Autumn Thorns (30 page)

I knelt to clean up the mess before the cats got into it, still wondering who had put the bug in place. I didn't want to bring up the subject of Cú Chulainn's Hounds just yet—but would they have really bugged the home of their president? But then . . . Lila was here. Duvall wasn't the only one who used the phone.

Aidan glanced at me. “I can tell you don't know what to think, Kerris. But let's finish sweeping the house first before we talk this over.”

We checked out all the other rooms and found nothing. I wasn't about to reveal the secret room to him, though. Grandfather or not, I wanted to keep some secrets for myself.

When we were back downstairs, I turned to him. “Okay, before we go any further, I want to know something. I know this is a painful subject. I can tell you still miss Lila after all these years. But why did she send you away? What did Duvall hold over her head that made it possible for him to force her to marry him?”

Aidan settled into a chair as Peggin emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray. She had made a pot of tea and set out an assortment of cookies. She poured, while Bryan jumped up to help her hand out the cups. I was grateful when I saw she had opted for a raspberry lemon tea rather than caffeine. I was just about wrung out and my nerves were shot.

Clearing his throat, Aidan took a sip of the tea. “I was born in 1736, Kerris. I came here, to the United States, in 1922—my clan sent me. From the beginning, my parents knew I was to guard a spirit shaman, but it would not be till later in life. When I arrived in Whisper Hollow, I could still pass for a teenager and so I enrolled in high school. I met Lila when she was fifteen, and we began dating. Trust me, I never touched her in any untoward way, not until she made the first move—and then it was just kissing. I told her I wanted to save myself for marriage because while I fell, and fell hard, I wasn't about to take advantage of a woman who wasn't of full consent by the law of the land.”

I realized he thought I might be uncomfortable with the idea of a man who was over two hundred years old making goo-goo eyes at my underage grandmother. “I'm dating a man who was born in 1872. I think age gaps kind of go out the window at this point, as long as you weren't feeling up a young teen.”

He ducked his head, smiling. “I just wanted you to know that I always treated your grandmother with utmost respect.”

“I believe you.” And I did.

“She knew who I was, by the way. She knew right away—the first day we met, she looked at me and said, ‘You're my guardian, Aidan Corcoran, and I'm going to marry you one day.' And I did not argue with her.”

I laughed, then. I could imagine Lila doing just that. “I wish I had known her before Duvall. I saw glimpses of the girl you're talking about, but he changed her.”

Aiden's look darkened. “Duvall did at that. He was always a dark soul. He was two years older than she was, and until I came around, she said he paid little attention to her. But after we started to date, Duvall was always hanging around the outskirts, watching. When we got engaged—she was seventeen—things grew worse. He was constantly trying to get her to go out with him. I wanted to beat him senseless, but Lila begged me not to. She was scared because Duvall and his friends had joined the Cú Chulainn's Hounds. You know who they are? I'm not sure how much your grandmother had a chance to tell you.”

“Not as much as I wished. I left home when I was eighteen and only now returned. Grandmother left me her Shadow Journal, but there's so much I don't know yet. And yes, I know of the Hounds.”

“Well, things grew more tense, and then one day, I was out for a walk in Bramblewood Thicket. A group jumped me—Duvall and several of his friends—and beat me a good one. As strong as shapeshifters are, there's a limit to how many opponents we can fight off. But I managed to break free and, in the scuffle, I slammed one of them hard and he landed against a tree trunk. I don't even remember his name; he wasn't from Whisper Hollow.”

Bryan growled. “Not good.”

“Not good is right.” Aidan frowned, then let out a long sigh. “He hit hard, and broke his neck. Duvall just laughed. He told me that if I didn't leave town, he'd tell the police that I had murdered his buddy.”

“But you were the victim—” It seemed hard to believe that the police wouldn't take that into account, but then I stopped. I had only to look so far as the news to see that this happened on a regular basis. Someone portrayed as a thug when they were, in fact, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“The chief of police at that time was a friend of Duvall's family. My blood was on the body—I had been cut and had bled all over him when I was fighting. I was an outsider, and Duvall and his friends had the Hounds to back him, and the members of that group? They had clout in this town and in other towns.”

“What happened? Did you leave?”

“No, I decided to tough it out. I was determined to find a way around it, but they began to threaten Lila. One of his buddies had taken pictures of me attacking the man, then of the body. They sent copies of them to Lila and told her that if she didn't agree to marry Duvall and send me packing, they'd turn everything over to the cops. They would tell them that she knew about it, and that I'd hang and her family would be dragged into a major scandal.”

“Blackmail. And given the high placement of some of the Hounds, they probably could have managed to implicate her somehow.” Peggin was sitting cross-legged on the sofa. She reached for another cookie. “What did she do?”

“She confronted me and I told her the truth.” He shrugged. “I told her I'd face whatever they threw at me, that somehow I'd prove my innocence, but she was afraid for my life and she was afraid for her family. She ordered me to leave. I begged her to reconsider, but she said she couldn't live with herself if something happened to me. We fought for three days about it, and finally, I realized she wasn't going to back down. I left, though I sent her my address and kept in touch with her secretly.”

“And she gave in to their demands and married Duvall.” I mulled over the story. “So what happened in 1973 that she . . .” I didn't know how to say
My grandmother paid a booty call to you
, so I just left the sentence unfinished.

“We had been writing for years—she had a post office box that Duvall didn't know about, and I wrote to her, never signing my letters and never putting a return address on them. She was desperately unhappy, and at one point, I told her to take a trip to Seattle—we would meet. Her mother knew, I think. Mae was sharp as a tack. So Lila showed up, and . . . well . . . all the old feelings were still there. She was unhappy because she couldn't get pregnant. We slept together—it was the best weekend of my life—and then she went home. A few months after that, I got a letter. She was pregnant, with my child. After Tamil was born, I got one last letter. I had sent a locket for the baby.”

“I found it. That's how I recognized you tonight.” I smiled softly, thinking about the rocky road my grandmother had walked.

“Lila wrote to me saying it was too dangerous to keep in contact. She told me she'd always love me, but she didn't dare let Duvall find out Tamil wasn't his child. She was afraid he'd take it out on the baby if he did. And that was the last I ever heard from her.”

I stared out the window at the dark night. But Duvall
had
found out—he had known since the beginning. And, for whatever reason, he had eventually done just what Lila feared he might—only years later. Why, I didn't yet know, but the fact was, my grandfather had known he was sterile and he'd never told my grandmother. So when she showed up pregnant, the question was: Did he know who the father was? And if so, why had he taken so long to avenge himself?

P
eggin took off for home, and Bryan stayed over that night. I put Aidan in the guest room. By the time he was done with his story, I was too exhausted to do anything but retreat to bed. The next day, Aidan would keep a low profile—he would be too recognizable to a number of people who might still remember him.

*   *   *

B
ryan and I were up at dawn—he had a busy day ahead of him before we headed to the meeting that night. “I'll grab a bite at home. I have food that needs to be eaten. Call me if you need me. I'll be back at around five or six.” He gave me a hurried kiss and then headed out the back door toward his house. After he left, I fed the cats and made myself some toast and eggs for breakfast before settling in with Lila's journal at the table.

Half an hour later, around seven
A.M.
, Sophia called. She had plenty of news.

“I just got off the phone with Ivy. We're certain the remains are those of your father. I'm so sorry, Kerris. I also had
ballistics look at your mother's jacket. The hole? Matches the bullets that belong to your grandfather's gun. While we can't be absolutely certain, I'm willing to state that evidence points to the gun in the office being the likely weapon that fired the bullet through the jacket. We've sent the blood on the jacket and bone scrapings from your mother's remains out for DNA analysis. This will take some time, but I'm betting there's a match, given what you've told me. While we're going on circumstantial evidence, my guess is that your grandfather did have something to do with your mother's death.”

I wondered whether to tell her that Duvall hadn't been a blood relative, but then decided that could wait till later. “What will happen if it's a match?”

“We'll close her case with him listed as the likely suspect. You need to make arrangements, by the way, for her remains.”

“I will.” I frowned. The fact still remained that I knew Duvall hadn't been acting alone. “What if I suspect he had help and that the person I think was involved is still alive?”

“The problem is, do you have any proof?”

That stopped me. The fact was, I had nothing to link Heathrow to my mother's death other than her spirit showing up pointing fingers when I'd been talking to him. And that wasn't admissible in court. “No, to be honest, I don't.”

“Then there wouldn't be much we could do about it. We have to have something to go on in order to investigate, especially when we're potentially exposing a living person to a murder accusation.” She sighed. “Look, you find me some evidence that I can act on, and I promise you, I'll move on it. But until then, my hands are tied.”

I cleared my throat. “All right. I'll see what I can do.”

“Just don't put yourself—or anybody else—in danger.” She paused. “Talk to Frank and Gareth tonight. Don't ask questions of me, just do it. You know what I'm referring to.” And with that, she ended the call.

My grandfather was still asleep, so I went back to my studies. Luckily, my photographic memory would help me with the rituals I had to learn. The journal was filled with them, along with notations for every time Lila had been
called out to calm the dead, which seemed to have increased in frequency as the years went on. In fact, the last two years were packed with more and more cases of the dead crossing back from the Veil.

By the time Aidan appeared in the kitchen, I was almost done. I still didn't know any more about what was going on—except that Lila had suspected Magda of stirring up the spirits not only in the graveyard but in the forest. She had also expressed concern that as the power structure of the town changed, Magda's personal influence was growing while the Hounds were actually waning. And she considered Magda a far worse threat than the Hounds. I set aside the book and looked up at my grandfather.

He was eyeing the espresso machine with a smile. “Your grandmother loved her caffeine.”

“And you?”

“Like a fish to water. May I?” He moved to make himself a drink and I nodded. As he deftly handled the machine, I opened the refrigerator.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

“Oh, eggs would be good, and toast. I can fend for myself, Kerris. You don't have to wait on me.”

But I didn't mind. Over the past few days I had discovered that I liked having people around me. I had been such a loner in Seattle that I'd forgotten how social I could be. “Not a problem. How many eggs and how do you want them?”

“Three, scrambled is fine.” He pulled himself a couple of shots and added hot water for an Americano. As he settled himself at the table, he added, “You have yourself a fine man in Bryan. I'm so glad he's here for you.”

I cracked the eggs into a dish, whipping them with a fork as the pan heated, and popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. “Tell me more about you. I am so new to this. Bryan changes into a wolf. What about you?”

“My clan? The Corcorans are lion shifters. Kings of the jungle, kings of the shapeshifters.” His eyes twinkled. “I so wish I could have met my girl. Do you remember her, Kerris? Tell me what happened to my daughter.”

As I finished cooking his eggs, I told him everything I had found out. “Duvall killed her, but I know he had help. And I know who helped him. I just don't know how to prove it. I also think that he killed my father. The question is, why did he wait so long to kill my mother? If he wanted revenge, wouldn't it have been worse to do it while she was a baby? That would have destroyed Lila.”

“That's a good question. Tell you what, my dear. I'll go out today and scout around. I promise to keep a low profile. You tell me where you found their bodies and I'll see what I can find out.”

“Are you sure it's safe?” I set the plate of food in front of him. “What if somebody recognizes you?”

“Nobody will see me. I'm not going to hang around the center of town.” He wouldn't hear of me coming with him, so I told him where we had discovered Tamil's grave, and I gave him a spare key.

“Just be careful, all right? By the way, can I tell Ellia and Ivy you're here?”

He gave me a short nod. “Yes, you can at that. I would like to see them again, if they're willing. I want them to know why I left. Why your grandmother married Duvall. They were always on my side and I wish to thank them.”

After he ate and had taken off, I decided to try out one of the rituals I had found in Lila's journal. She had spelled out a rite to prevent the Ankou from entering the house, though she had also upped the ante through having Ivy enchant some of my toys. I spent the rest of the morning drawing the Runes of the Void onto every entrance in the house, following her instructions. As the energy sank into the walls of the house, a deep peace settled around me. She had recommended strengthening them every month, and so I marked my calendar so I wouldn't forget.

By then, it was afternoon, so I headed outside to the garden in back. The house sat on a half acre, and the backyard was a tangle of overgrown foliage. I had no clue why Lila had let it go, but after the mist had crept through, I didn't have any
intention of leaving it to rack and ruin. The less clutter, the less chance for something to sneak in.

I found the pruning shears and a saw and shovel and hoe, and under the drizzly day, I got to work. My breath coalesced into white puffs—it was downright chilly—but I worked away for several hours, taking my nervous energy out on the undergrowth. By the time it was almost four, I had cut away most of the debris and hauled it over to a pile in the corner. The rosebushes had been in need of a good pruning, as had the butterfly bushes; I cut the wisteria back from where it was threatening to wind over to the house and then weeded the flower beds. It would take me several sessions, but by the time I was done for the day, the backyard looked a hundred times better.

Pausing by the kitchen door, I pulled off my muddy sneakers, thinking that it would have been nice to have a back porch right about now. I shrugged off my jacket and fixed myself another latte. Daphne came in, meowing for petting, and soon I had all three cats perched on the table for a grooming session.

It was four
P.M.
, and I hadn't heard from Aidan. I was starting to get worried when his truck pulled into the driveway and he hopped out. He struck a fine figure, all right, and I shook my head, thinking that he was actually my grandfather. It was going to take some getting used to—with Ivy and him.

And what about Bryan?
The thought raced unbidden through my head.
What about when you start to age and he doesn't? What are you going to do then?
I tried to shake it away, but a niggle of worry had settled in.

Aidan rang the bell and I answered. “You have a key, you don't have to ring the bell.”

“It's not my house, and you were home. I wasn't about to intrude. If your car had been gone and nobody answered, I would have let myself in.” He was soaked, and it was obvious he had been out prowling through the woods.

“Let me make you some coffee. You look soaked through. Do you want a towel?”

He held up his hand. “Another Americano, three shots, please. Thank you. And, if you don't mind, a sandwich or something would do nicely. I'll get the towel. I know where the bathroom is.”

By the time I fixed his coffee and made him a thick turkey sandwich, he was back, looking a lot drier. He had changed his clothes and toweled off his hair. He settled in at the table and glanced out the window. It was almost dark, but he squinted through the glass.

“Looks like you were busy out there.”

“Yeah, I had to get things in order. Lila loved her gardens. It was hard to see them so overgrown. So . . . find out anything?”

“Nothing around the graves. But I revisited several old haunts. Lila was right. The energy is shifting. The woods have become far more dangerous. There are creatures roaming out there who have no good in their hearts, and I'm pretty sure that last time I was here, they were sleeping. Magda is waking them.” He took a long sip of his coffee and smacked his lips in a satisfied way. Leaning back, he played with his coffee cup. “What are you planning to do next? I fear for your safety.”

“Well, I found a ritual to guard against the Ankou. The house should be safe enough from them for now. I am meeting with the Crescent Moon Society tonight. I thought I might ask them for help.”

“That's not a bad idea, but I'm going to warn you about something. If they're the same as they were before I left, they'll have more than enough internal politics to make things sticky. Mae and Lila used to complain about the bureaucracy even then.”

“Point noted.” Lovely. Why was it that any group deciding to form itself into an organization seemed to create its own mass of red tape? “I'll keep my eyes open. You do know that if I tell Ellia and Ivy about you, the CMS is going to find out?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it's better that way. But be careful, Kerris. Treachery is sometimes found under the guise of
friendship, and people who love you can let you down, even if they don't mean to.” Glancing out the window, he nodded. “Here comes your guardian. You should get ready for your meeting tonight. Show up neat and composed. You have a better chance of impressing them and not getting pushed to the side than if you show up looking like you just came tromping out of the woods, and your time in the garden has given you just that look, my dear.” And with that, he insisted on greeting Bryan and making dinner while I went in to take a shower.

*   *   *

T
he drive to the garage took exactly seven minutes, and as we pulled in, I noticed the cars parked along the side. Bryan hoisted the binders and ledger as I opened the door and slid out. The garage seemed empty, though the lights were on, but a man was sitting inside, waiting for us.

“Wait here.” He spoke into a cell phone.

A moment later, Ellia appeared from a door to the back and motioned for us to follow her. We passed into the hallway leading to the office and restroom, but Ellia stopped in front of the janitor's closet. She held her finger to her lips and opened the door, shooing us into the tiny room. The floor was concrete, with a pink and blue design in the center of it that looked like tile to me. Once we were inside, she closed the door and turned to the back wall, where there was a row of coat hooks. As we watched, she pressed the second one from the left and a panel opened up to a hidden staircase. “Be cautious, there are railings but it's steep.”

She led the way down, and we descended the spiral staircase. We must have gone down forty steps before we reached the bottom of the chamber, which opened into a large room with two doors, one on either side. And there, watching us, was Michael Brannon, the owner of the Broom & Thistle. He was holding a long sword, the edge of which glistened with a razor-sharp glint.

Ellia nodded to him. “We're here.”