to the main house as well as the set of master keys for all the cabins. I left the office, closing but not locking the door. I gave Ilya all the keys, including the loose office key. He put the master set in his briefcase, along with the loose office key.

“It’s time to go,” Ilya said, staring at Vaughn.

“We’ll stay a bit longer to look around,” Vaughn said.

“You’ve already looked around while you posed as guests.”

“You need help with the vermin?” Conan asked as he and Cougar came into the hall from the direction of the kitchen.

Cougar’s lips peeled back in that disturbing smile. “Heh-heh-heh-heh.”

I was pretty sure the boys weren’t going to be invited to the main house to watch cop and crime night on TV.

“Let’s go,” Grimshaw said.

“Don’t get comfortable with your promotion, Chief,” Vaughn said as he walked out the front door.

Everyone who could be seen walked out of the house and watched Ilya lock the front door. Yorick took a step toward me, but Ilya got between us and hustled me to the black luxury sedan. We were the first to leave, but when I looked back, I saw Conan and Cougar standing guard at the front door and Grimshaw having words with Yorick and Darren. I also noticed an unfamiliar car parked next to the UV that belonged to Hershel and Heidi. Made sense. Eight people couldn’t have come in one vehicle, but I wondered where they had rented a car.

“Could you drop me off at Ineke’s?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I would make it that far before I needed to throw up, but I really wanted to talk to a friend, and I wasn’t sure Ilya qualified right now.

“They still have rooms there until checkout time,” he replied, “and all of Ineke’s rooms are booked for the week. More important, you would be more vulnerable to attack if you stayed at the boardinghouse.”

“Yorick got what he wanted. There’s no reason to attack me.”

Ilya sighed. “You have so little faith in my skills as your attorney.”

I guess Mount Victoria still had a little lava left. “Your skills? I didn’t have a chance to see The Jumble before I had to accept the settlement or lose out on getting anything, but six months to clean up a place that hadn’t been used for decades and bring in paying guests is ridiculous! I never signed that document. My signature was forged!”

“I know.”

The calm acknowledgment stunned me. “You know?”

“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.