SWNOVELS : Chapter 73
Alexander
“We can’t kill him yet,” I told my uncle. “You know there’s more to the story than we’ve been able to uncover so far. We need to find out the whole truth before we can kill Fiona’s father. We need to know who else was involved first, before we make any moves.”
He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest.
“Are you suggesting we capture him alive and
“No. You can’t expect an Alpha to break under torture, Conrad. Honestly. He would give us nothing, and we’d just have a big mess on our hands.”
My uncle was not always so irrational and impatient.
But as much as I, myself, had grown more eager for revenge every day since I learned of my mother’s unexplainable death, so too had Uncle Conrad been growing increasingly anxious to avenge his sister. But we needed to be patient a little while longer.
“Then what?” Conrad asked, refilling first his own wine glass, then mine. “What do you propose we do?”
I’d met my uncle at his penthouse apartment for an early lunch. He was usually difficult to get away from the office during business hours, but I understood I was not welcome there while Fiona was present, and
Conrad and I had an urgent matter to discuss.
“We leave him alone,” I answered. “For now. While I identify and track down his accomplices.”
“And how are you going to do that, Alexander?”
Conrad raised an incredulous eyebrow. “We’ve spent years trying to find out who was behind it. He is the only lead we’ve come across.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully, then added, “Are you sure you don’t want to torture him? Could be worth a try.”
“Quite sure.” I gave my uncle a look of gentle reprimand.
“Well, do you have some new lead you’re not telling me about?” He squinted at me suspiciously.
“No,” I admitted, “but I will find one. Just give me a little more time. Consider this, Uncle: if we kill Fiona’s
father now, whoever else was involved may realize we’re onto them. They could go into hiding. We cannot kill him until we know who else needs to be held accountable.”
Conrad gazed out the window, swirling the wine in his glass absentmindedly. “I knew she was keeping something from me, towards the end. I should have tried harder to find out what was going on. But she never wanted to worry me with her troubles. I was the only family she had, and all she ever did was take care of me. Look out for me. Protect me.”
I had heard versions of this speech many times over the years as Conrad and I spoke often of our mutual guilt and regret surrounding our absences at the time of my mother’s murder. But this time, one part of my uncle’s familiar story struck me with new significance.
“The only family she had,” I repeated. Conrad
nodded, his gaze still fixed on the city view. “After your parents died,” I started, working out my thought while I spoke, “didn’t you and Mother go to stay with a distant relative? Before she turned eighteen and became your guardian?”
“The only family she had,” I repeated. Conrad nodded, his gaze still fixed on the city view. “After your parents died,” I started, working out my thought while I spoke, “didn’t you and Mother go to stay with a distant relative? Before she turned eighteen and became your guardian?”
Conrad blinked, returning to the present moment.
“Hmm. Agatha.” He rubbed his eyes. “I forgot all about her. Why do you ask?”
“Did Mother keep in touch with Agatha after you two moved to the city?”
“If she did, I wasn’t aware of it. Though I suppose, thinking about it now, it would not surprise me if she did.” He rested his chin in his hand and narrowed his eyes, remembering. “Yes, Alexandra was very fond of the old woman. It would not surprise me if she sent money back to her in gratitude for taking us in, once we’d gotten on our feet.”
“Where did Agatha live? Do you still have the address?”
Conrad looked confused. “My boy, we are talking about a woman who was elderly when I was a teenager. I highly doubt she is still alive.”
I shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
“You are I are going to take a little trip tonight,” I told my beta.
Kayden raised a questioning eyebrow. “What about the Mrs.?”
“Fiona is going to be home late.”
“Ah. Working late?” The question wasn’t meant to be probing, just conversational.
But I had to shake my head and admit, “No. She’s having dinner with her friend. Pretty sure she doesn’t want to see me right now.”
Kayden cocked his head to the side. “Hm,” he said, pressing his lips together. He couldn’t resist, though, and came out with the smile, asking, “What’d you do?”
“I’ll tell you about it on the road. Let’s get going.
We’ve got a couple hours’ drive out there and the same coming back.”
Kayden nodded, now jogging to keep pace with my quickened stride, catching on to my serious mood. I unlocked my luxury SUV and tossed him the keys, then made myself comfortable in the backseat.
Afternoon dimmed to evening as Kayden and I traveled past the palace district and up the highway until it ended. We wound up on a lonely two-lane road for the last and longest leg of the journey, following the road down a steep mountain pass and out into a remote, sparsely populated stretch of farmland.
“Well, you were bound to screw it up somehow,”
Kayden said, once I finished recounting the tale of my fight with Fiona’s ex and the unfortunate events that followed.
“Thank you for that.”
Kayden shrugged, leaned back and met my eyes in the rearview mirror, smiling. “It’s true.” Then he gave up the mockery and added, sincerely, “But I am sorry to hear it. You know, I never thought I’d say something like this, and least of all to you. But honestly, you and Fiona are kind of a great couple. I mean, I can’t imagine another woman that could keep you interested like this.” He returned his eyes to the road, which seemed to stretch forward ahead of us endlessly into a blank horizon.
My friend was not wrong about Fiona and me being a good match. When I claimed her, I could never have imagined how well she would fit into my life.
“And now she hates me,” I mumbled under my breath, more to myself than to Kayden.
He sighed. “Either way, I doubt she’ll leave you.”
He was right again. To a degree. Fiona was too rational to leave me while she was pregnant; she’d risk dying without my touch to keep our cub strong.
But after the child was born, that was a different question. The possibility of a future with Fiona, beyond the next few months – that’s what I feared I had just let slip through my fingers.
We drove on in silence for a while. Then, just as the sun was gleaming copper right above the horizon, threatening to vanish at any moment, I spied it: a small structure appeared in the distance as we rounded the top of a hill. Then another structure just beyond it, and another. As we neared, I discerned that the three buildings were a small house, a small barn, and a stable.
Kayden slowed the SUV gradually on the gravel road, making our arrival as slow and non-threatening as possible, just in case the inhabitants of this isolated place disliked unannounced visitors. He rolled to a stop near a rusty old pickup truck parked beside the barn.
I saw the woman, and the flock of sheep that had been following her through the field, as Kayden and I stepped out of the SUV. Her body was thin, her face tanned and deeply wrinkled. She held a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a gnarled wood cane in the other. The sounds of the car doors thudding closed behind us felt rudely disruptive, and stunned the sheep into frozen silence.
The old woman was at least fifty feet away, but the air was clear and still, and briefly extra-bright with the last blinding shards of copper sunlight shining directly at us across the plain. We locked eyes across the distance, and an expression fell over her face that
indicated, undeniably, that she recognized me.
My heart started racing. This had to be Agatha. She was alive after all.
I felt deep in my gut that I was finally on the right track. I had found the lead I’d been searching for. I was finally going to solve the mystery of my mother’s murder.
And once I did, I could finally avenge her.