Chapter Seven #2
Harlow gave a slight shake of her head, and Zahra turned her attention to the scones in front of her.
They had a past together, one that tied them into this sisterhood, although, at times, Harlow was horribly embarrassed about the things Zahra knew firsthand about Harlow’s parents.
There were days Harlow found it difficult to be around Zahra.
It wasn’t Zahra’s fault. Harlow could readily admit Zahra never once had thrown the past in her face.
She’d never told a single soul. She’d acted grateful that Harlow had come to her aid.
But that didn’t stop the guilt or humiliation from knowing about—seeing—her father’s attack on her friend.
“Harlow, before we got distracted worrying about Raine,” Zahra said as she broke off a small piece of an orange-cranberry scone, “you were about to tell us what you thought may have killed Helen.”
Harlow let her breath out, relieved. That was so Zahra, making certain everyone else was sidetracked so they wouldn’t put two and two together as she had.
“You have a theory?” Stella prompted.
“It isn’t really a theory,” Harlow denied.
“It’s just that Helen isn’t the first person in Knightly to die under some mysterious circumstance.
I know infectious disease is looking hard at the victims. After Raine was bitten by a rattlesnake, I saw evidence of an unusual number of snakes on the property where we were climbing. ”
She rubbed at an invisible speck on the table. “I think the deaths are connected. Meaning, whatever killed Helen killed Lawyer. Giselle Gentry died a couple of months before Lawyer.”
“But Giselle hit her head,” Zahra said, distress in her voice. “I read the report and that was what officially killed her.”
“Martha, the ME, questioned what caused her fall,” Harlow said. “In the report it stated she’d gone into anaphylactic shock, which is what caused her to fall and hit her head. Something bit her. Just like something bit Lawyer and now Helen.”
“If it was a rattlesnake, wouldn’t Martha know?” Vienna asked. “That’s very specific. All of us have seen a rattlesnake bite, and very few people actually die from it. We have antivenom, but even without it, most people survive.”
“Suppose it’s a hybrid? I know rattlesnakes don’t breed with other nonvenomous snakes.
That’s a myth,” Harlow ventured. “But they can breed with other species of rattlesnake. What if that has somehow changed? Or if they have developed with another rattlesnake into an aggressive new breed, which isn’t probable, but who knows?
I don’t think it’s a new infectious disease.
I think all three of them were bitten by something. ”
“You do read about that kind of evolution every now and then,” Stella said. “Or that some asinine idiot playing God decided he wanted to create the ultimate weapon. It could be something like that.”
“We need Raine to do in-depth research,” Vienna said. “She can find the most obscure data. If experiments were going on with rattlesnakes, she’d find them. If anyone, anywhere, reported a hybrid snake and it checked out, she would know.”
“Raine is magic on a computer,” Shabina declared.
The others nodded in agreement.
“I want to go back to Helen’s place and look around,” Harlow said.
Zahra shook her head. “That place is guarded better than Fort Knox. People are still collecting evidence.”
“What happened to all of her animals?” Shabina asked, a note of worry in her voice.
Harlow knew Shabina had such a kind, compassionate heart with both people and animals that Rainier—and all of her friends—did their best to shield her.
“They were rounded up, and one of the farms close to Helen’s will take them. At the moment, the dogs are with the vet,” Harlow said. “Gwen is slowly improving. Whatever bit Helen, bit her.”
“Why is Gwen still alive, when Helen died?” Vienna asked. “That makes no sense. The dog was big, but I think Helen weighed more.”
“No, Gwen is a very large dog. Maybe one hundred forty or fifty pounds. Helen was tall, but she was very thin,” Zahra corrected. “All that running up mountains. She had a runner’s body.”
“That’s true,” Vienna agreed. “She was very thin, but had lots of muscle. I always thought of her as being super healthy.”
“Sometimes it depends on where someone is bitten,” Harlow reminded. “How close to the heart and how much venom was actually injected.”
Shabina nodded. “I’ve done a lot of research on venom and animals, particularly dogs, because my three are often running with me by the canal.
I take them with me nearly everywhere I go.
I’ve had them in the rattlesnake classes several times just to remind them that they can’t go near that snake.
Some breeds can handle venom a little better than others.
It really does depend on where they are bitten and if you can keep them quiet. ”
“Gwen was curled up close to Helen,” Harlow said.
“It’s possible Helen was bitten first and went down.
Gwen would move to protect her and that’s when she most likely was bitten.
” She was just speculating, trying to picture what happened.
“In my opinion, if it is a newer infectious disease, more people would be sick or dying. There isn’t a common place where Lawyer, Helen and Ms. Gentry all frequented.
Ms. Gentry may have been in her seventies, but she was a firecracker. She did have a companion.”
Vienna nodded. “Lenore Anderson stayed with her nearly full-time. Ms. Gentry was super wealthy. She didn’t live like it, but she owned a lot of properties in prime locations. She actually owned the property next to Bale Landry’s home.”
A collective groan went up immediately at the mere mention of Bale Landry.
Shabina gave a little sigh. “He recently contacted me and asked if I would go back to court to lift the protection order I have against him. I tried talking to Rainier about it. Bale’s lived his entire life in this town.
He can’t come to the café, and if I’m in a store or at the Grill for an evening, he can’t be there.
I do feel sorry for him. His best friends seemed to have walked away from their friendship… ”
“Can you blame them, Shabina?” Stella asked.
“Bale Landry is a narcissist and a misogynist. He despises women, especially any woman not on his list of approved ethnic background—which is nearly all of us. Edward is in love and seems to be really trying to make a life for himself. Jason broke away long before Edward, and he’s in partnership with Bruce Akins at the brewery.
Bale beat the crap out of Sean when Sean refused to implicate you in a murder.
It was for Sean’s own gain, but that’s beside the point. It isn’t like Bale is a good guy.”
“But maybe he could be,” Shabina said. “We all make mistakes. I’ve certainly made my share. And he was friends with Lawyer and just lost him. He might be a better person if we all tried with him again.”
Harlow sighed. She wished she were more like Shabina, but she wasn’t.
Shabina saw the good in people despite her horrific past. Despite her father.
Sheesh, when she let herself think about it, Shabina’s father had actually tried to hire an assassin to kill his daughter so his wife wouldn’t suffer any longer with the thought that their daughter had been kidnapped and wasn’t being returned.
That was the kind of father Shabina had.
No way was Rainier going to allow her father anywhere near her.
And Bale? He’d threatened Shabina and tried to implicate her in a murder.
“Honey, I love you so much for your ability to forgive and have such compassion for others, but I have to be honest with you,” Harlow said.
“After Lawyer died, I received three very ugly letters from Bale accusing me of not doing my job. He claimed that as Bale’s nurse I should have been watching over him, but he had it on good authority that I was too busy sleeping with a doctor and had let him die. ”
“He didn’t,” Zahra snapped, her dark eyes flashing fire.
“What a mean, horrible, asinine jerk. Bale knows you were friends with Lawyer. All of us were. He tried to blackmail Lawyer and was furious when Lawyer just went to the local radio station and told on himself. How could he accuse you of neglecting him? Every minute you had off, lunchtime and breaks, you were with Lawyer, trying to get him to rally, trying to figure out what was killing him.”
Shabina looked horrified. She had brought food to Harlow at the hospital on more than one occasion, knowing, from Zahra and Vienna, that Harlow was skipping meals while she was staying with Lawyer. “I’m so sorry he did that. You said he sent you more than one email?”
Harlow shook her head, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
She didn’t like Shabina looking so distressed.
It wasn’t her fault that Bale Landry was a jerk.
Every woman in town knew he was—even Shabina.
He’d been particularly ugly to her. At that time, his friends had participated in his harassment of women, especially Shabina.
It was just that Shabina had such a kind, compassionate, forgiving heart.
How she had remained that way after all that had happened to her, Harlow would never know.
“Not email. He put the letters into my mailbox. Rainier has them now.”
Somehow Shabina was able to be in a relationship with a man like Rainier.
She was a strong woman to be able to live with him.
Harlow envied her that strength and determination.
She wanted a relationship with Wilder. She really did, and the more she was with Shabina, the more she felt she should take that chance with him.
Jump in with both feet. Shabina had done that, and she had done so with her eyes wide open.
Harlow knew that if she did as Wilder asked, she would have to go into the relationship wholly, not hold back, just as Shabina had done.