Chapter Six #2
“What a strange coincidence that you should be offered that case,” Louisa replied as she handed him an ewer of water and nodded toward the percolator.
“I know, but I’ve wanted to go there for some time.
I thought there might still be more distant relatives left on my father’s side living there.
That’s why I convinced Felipe to go. I hope you know I didn’t mean to cause any trouble between you and Felipe.
Everything happened sort of quickly, and we only agreed to take the case on Friday. ”
“It’s fine, Oliver. I know the city can be as dangerous as the rest of the country, but it makes me nervous when Felipe is away from home.
Being far from his usual stomping grounds makes him.
.. not reckless, but overconfident? At least, I know I can trust you to keep him from doing anything too dangerous, unlike his past partners. ”
Oliver wasn’t so sure of that, considering going to the murder town was his idea, but he would do his best. As he poured the water into the pot and set up the percolator, his mind trailed to the dusty letter with the blood red seal.
He had never seen Felipe react so strongly to a letter before, and while he wanted to pester and pry, he didn’t want to make things worse when he didn’t even know what he was prying into.
Oliver eyed Louisa as she loaded the leftover food into the icebox.
Louisa had come from California with Felipe and had known him far longer than Oliver or anyone else did, and if anyone could tell him what was going on, she could.
“Louisa, may I ask you a question about Felipe?”
“Of course, though you might know more about him than I do. He’s kept me at arm’s length for some time now,” she said as she dumped the box of shortbread cookies onto a plate.
Oliver swallowed hard and tried to work the words free. Asking felt like a transgression, like he was somehow overstepping his bounds by going around Felipe when, normally, it would be a perfectly innocuous question to ask about their loved one.
“What are Felipe’s parents like?”
Louisa’s hands stilled over the shortbread. “Why do you ask?”
“Because he got a letter from them and acted very strangely after when I asked about it and them. He got short with me, which he usually doesn’t do. I would have preferred to ask him about it, but I don’t want to make things worse.”
“That would explain why he’s being bullheaded again.
Every time they write, he gets his hackles up, though he’ll never admit it.
I told him years ago to stop writing to them.
” Shaking her head, Louisa’s dark brows furrowed as she grabbed a stack of coffee cups and put them onto the serving tray beside the cookies.
“Did you know that I have a brother? No? That’s because he doesn’t deserve an ounce of my goodwill after how he behaved, so I cut him from my life. It should be the same with them.”
“Why? What did they do?”
Silence hung thickly over the kitchen as Louisa turned her attention to rearranging the tray. Oliver wasn’t certain if she hadn’t heard him or if she was ignoring his question. Probably the latter if the way she carefully kept her gaze away from him was any indication.
He was about to drop it when Louisa said, “Many things, some things I don’t even know about.
Felipe keeps his cards close to his chest, but I know they have not always been good to him.
I witnessed some of it. We lived with his family for a short time after we got married, before we came to New York, you know.
I didn’t really want to, but we had to stay somewhere until we could get the money from selling my half of my father’s ranch and find out if the Paranormal Society would hire Felipe.
His mother and aunts were welcoming and treated me kindly, but that kindness came with conditions. ”
As he listened, Oliver kept a tight grip on his mounting anxiety.
The other side of the tether no longer prickled with agitation, and he didn’t want Felipe coming in to check on him.
Taking the empty carafe from the counter, Oliver put it under the spigot and tried not to let his imagination wander to the worst possibilities.
The warm porcelain beneath his hands and the smell of coffee grounded him, but he didn’t like where this was going.
“What kind of conditions?”
“Some were the usual expectations one has for married couples. There was pressure to contribute to the next generation of Galvans by having children. A self-healer and a jaguar shifter could be very useful to them, but we had no intention of taking our sham marriage that far. There was obviously pressure on me to have children and be a good wife, but it was worse for Felipe. At some point, he had become the golden boy who would carry on the Galvan legacy in his grandfather’s stead after he passed.
Felipe always seemed baffled as to how it happened, but with every year, his family’s expectations grew.
He didn’t want to be the next one to lead the family, not that he could tell any of them that, so while he was busy, I snuck around and arranged our escape.
Sometimes, it pays to be underestimated and overlooked.
When we told them we were leaving, their good will evaporated.
You have to understand, Oliver, no one left the family unless they were cast out, so Felipe, the heir to the Galvan legacy, choosing to leave in order to work for strangers they despised was a betrayal of the highest order. ”
“Did— did they hurt him?” Oliver asked in a whisper.
“When we left? No, not physically at least, though his cousins and uncle would have gladly done so if his grandfather let them.” Taking the full carafe from Oliver’s hands, Louisa sighed.
“Something happened when we were sixteen or seventeen, though I don’t know what, and things changed with Felipe.
He was my best friend growing up. He would come with his mother to tend to my father when he had flare-ups of his illness.
Around that time, he came less because he stopped coming with her for healer training and instead trained with the men.
He started acting differently, too. He was still charming and chatty, but there was a wariness he hadn’t had before.
“Whatever happened, my father saw it or knew about it. So much of my childhood is a blur, but I vividly remember my father storming into the house one morning and saying, ‘We need to get that boy away from them before they ruin him.’ My father was never a man prone to anger or outbursts, but he was livid with the Galvans for whatever they did to Felipe. When I asked what happened, he said some things were better left not known. Not long after that, he mentioned that it might be beneficial to both of us if I married Felipe. As a married woman, I would get the autonomy and protection I needed, and Felipe would have someone to help him gain his independence. I might butt heads with Felipe, but he’s a far better man here than he ever would have been if he stayed with them.
” Meeting Oliver’s gaze, Louisa said, “To answer your original question, Oliver, his parents are selfish people who are better off forgotten. Having Teresa only made it clearer to me how awful they are. Ultimately, they have no place in my life or Teresa’s life, and Felipe’s choice to keep them in his is wholly his own. ”
Oliver nodded, though he had far more questions than answers, ones he wasn’t certain he could even ask Felipe.
Louisa gave his shoulder a solid pat. “This is why you’re good for him.
You’re the opposite of them, and he needs that.
” At the distant whine of the dining room door, Louisa hefted the laden tray and held it out for Oliver to carry.
“We had better get back. If Agatha finds us and realizes we’ve been talking about our families, she’ll want to tell you all about her four brothers.
They’re all lovely, but I have other things I would rather talk about. ”
Oliver trailed behind Louisa as she herded Pastel and Kuchen out of his path.
Logically, he knew Felipe had a past before they met.
Thirty years of his life were spent before Oliver ever came to the Paranormal Society, and even those ten years of proximity had gaps Oliver would never be able to fill in, nor did he truly want to.
Felipe Galvan had always just been the investigator with the nice smile who treated him kindly until he was something more.
Of course, he had heard the rumors about Inspector Galvan’s body count or his feats of daring, things whispered with equal parts reverence and horror, but Oliver had been the subject of rumors too.
While there may have been a kernel of truth at their core, he didn’t believe the gossip when it didn’t align with what he saw with his own eyes.
On the other hand, when the Galvans were mentioned at the society, it was almost always with distaste.
They were monster hunters who clung to the old ways and dealt with their quarries far more harshly and swiftly than the Paranormal Society.
In a nebulous way, Oliver knew Felipe was one of them, but he couldn’t reconcile the caring, loving man he knew with the things he had heard.
As he entered the parlor, Oliver caught Felipe mid-laugh.
The tether tightened beneath his heart until it ached.
The things he had heard about the Galvans were so far removed from his experiences growing up with his Quaker grandmother that Oliver couldn’t put a shape to the story Louisa had told him, yet somehow, those blurs and blanks only made it far worse.
When Felipe glanced up from the article Agatha was showing him and saw Oliver in the doorway, a look full of relief and warmth broke across his features.
Whatever had happened to Felipe in the past, Oliver would make sure no one hurt him ever again.