Chapter 24
TEA AND TREACHERY
They have invited us into their home, and there are no guns in sight, only her walking cane, the aid she seems to set aside when it suits her. Perhaps she isn’t always in pain?
“Come in. Come in.” Her smile is welcoming, though Ron only appears once we are inside. Was he ready to snipe Kail if he proved to be not what I said he was—safe?
Only a day ago they helped me run Kail off.
Now, sitting in their dining room with the omnipresent tea plus some cookies, I truly realize how odd this is. How potentially scary and weird it should seem to anyone…normal.
Apart from that conspiracy theory view of the Large Hadron Collider’s effects, Molly and Ron seem normal. Maybe that alone explains it, if their hobby is investigating strange phenomena.
I gesture toward Kail where he’s dwarfing their chair, with a steaming mug of Earl Grey tea before him that Molly just poured. He bites off another piece of cookie and crunches into it.
He takes another bite, resulting in more crunches.
Molly tinkles a teaspoon in her tea.
This feels like the lull before a storm. I’ve been lurching from violence and death to absurdity, serene banality, and amazing sex with Mr. Picasso, and I have a serious case of whiplash. Any minute now, Godzilla will tear off the roof.
Instead, Molly and Ron’s red tabby arrives, threads through the chair and table legs, and brushes around my ankles, before moving on to Kail. He stoops to pet her.
“So.” Molly stirs her tea, “What’s the gossip? We’ve seen men above in the mountains—they appear to be searching for something—and Ron and I are wondering if we missed something.”
Apart from us two now being an item? Or does she mean that too?
Kail only flicks a glance at me. I have not prepared for this. Same as my not-a-plan revenge. The epiphany hit me as I climbed their steps…how does one tell the elderly neighbors that you participated in a murder or two the previous night and hooked up with this darling monster?
“Ummm.” I sip my tea to give myself time. I frown at the ripples. Just do it. “Oh, fuck it. I don’t know how to say this. Sorry! Sorry! That was rude.” Everyone has zeroed in on me. Kail looks amused, with a half-smile breaking out.
“Take your time, dear.” Molly nods sagely, kindness in her eyes. “I have heard the word fuck before. So has Ron.”
I’m trying to think through how much to tell them that isn’t going to horrify them, while they’re looking at me. It’s not easy. I wet my lips, take another sip of tea.
“Okay, the gossip? The gossip is that two men attacked me last night and Kail… He fended them off me and saved me. Which is why I trust him now. He’s uhhh staying with me, protecting me.”
And because of his other, sexier features.
“Ron?” Molly elbows him. “Tell her about the search.”
“Oh! What?” Ron’s deer-in-the-headlights expression says he is possibly thinking something he doesn’t want us to know.
“About. The. Search,” she says.
“Ahhh. I counted twenty men going uphill. Seems to be a pattern to it. That’s a big expenditure, a big task. No aerial aid, so possibly they are trying to stay low key.”
“But we have a telescope.” Molly nods, smartly.
“No drones in the sky?” Kail asks.
Almost as one, we all ask, “Drones?”
“You know.” He leans over to stroke the red tabby. The cat purrs, loudly.
I decide to be the explainer. “No, we don’t know. What’s a drone in the sky?”
He scans us all, frowning. “It’s something I think I read about, an overseas thing. They fly and can take videos and stuff.”
“Okay. We don’t have them yet.” Molly and Ron nod, agreeing with me. “Sounds awesome though.”
“Yeah. It would be, when you get them. We. When we get them.”
Do I say the searchers might be looking for the dead guys? I glance at Kail, who now has a cat on his lap. That they are dead, no. “Those men ran that way. Kail scared the fff… Umm, the bejesus out of them by chasing them. They may have had an accident up there?”
“Anything else?” Molly’s eyebrows pop up as she drinks.
One, two three. Do I do this? Whole hog? I have no plan, and these two… I study my neighbors. I have a hunch they are good at that—the planning business. “If you won’t spread this outside here, unless I say to, I will tell you more.”
“We can zip our lips, Miss Hailey. The gossip! Please.”
“Okay. Okay.” I inhale, hold my breath, then release it.
I spell out everything I think is relevant, except Kail’s murders.
The man at my back door, they already have the goss on him.
I tell them Clay confessed and threatened me, sent those two men.
That I want revenge. The precise words on the notes from Dad, about the institute making frankenstructs, and that he said there is a cache.
Everything, except my reawakened sex life.
I eye Kail as the last words spill from me. Some of this will be new to him, though I was going to tell him. If he ever betrays me, it would be a thousand times worse than if Molly or Ron do, for he is the cause of this new happiness.
The McCluskers look at each other, then Ron harrumphs. “That was quite something, Miss Hailey.”
“Yup. Sounds like Clay can get charged with some nasty thangs if we can get evidence,” Molly says.
I add, somewhat plaintively, “Do you think we could get the Weirdos involved?”
“In what way,” Ron asks.
I shrug and probably look pained. “I don’t know? It’s not a Large Hadron Collider strange thing.” There goes my plan again.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” Molly sounds excited. “They would love to hear about this, so long as Kail comes along and talks too.”
Fuck. I glance at him and he’s frozen. “Maybe?” I twist up my face. “Kail?”
“Sure. I can watch and think about it. From a very dark corner.”
“That will do for starters.” Ron nods. “Talking would really aid your cause, though.”
Which is how we organize an emergency meeting of the Weirdos for the following night, at the old Laramie house, which is apparently down the street, deserted, and belongs to Molly and Ron’s friends.
Deserted, as in they haven’t been seen for several months since someone became ill and departed to get specialist treatment.
Molly has the key and responsibility for keeping an eye on the property.
“Not the Maelstrom this time?” I ask, as we rise from the table, excluding Ron who reverses out on his chair.
“No.” Ron shakes his head. “For all sorts of reasons.” At my eyebrow raise, he adds, “Possible breakage of laws. Possible alarm over Kail, if the general public spot his odd appearance. That we don’t want the institute to easily track us, surveil us.”
“Okay. All…good points.” Now this is why I am crap at planning.