Vicious Grace by M. L. N. Hanover

Author:M. L. N. Hanover [Hanover, M. L. N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary, Paranormal, Fantasy, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Horror, Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 1439176299
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

“Kim,” Aubrey said. “Take a breath.”

She stopped like her shoes had been nailed to the floor. Her gaze locked on Aubrey, and her mouth opened a little, then shut. The desolation in her eyes went past tears into something else. I felt something at the back of my neck pulling my skin tighter. My rib cage might have been empty, except for the sparrow-sized heart beating itself to death against my bones. Kim held up the file.

“He put me here,” she said, and her voice had lost its frenzy. “He wanted a canary for his coal mine. Someone who would see things getting strange and call him for help. He planned to have me working at Grace Memorial. From before the wendigo. Almost from the first time we met him.”

“That doesn’t work,” Aubrey said gently. “You’re reading it wrong.”

“I’m not. He stage-managed all of it. My job interview. The research projects. All of it.”

“He couldn’t have known you’d be leaving Denver,” Aubrey said. “We weren’t even having trouble back then.”

I closed my eyes. This wasn’t how he should find out. I should have told him a year ago, just so that it wouldn’t happen this way and now. I forced myself to breathe, to look. Kim had gone gray. Less than gray. Colorless. Her shoulders slumped forward, her body turning in on itself like she was bracing for a blow.

“Eric was the trouble between us. After him, it was impossible for me to stay there. In Denver. In my life. He ruined us.”

“Kim—”

“I was sleeping with Eric, Aubrey. Before I left. Almost before we were having trouble. I didn’t even really know why until …”

She lifted the papers in her hand. I watched Aubrey understand, like I was seeing something delicate fall just too far away for me to catch it. Ex and Chogyi Jake and I weren’t even in the room with him.

“I thought there was something wrong with me,” Kim said. “Even after he died, I knew I couldn’t come back to you because whatever was broken in me would still be just as broken. Do you see?”

Ex looked between Kim and Aubrey, his face a mask of confusion and distress. Chogyi Jake leaned close to him and murmured something that made Ex’s eyes go wide. Tears were finally starting to gather in Kim’s eyes. I didn’t want to watch this. Carefully, Kim put the file down on the coffee table, half covering the blueprints of Grace. She walked down the hallway, into the secret bedroom, coming out a moment later with her purse in her hand. No one moved as she walked out the door. The sound of the latch clicking home was deep and final. Ex cleared his throat.

“Shouldn’t someone go after—”

“Leave her alone,” Aubrey said, and that closed the issue. He leaned forward and picked up the file. His face was empty. “I need to look at this.”

“Aubrey,” I said, but he didn’t look at me. He put the file in his lap, smoothed the pages, licked the tip of his index finger, and opened to the first page.

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