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BRIAN
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“FUCK!”
Page thirty-seven of Lily’s report started with a brief summary of the physical assault on Elizabeth about a year and a half ago which had resulted in life-threatening injuries and days in the hospital.
“Elizabeth Chatwin knew her attacker, Dennis Simmons,” Lily wrote. “They went out a few times although they were not dating. After he verbally abused her during an event they both attended, she severed all contact with him. He started stalking her. Elizabeth’s friends and partners, R. Barclay and A. Besson, tried to reason with him, but three months later he attacked her in her apartment.”
I didn’t care anymore if Lily’s sources were public or if she had hacked the police database to get this information. I was grateful she’d found it.
Her account was followed by a photocopy of the police and hospital reports, which noted “moderate traumatic head injury, fractured ribs, a punctured lung, moderate to severe hematomas on arms, legs and abdomen.”
Shaken to the core, I read Elizabeth’s statement given to a detective. “I grabbed the French knife from the kitchen counter. I pressed it against his throat ... Yes, I cut him; there was blood ... He fled. I called the police. After that, I don’t remember much, everything was blurry and then I passed out. I woke up in the hospital.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” I whispered and closed my eyes. She had been beaten, bruised, terrified, and yet brave and composed enough to overpower her much stronger attacker.
Blood rushed to my head filling me with rage. Deep inside me, I could hear my wolf’s furious growls.
I’d kill him. I’d kill the bastard.
The next paragraph described the arrest of Simmons five days later in the same hospital where she had been recovering.
In his statement, Simmons had identified his attackers as Richard Barclay and Alain Besson, but the police had dismissed it for lack of evidence. The singer and several customers of the nightclub owned by Besson’s parents had confirmed that the night Simmons was attacked, both Barclay and Besson were at the club, on the opposite side of the city, from 7:00 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. They were behind the bar counter, replacing Alain Besson’s brother and sister-in-law, stuck at home with the flu.
At the very end, there was an outline of Simmons’s trial and sentencing. Six years.
He had almost killed her, and he’d gotten six years. He could be out in two or three, ready to beat the crap out of the first woman who gave him a wrong look or said the wrong word.
I closed the folder and turned to my computer. Lily’s email was still on the screen. I clicked on the reply button.
“Come to my office immediately,” I typed and pressed enter.
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LESS THAN A MINUTE later, Lily came in. She glanced at me and said, “I’m keeping tabs on him already.”
I took a deep breath to calm down. “How is he doing in prison?”
“I think he realizes that there are bullies bigger than him in there, so he stays put.”
“He’s much more than a bully. He’s a molester and an abuser, the worst kind. See, I’ve known thieves and even killers to turn over a new leaf, but I’ve never seen an abuser become a decent man. Keep monitoring him. Once released, he may realize it’s in his best interest to stay away from Elizabeth.
“He might try going after Barclay and Besson, or maybe their family members,” Lily said.
“Barclay and Besson beat him up, didn’t they?”
Lily shrugged. “Of course. Who else?”
“There is something else I’d like to ask you to do for me, Lily.”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“Escort Elizabeth here. She’s suspicious and curious. I don’t want her to wander around on her own.” I could imagine Elizabeth stopping by Red Cliffs to personally ask Astrid about that darn nightingale floor. “She might stumble upon something about us on her own before she’s ready to know.”
Lily smiled and clasped her hands. “Of course, I will. Oh, I’m so glad she’s coming.” She’ll fit in here, you’ll see. And if she is a vardanni she may choose to stay among us.”
“She’s entitled to it. Vardanni or not, she should learn about our society little by little. I don’t want her to freak out and run.”
“Come on, we’re not that frightening.”
“To come to terms with the existence of four humanoid races instead of one? It’s too much to swallow for any human outside our society.”
“If she is a vardanni she has a sort of built-in mental ability to accept it. She’ll be okay. How are we going to explain to her that I’m coming to bring her here? Won’t it put her on alert?”
“We won’t tell her that. You’ll go to Rosenthal on the pretext of doing something for me. You two travel here together. If she agrees to come, that is.” I clear my throat. “I still don’t know how Elizabeth looks. Is there any picture of her in the file besides those from when she was young?”
Lily smiled. “I’ve just gotten the photos from last weekend.”
She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and turned it on. “Here, she said, passing it to me. “Swipe to the left for the next image.”
Once again, Elizabeth Chatwin took my breath away.
She was beautiful. Her facial features combined the sensual, exotic beauty of her mother and the vigorous, wholesome handsomeness of Conrad Chatwin. She had a clear, proportional face with elegant cheekbones, wide-set eyes, full lips and a firm, well-defined square jawline, which gave her otherwise aristocratic features the impression of robust health and vitality. Her long, dark hair, held away from her face with a hairband, was in striking contrast with her fair complexion, making me realize the true meaning of the expression “peaches-and-cream skin.” Her smile, warm, yet somehow shy, revealed a set of perfectly straight and white teeth.
“Her eyes are grey. I thought they were brown,” I said.
“She has very pretty eyes. Light grey, with golden speckles in the irises, maybe that’s why. I’ve never seen eyes like hers.”
The girl with gilded eyes. How exquisite.
Lily tapped on the screen. “This is Lottie. She’s very protective of Elizabeth.”
“Mother hen, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that.” She pointed, one by one, to the others captured in the photo. “Jacob Wakefield, Sam’s son. A cute and smart brat. This tall young man is Andy Prentice. He works as a night-time security guard at the Baker Block. He let Elizabeth into the buildings so that she could do the inspection.”
“She told me about him. How tall is Elizabeth?” I asked. “She’s sitting in every picture.”
“Oh, you didn’t go through the whole report, then? I mentioned it in Personal Life.”
“I’d expected it right after DOB. I didn’t read the whole Personal chapter. Unless there’s something else you think I should know, I’m not going to.”
“There’s nothing else. How tall is she? Hmmm ... You’re what? Six-two and change? Barefoot, she’s probably ...” she tilted her head, assessing me, “just up to your shoulder.”
I glanced at my shoulder. So, five-two, five-three. In my dreams, she had been tall and willowy—and naked, soft, with that insanely arousing dark triangle between her legs—but I didn’t feel like broadcasting the nighttime fantasies of my subconscious. “I imagined her taller,” was all I said.
“That’s because almost everybody here is tall, and so the average woman seems small. Elizabeth likes wearing killer heels, so she does look taller than she is. I have no idea how she can walk in them.”
“I was just curious.”
Lily cast me a sidelong glance and smiled. “She’s very proportional, I can say that. Not an extra ounce anywhere, but not a size two either. Nice cleavage; curvy in all the right places. It’s really not for me to talk about it, but she has a fabulous body. Ask Azem if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you the same.”
The hell I would. And I would appreciate if Azem didn’t have any opinion at all about Elizabeth’s cleavage and curves. “I trust your assessment, Lily,” I said.
“Thank you. From what I was able to learn about her, Elizabeth Chatwin is a good, honest and trustworthy person. With a notable absence of excitement in her recent life. Now go figure.”
“Well, getting acquainted with gwerin y blaidd, long-lived humans and a couple of wizards and Tel-Urughs will change it drastically. Her whole life is about to turn upside down.”
“That too, but I was thinking more about personal and emotional excitement, you know ... Now, off I go. Azem said he needed me to do something for him. If I finish early, maybe I’ll still have time to go to Red Cliffs.” She hesitated for a moment. “I didn’t have a lunch date with Adam. We’re just friends anyway. I promised Mom I’d go shopping with her.”
“And you mentioned Adam to Azem just to rile him up?”
“As if he cares.”
“He obviously does because he stopped you from going. Lily, why don’t you talk to him? Tell him how you feel. If you wait for him to tell you, you might be in for a long wait. Men are chickens when it comes to their feelings.”
For a long moment, Lily was at a loss for words. “And what if he rejects me?”
“Why would he?”
She sighed. “Maybe he isn’t ready. I think I fell in love with Azem the moment I saw him. It was that day last year when we fought with Seth’s forces. I was certain he felt the same about me, but he was hesitant.” She shrugged. “I thought I’d imagined it. It turned out he had a girlfriend back in Winston. They broke up when he returned, but in the meantime, I went to Europe, broken-hearted, believing he didn’t want me.” She threw her arms in the air. “How could I know when he didn’t tell me anything? Why is it so hard for men to talk about their feelings?”
I stood up and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “But now you’re both here. Start anew. You’re gonna spend a good part of the day in the same room. Use it as an opportunity to get closer. Now, call your mom and tell her you’re coming. I’ll talk to Azem. Whatever you need to do for him can wait.”
She sighed and briefly rested her head on my chest. In a spontaneous, fatherly gesture I kissed the crown of her head.
In that instant, a strange thought popped into my mind: that I would very much like to have a daughter of my own.