29

 

I assured Sonja that, although shaken, I was fine. So she opted to take Luka’s truck to bring our mother something to eat at the hospital. Tired and out of steam, I didn’t have it in me to do anything more tonight.

Thompson offered to drive me back to the loft. We drove mostly in silence. He commented now and again on the road and repairs the storm would surely cause. The radio on the dash burped, and he occasionally shot an annoyed glance at the banter between his deputies and the dispatch.

Relieved to just sit and think, I watched the lightning pulse across the dark sky and counted the seconds until an answering roar rumbled over us.

“I was headed back this way to check on Mrs. Cahill up on the hills. She said a branch was threatening to come through her living room window,” Thompson explained as we bounced along the road littered with broken tree branches and debris from the worsening storm. Fat drops plopped on the windshield of the cruiser and splayed the lights on the hill like bright smears. “You sure you don’t want to see your father?”

“He’s getting out tomorrow, they said. I’ll go to the boat in the morning and try to get things fixed instead. That would help them out the most.”

“I have calls out to emergency rooms here on Noble, the other islands, and Seattle. If you got the guy who attacked you with that shotgun blast, he might show up.”

“If I got him, I would be surprised,” I muttered. “I wasn’t really aiming, just trying to save my father.”

The wipers made a plaintive squeak back and forth in their fight against the rain.

“I heard things are going better with you two,” Thompson said finally, his eyes not leaving the road. “You and your dad, I mean.”

“Aren’t you hooked into the grapevine,” I said with a tired smile. After a moment I added, “They like you. That’s rare.”

“The families trust me as far as they can spit,” he countered. “But thank you.”

I nodded. He was not wrong. The laws of Noble and the laws of the council didn’t always balance.

“What else do you hear?” I asked. “About the families?”

“Enough to know that what is going on is not really any of my business.” He swerved around a section of the road flooded with the rain. “And that your being here makes a lot of them nervous.”

I nodded in the dark of the car, my elbow aching from the damp air, and smiled to myself. “I always seemed to make them nervous where Siyah was concerned.”

An answering snort came from his side of the car. We moved through the small section of the road that cut through the edge of the woods, and the scent of pine and wet ground drifted over me. I closed my eyes, breathing it in.

“Can I give you some advice?” Thompson asked.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll take it,” I said and heard him chuckle.

“Fair enough.” He glanced over, the lights from the dashboard casting his face in half shadow. “I think you should tell Siyah what happened to you tonight. He’ll hear about it, and he’ll hear you came to me first, and that probably won’t sit well.”

“I told you, we’re not—?”

“Let’s just…set that whole mess aside for a moment.” He took a breath, possibly waiting for an argument from me. “It happened on his property and not for the first time, either. Every single instance, outside of what I myself witnessed, has happened on Siyah’s soil. You keeping that from him isn’t right. Plus, with the investigation of Niklos and my needing to serve a warrant for his knives, I just think…”

“You’re searching his house?”

“That’s what I’m hearing. The phone lines are down due to the storm so we couldn’t get it by fax or email. They’re going to bring the warrant out by boat once the storm clears. Possibly by Monday.”

I knew he should not be telling me this and I let his words hang in the air, trying to figure out how to respond. Biting my lip, I sighed and turned in my seat towards him. “How much do you know about me? About how I left?”

“I, well, there are rumors,” Thompson said. “About you taking something.”

“They aren’t rumors,” I said, my stomach in a knot. “They were rubies, and I took them.”

“O…K?” Thompson’s glance slid to me, his brow arched. “And the reason?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “I took them. That is the plain truth and when you hear from others that I am a thief and a liar, they are right. So all of this happening, all of what I’ve seen, that it is happening near or around the home of my former intended just as he seems to be entering into…” My voice broke and I turned, facing the window to avoid Thompson’s gaze. “It would be looked upon with suspicion, regardless of how well I describe it to your artist, or how clear it is on one of your microscope slides. To them, all it will appear to be is desperation.”

“Niklos was real, he died for real, at the hands of someone on this island,” Thompson said quietly. “You came to help your sister, despite what others thought of you, and they have to see that.”

“Niklos may have reaped the wrath of his bad connections, Sheriff,” I said. “You know that. The killer may not even be on Noble anymore. He or she may have come here and left as soon as it was done.”

“And Elgin?” Thompson asked. “He didn’t just die, he was ripped apart and now he’s glowing in my station’s morgue.”

I shrugged, unsure of what to say. Some things could be explained away, while others could not. With no way to separate them, confusion and hopelessness crowded out the breath in me and I just felt tired. Tired and vulnerable.

“I know you believe that you deserve whatever is happening to you,” Thompson said as we pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the Black Adder. He turned the car off, killing the headlights, leaving us in the dark rain. “But the secrets you kept as a scared young girl, they were not your fault. You thought you were protecting Siyah. And I may not know the whole story of why you did what you did with those rubies, but something tells me it was along those same lines. Don’t take this all on your own. Talk to him.”

A group of people stood between the cars, laughing and joking, and I watched them, my throat tight. I remembered that first night back on Noble, sneaking into the club, hoping that Siyah could help me. He’d been reluctant then, what about now? I’d all but told him he had a duty to marry Lenora.

“He looks guilty,” I said and a sliver of worry bored its way through my thoughts. “Even more so when you come with your deputies and your warrant. He’s already had to close the club once. This will look terrible. He may lose…” I didn’t know how much Thompson knew of the council, and the old habit of keeping family business within the families stayed my tongue.

“It won’t help him out any, that’s true.” Thompson nodded, his gaze fixed on the club. “But Siyah is mixed up in this somehow. Either he is in the thick of it or someone wants him to appear to be, and I think it has something to do with his plans for the boardwalk.”

“Why? To what end?” I rubbed a palm across my eyes. “The boardwalk would only bring good things to Noble.”

“Regulatory people, safety people,” Thompson said. “Tourists and families from the hill houses would mean more scrutiny. If you talked to him, told him what we know, maybe he can shed some light on things.”

“I don’t know.” I saw the side door to the club open and Siyah stepped out into the orange glow of the overhead lamp post.

“There, see, it’s like a sign. He’s probably wondering where you are right now…” Thompson’s voice trailed off with the scene that began to play out in front of us.

Siyah spoke to the open doorway, his face tight, arms rigid. A woman’s arms snaked out from the shadows, wrapped around his neck, and when he moved back he brought Lenora into light with him. She spiked her fingers through his hair, trying to pull him close, and he put his hand at her shoulders, stopping her. Siyah said something and she nodded, her hand going to her abdomen as she spoke.

My breathing hitched up as I watched.

Siyah stepped back, his brows knit.

Lenora gestured, poked herself in the chest as she said something through tears, and then pushed past him, but he caught her by the elbow, pulling her back gently. He leaned in, said something into her ear, and then she turned to him, her face relaxing. She nodded, her arms crossing low over her stomach and she shivered. Siyah took off his coat and draped it over her. Arm around her shoulders, he led her away from the club, their faces close in a hushed conversation. They crossed our field of vision, not noticing the cruiser with its lights off. Lenora’s hand splayed across his chest possessively as they walked off towards the cars.

“Maybe now isn’t the best time,” Thompson said and cleared his throat.

“Can you take me to the loft?” I said and hated the hurt in my voice.

“Sure.” Thompson started up the car and drove the short distance to Siyah’s home.

I thanked him and left without waiting for his answer. Back inside, I shut myself in the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, trying to control the ache in my throat.

As I lay in the dark of the guestroom striving for sleep that would not come, I wiped angrily at the hot tears streaming back across my temples. My faith kept me from going down a path that others could without hesitation. I told Siyah that he would do what was right by Noble, that he would be a good leader. I had meant it. I just didn’t know it would be so hard to see firsthand.