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THE RIDE TO ADARE WAS spent in silence. Perhaps it was the early morning hour and the way everything around them seemed to still have the residue of sleep smeared over it, or perhaps it was the events of the last few days, but every time Helena tried to start a conversation with Graham, he barely spoke.
She couldn’t blame him, though. Not really. Not after what she had done to him, what she had said.
Looking over at him, she saw his dark brown eyes were shrouded in shadows, and the thin lines around his lips seemed deeper, as if he had grown older overnight. She had done that to him. She had broken his heart.
Didn’t he understand he had broken hers as well? It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, or that she didn’t care—her love was the reason she’d had to break up with him. She needed to protect him.
The old adage came to her mind that sometimes, when you loved something, you had to set it free.
Yet, what if they didn’t really want to be free?
Or what if he did? What if he just didn’t know how to deal with her now that they weren’t an us? A little prick of hurt rose inside of her, but she quickly squashed the feeling. She had no right to feel hurt.
“Do you think we’ll be able to find the men from the stables?” she asked, in an effort to fill the tense silence between them.
“They can’t be too far away, or too well hidden. As long as we talk to the right people, I’m sure we can at least narrow down the possibilities.”
“Did you call Giorgio? Maybe he can help us.” She knew she was grasping at straws. Giorgio hadn’t seen the men, but they had to do something...anything that would help them keep others from being hurt.
“I did. He’s looking into the hospital for us, seeing if he can follow up on the nurses who didn’t have alibis for their whereabouts on the day of Neill’s murder. Right now, it sounds like there are three possibilities—a nurse who works in the med surg unit, and two from rehab. He said he was leaning toward the med surg nurse, a man named Blane.”
“Blane?” She remembered the man she had hired. He had come from Northern Ireland and been working in the medical field for the last ten years. He had seemed intelligent, well-spoken, and ambitious—even asking if there was a leadership position that he could apply for. Had it all been because he had been hired by the HG to infiltrate their hospital? Had it all been a show?
Nothing about the man had put her off, but that didn’t mean she, and the others seated on the board for the interview, hadn’t made a mistake.
“Why does he think it’s Blane?”
Graham shrugged. “He’s been looking into each of the nurses’ lives. Blane was involved in ALF when he was in college.”
ALF was an antagonistic group working for animal rights and environmental protection. They were known for infiltrating organizations with known questionable practices or inhumane treatment of animals, in some cases even bombing the buildings and headquarters after they had saved the creatures.
The organization certainly used the same tactics as HG. But how could someone who spent their days helping others, guiding them through the terror of injury and health issues, also want to hurt someone—or kill them? It seemed against the nature of a nurse to act in that way—especially a nurse like Blane, who’d seemed, above all other things, kind.
Humans were crazy. No matter how hard she tried to understand them, she would never be able to truly understand the why and how of how they worked.
Heck, maybe Graham was wondering the same thing about her—how, if they cared for one another, she could want to push him away.
He pulled the car to a stop in front of a small coffee shop just down the road from Barbara’s Books, her favorite bookshop. Anytime she’d been lost, she’d always found her way to that place and sought comfort in the pages of a novel. It had been her escape.
She turned to ask Graham if he’d like to go to the bookstore after coffee, but he was already out of the car and closing the door. Had he really wanted to escape their close quarters so badly that he’d nearly jumped out?
He must hate her right now.
Maybe she was crazy to think she should stay. She loved healing, but often it was only the afflictions of the body she seemed to really be able to fix. Injuries of the heart and the head—well, those were entirely different things. And most who came to the hospital weren’t there for injuries to their bodies.
Graham walked around and opened the door of the car. He held out his hand to help her out. As their fingers touched, she felt the warm buzz of electricity that had always seemed to come at the beginning of their relationship. Had some of their old attraction returned? Or did it have to do with the science of their bodies? Now that they weren’t as directly connected, were their bodies trying to pull them back together? Or was the feeling of electricity a warning that they should stay apart?
She stood up and stepped onto the path, letting go of his hand. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing the skirt of her polka-dotted dress.
“You look nice today,” he said, motioning toward her.
“Ach, thanks,” she said, with a dismissive wave.
Normally she was the type to just wear jeans and a pullover, but she had been feeling down, and she found that sometimes the best way to start feeling better was by looking good. Deep down, though, she couldn’t deny that perhaps part of the reason for the dress was to remind Graham of how beautiful she could be.
It didn’t make any sense that she’d want to attract the man she’d broken up with, but so much of her just wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
They walked into the coffee shop in awkward silence. She opened and closed her hands, trying to rid herself of the numbness that had come after he let her go.
“’Ello,” a stout woman with white hair called from the kitchen. “Top o’ the morning to ye. I’ll be along in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. So make yourselves comfy.”
“And the rest of the day to yourself,” Graham said, returning the greeting.
Helena smiled at the woman’s enthusiasm. It felt good to be around someone who seemed free and unweighted by the world. She led the way to a table by the window, a place where they could look out onto the street and wouldn’t be forced to stare at one another.
The menu was simple, either a fry-up or oatmeal and toast. She skimmed the menu, but she wasn’t hungry, especially not once Graham’s knee grazed hers, sending another buzz of electricity up to her core.
The white-haired woman made her way toward them with two mugs and a pot of coffee. “Fine mornin’, ain’t it?” she asked, motioning to the gray, overcast sky outside. “At least we ain’t gettin’ buckets.”
Graham gave her a polite smile. “It is. Been busy this morn’?”
The woman glanced around the empty shop as if in answer. “It’ll get there. Lots of people on holiday comin’ and goin’. You must be goin’ back up at the manor.”
“Aye, it’s been right busy the last few days,” Graham said in a noncommittal way.
The woman sat the mugs down on the table and filled each of them without asking whether or not they wanted coffee. “There’ve been some strange folks comin’ through here. Say they be comin’ your way. What kind of things are you doin’?”
“What do ya mean?” Helena asked, maybe a touch too excitedly, and Graham sent her a look.
The woman gave a light smile and shrugged. “Well, ’twas one guy...he kept askin’ me if I was excited about the change.” The woman fanned her face like she was having a hot flash. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him I went through the change decades ago.”
Helena laughed, and the sound filled the small shop. Graham’s cheeks took on a light blush that made him look handsome in the thin morning light streaming through the windows.
“Now, I ain’t assumin’ he was talkin’ ’bout my bits and bobbles. Do you know why he was talkin’ ’bout the change?” she asked, putting air quotes around the words.
Graham shook his head. “Nah, ma’am. I dunno.”
“Ain’t it a little late for you all to be busy up at the manor? It ain’t the holiday season anymore. Or does this have to do with the rally that’s been going on in town? Have you seen the kind of men and women that thing is attractin’? It’s like a swarm of blowflies.”
“You had any other run-ins with them? Or have they been good customers?” Graham asked, carefully avoiding the woman’s prying questions.
“Ach, they’ve been fine. Just fine. It’s always good to be busy. Mostly they keep themselves to themselves.” She looked up like she was trying to catch a drifting thought. “Actually, truth be told, most o’ the time they seem to stop their chatterin’ anytime I come around. They must think I’m some kind of nosy Nellie, ya know.” She said it as if people were committing some mortal sin by keeping their business from her.
“I’m sure that ain’t what it is,” Helena said, putting her hand on the woman’s.
“I thought maybe I was making something out of nothin’, but ye know people around here—the locals—we ain’t nothin’ like that. We stick together.” Some of her animation returned.
“Have you seen a man around here—balding, gray haired, a little stout?” Graham asked, obviously thinking of the man they had seen last night in the stables.
“Aye, boy, that could be about all the men over forty who come through these doors.” She laughed. “Really though, I see that kind of man almost all day, every day. You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific.”
They could hardly tell her the man might be a murderer involved in the HG.
“He’s probably runnin’ with another man,” Helena offered.
“Again, love, that’s how men of a certain age are. They run in packs.”
Helena laughed, imagining a group of sixty-something men moving through the street like wild dogs.
“If you want, loves, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. Maybe you can catch him in today’s comings and goings. I’ll get you a couple of fry-ups goin’. You must be famished.” With that, the woman spun on her heel and moved toward the kitchen as though she couldn’t wait to tell the cook that the son of the manor’s owner was sitting in the front with a girl.
Helena was sure it would reignite any gossip that had been lying dormant through the village about Graham and his gypsy—if nothing else, at least the woman had been kind to her.
She and Graham sat in silence for a moment. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say, or how to bridge the distance that seemed to be growing between them.
“Is there anything else we need to do for this afternoon’s ceremonies?” he asked, finally speaking up.
Of course he would go straight to business.
She shook her head. “Everything’s in place for the luncheon. Mary’s in charge of the food and the staff has been preppin’ for days. It should go off without a hitch.” The blood drained from her face. “Ya don’t think the HG has infiltrated the manor, do ya?” She leaned in so she could speak without being heard. “Ya don’t think they’d poison the food or anything?”
Graham answered with a quick laugh. “You don’t really think Mary would let anyone, for a single second, put her reputation in jeopardy, do you? That woman lives for what comes out of those doors.”
He was right; Mary was in complete control. Helena thought back to the first day she had met Mary Margaret—the woman had made more than sure that Helena knew her role in the kitchens. Yet, once she’d proven herself, Mary had been kind. She had been Helena’s first true ally at the manor, and one of her closest friends, but they hadn’t seen much of each other since Helena had buried herself in work at the hospital.
The waitress came out holding two fry-ups. The eggs looked delicious—perfect yellow runniness with a firm white edge. Yet, as hungry as she should have been, Helena couldn’t do anything but push beans and bits of egg around her plate with her fork.
“It’s going to be okay, Helena,” Graham said. “Everything. We’ll get through this.”
“How? I feel more afraid than ever before.” She hated saying the word aloud. It made her sound weak and frail.
He pointed out the window. Across the street was the Boar’s Head Inn. It was the nicer of the two inns in town. Its front door was made of heavy hardwood, stained dark by centuries of visitor’s hands.
“The men from the stables—if they’re simply visiting the village, they’re probably staying there. If we don’t see them come out, we’ll go over there and talk to whoever is working the desk and see if we can find anything out.”
It was going to go just about as well as it had with the waitress. They had so little to work with. Graham had never seen the man’s face, and she’d barely seen him at all.
Graham was picking at his food just as she had been, giving his nervousness away. He must have known their chances as well, but maybe he was right to keep his feelings to himself.
She opened her mouth to speak, but there was a long creak as the front door to the shop opened. Looking up from her steadily cooling eggs, she watched in horror as her da stumbled in and collapsed on the wooden floor.
He looked at her. “Gra...” As the word tumbled from his lips, his knees gave out, and he slumped to the ground.
His blood pooled on the floor as a strangled scream tore from the depths of Helena’s soul.
