Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

"Madam, the locksmith is here?"

"Please send him in."

Ehlena got to her feet, and went over to the safe to touch its smooth, matte panel and its black-and-silver dial. She'd found the thing only because she'd been so taken by the depiction of the sun setting over the ocean that she'd put her hand on the frame on impulse. When the whole picture popped forward, she'd been horrified that she'd hurt the mounting in some way, except then she'd looked behind the frame...and what do you know.

"Madam? This is Roff, son of Rossf."

Ehlena smiled and walked over to a male who was dressed in black coveralls and carrying a black tool case. As she went to put her hand out, he took off his cap and bowed low, as if she were someone special. Which was beyond strange. After years of being just a civilian, the formality made her uncomfortable, but she was learning that she had to let others honor the social etiquette. Asking them not to, whether they were doggen or workmen or advisers, just made things worse.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"It is a pleasure to be of service." He looked over at the safe. "This is the one?"

"Yes, I don't have the combination to it." They headed for the thing. "I was hoping there was some way you could get into it?"

The wince he tried to hide was not encouraging. "Well, madam, I know this kind of safe, and it's not going to be easy. I'd have to bring in an industrial drill to get through the pins and release the door, and it would be noisy. Also, when I've finished the safe would be ruined. I mean no disrespect, but is there no way of retrieving the combination?"

"I wouldn't know where to look for it." She glanced around at the shelves of books and then over to the desk. "We just moved in, and there were no instructions."

The male followed her lead and ran his eyes around the room. "Usually owners leave such a thing in a hidden place. If you could only find it, I could show you how to reset the combination so that you could reuse the safe. As I said, if I have to drill in, it will have to be replaced."

"Well, I've been through the desk when I was exploring after we first came here."

"Did you find any hidden compartments in it?"

"Er...no. But I was just going through random papers and trying to make some space for my things."

The male nodded across at the piece of furniture. "In a lot of desks like that, you'll find at least one drawer with a false bottom or back that hides a small place. I wouldn't want to presume, but I could try to help you find one? Also, the moldings in a room like this might conceal spaces as well."

"I'd love another set of eyes on this, thanks." Ehlena went over and, one by one, removed the drawers of the desk, laying them side by side on the floor. As she went along, the male took out a penlight and looked into the holes that were revealed.

She hesitated when she got to the big drawer on the bottom left, not wanting to see what she'd stored there. But it wasn't as though the locksmith could see through the damn thing.

Muttering a quick curse, she pulled on the brass handle and did not look at all the sections she'd kept from the Caldwell Courier Journal, each folded in on itself to hide the articles she'd read and saved even though she didn't want to read them yet again.

She put that drawer as far away as she could. "Well, that's the last one."

With the male's head wedged under the desk, his voice echoed. "I believe there's a...I need my tape measure from my tool-"

"Here, I'll get it."

When she passed the thing over, he seemed astonished that she was helping. "Thank you, madam."

She knelt down beside him as he ducked backed under. "Is something off?"

"There appears to be...Yes, this is more shallow than the others. Let me just..." There was a squeak and the male's arm jerked. "Got it."

As he sat up, he had a rough-cut box in his workworn hands. "I believe the lid flips open, but I'll let you do it."

"Wow, I feel like Indiana Jones, just without the bullwhip." Ehlena lifted the top panel off and..."Well, no combination. Just a key." She took the slip of steel out, looked it over, then replaced it. "Might as well leave it where we found it."

"Let me show you how to put the hidden drawer back."

The male left twenty minutes later, after the two of them had knocked on all the walls and shelving and molding in the room and found nothing. Ehlena figured she'd search around one last time, and if she still ended up empty-handed, she'd have him come back with his big guns to bust the safe open.

Returning to the desk, she put the drawers into their slots, pausing when she got to the one that held all the newspaper articles.

Maybe it was the fact that she didn't have her father to worry about. Maybe it was the fact that she had some free time.

More likely, she was just having a weak moment in fighting back the need to know.

Ehlena took all the papers out, opening the folds and spreading them across the desk. All of the articles were about Rehvenge and the ZeroSum bombing, and no doubt when she cracked today's edition, she would find another to add to the collection. The reporters were fascinated by the story, and there had been a ton of coverage on it in the last month-not just in print, but on the evening news as well.

No suspects. No arrests. Skeleton of a male found in the rubble of the club. Other businesses he'd owned now run by his associates. Drug trade in Caldwell brought to a halt. No more murders of dealers.

Ehlena picked up an article off the top. It wasn't among the more recent ones, but she'd looked at it so much, she'd smudged the newsprint. Next to the text was a blurry picture of Rehvenge, snapped by an undercover police officer two years ago. Rehvenge's face was in shadow, but the sable coat and the cane and a Bentley were all clear.

The past four weeks had distilled her memories of Rehvenge, from the times they'd been together to the way things had ended with that trip she'd taken to ZeroSum. Instead of time dissolving the images in her head, what she remembered was becoming even clearer, like whiskey strengthening over time. And it was strange. Oddly enough, of all the things that had been said, good and bad, what came back to her most often was something that female security guard had barked at her as Ehlena had been on her way out of the club.

...that male has put himself in a rat-hole situation for me, his mother, and his sister. And you think you're too good for him? Nice. Where the hell do you come from that's so perfect?

His mother. His sister. Herself.

As the words banged around her head yet again, Ehlena let her gaze wander around the study until it reached the door. The house was quiet, her father busy with Lusie and the crossword puzzle, the staff working happily.

For the first time in a month, she was by herself.

All things considered, she should take a hot bath and cozy up to a good book...but instead, she took her laptop out, cracked the screen open, and fired the thing up. She had the sense that if she followed through with what she wanted to do, she was going to end up going down into a deep, dark hole.

But she couldn't help herself.

She'd saved the clinical record searches she'd done on Rehv and his mother, and as both of them had been declared dead, the documents were technically part of public record-so she felt less as if she were invading their privacy as she called both files up.

She studied his mother's records first, seeing some familiar things from having previously scanned it, when she'd been curious about the female who had birthed him. Now, though, she took her time, searching for something specific. Although God knew what it was.

The recent notes that had been entered were nothing remarkable, just Havers's comments on the female's yearly checkups or her treatment for the occasional virus. Scrolling through page after page, she began to wonder why she was wasting time-until she got to a knee operation that had been performed on Madalina five years ago. In the pre-op notes, Havers had mentioned something about the degradation in the joint being a result of chronic-impact injury.

Chronic impact? On a female of worth from the glymera? That sounded more like what you'd get on a football player, for chrissakes, not Rehvenge's high-bred chatelaine mother.

Made no sense.

Ehlena went back farther and farther through more nothing-specials...and then starting twenty-three years from the present she started to see the entries. One after the other. Broken bones. Bruises. Concussions.

If Ehlena didn't know better...she'd swear it was domestic violence.