Chapter 5

Chapter Five

“I’m not sure I know very much at all,” I acknowledged ruefully, “since I didn’t even know his primary business.”

Dane walked to the bubble couch and sat on the orange blanket. He pointed to the spot next to him, which I interpreted as his invitation to join him.

With deliberate slowness, wracking my brain for anything useful about my purchaser, I crossed the small room and perched beside the Foulan.

“We do not know what detail may be helpful. Everything you can remember about him during your time together could be useful,” Dane prompted.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands clasped before me to control the urge to fidget. I spoke to the stone floor below my shoes. “Bowyer Haled introduced himself to me after he’d already purchased the right to offer me a contract.”

“What did he look like?”

An image of a tall, imposing man, slightly soft with the graying hair of middle age surfaced in my mind. “He was clearly humanoid,” I answered the question, then described Bowyer. “But he was more typical of your kind. Much furrier than you,” I added, rubbing my cheek in reference to Dane’s unexpectedly smooth face.

“Yes,” he agreed with a nod. “That is more typical.”

I remained silent, waiting for him to answer my unasked question.

He returned my stare in a similar silence.

Ugh, I thought. This was like pulling teeth. “Why don’t you have a full beard and mustache?” I finally asked.

“Surgical removal of my facial hair made it easier to blend across other worlds.”

“I thought you didn’t like Earth?”

“I never said I did not like Earth,” he corrected. “You also assume that Earth is unique.”

A flush crept up the back of my neck. “Yeah, you’re not wrong.”

“But this is not about me. What did Bowyer Haled tell you when he offered you a contract?”

I thought back to that first meeting. Bowyer had been genial enough, and truthful about why he wanted me to purchase me. “After he explained that he wanted to show me off, and how much he was willing to pay for the privilege, I signed on the dotted line.”

Dane frowned at the idiom.

“Made the genetic agreement,” I explained and he nodded. The Collector’s contracts were bound by a type of genetic bond, instead of a physical signature, or the blood oaths I’d later learned happened with other types of contracts.

“Continue. What happened when he brought you to Foula?”

“As I told you before, he said he was in the import-export business.”

“You did not ask what he trafficked.”

I stared at Dane, askance. “He was my purchaser. I had zero right to that knowledge. Maybe in time, he would have told me.” I shrugged. “But he died. All he told me was that the name of his company was Peregrine Curiosities.” My eyes rolled almost of their own volition when I translated the company name in light of what Dane had said about Bowyer procuring edible exotics. “The name definitely takes on a whole new meaning.”

Dane ignored my extraneous chatter. “Did he do any business in the house?”

Another shrug. “Probably in his office. I never saw anybody else in his office,” I added, anticipating his next question.

“You never went into his office.” A statement, not a question.

“No, I did not. He never forbade me to,” I rushed to add. “It seemed… impolite. None of my business.”

“How did the house burn?”

I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat and coughed involuntarily at the intense memory of smoke filling my lungs, my screams all I could hear in my ears as I fumbled for the exit.

Dane listened intently to my tale of survival.

“We slept in separate rooms,” I began. “Three nights ago, I was reading in bed. At that time of night, I should have been asleep.” A brick formed in my stomach. “My reading addiction probably saved my life.” My simple appreciation of the existence of ebook-equivalents on Foula had grown to near-mythic proportion since that night. I rubbed my hands along the tops of my thighs, attempting to self-soothe.

Dane watched my hands a moment and when I remained silent, he spoke. “Continue.”

With a nod, I steeled myself for the retelling. “I heard… something. To be honest, I’m not sure what I heard. It wasn’t anything that, in retrospect, was obvious, like kicking in a door or breaking glass. Just a noise that was out of place.”

This next part was the hardest. My delay in responding might have cost Bowyer his life. “Because I couldn’t identify it, I stayed in bed. I put the book aside to listen closer. And I didn’t hear anything else.” I crossed my arms under my breasts and took a deep breath. “Then my nose tickled.”

Dane frowned.

“Um, tickled, you know, could smell something unexpected,” I tried to clarify.

He nodded in understanding.

I jumped to my feet to pace the small room while I spoke. My need to stay in motion felt overwhelming. Dane watched my movement, though made no effort to stop me. I guess he knew this wasn’t a prelude to trying to escape. That was no longer my plan, anyway. Not when I had an Enforcer at least somewhat on my side now.

“It didn’t take long,” I continued, “for my brain to recognize that what I smelled was smoke. Yet I still didn’t recognize the danger.” I shook my head in disbelief at myself. How stupid. “I assumed that Bowyer had gotten hungry in the middle of the night.”

“Foulans do not vent smoke from cooking in the house,” Dane interrupted in confusion.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But in the middle of the night, I wasn’t that logical. In my mind, he was getting a snack.” I offered a one-shoulder shrug and dropped my gaze to the floor, frozen in place as the memory raced ahead.

“I opened my bedroom door and smoke poured in. So much smoke. I was stunned by it, actually.” Even now, it amazed me that I’d had no idea smoke already filled the house because of my door’s incredible insulation.

“Stop, drop, and roll,” I muttered by rote.

“What was that?” Dane asked.

“An Earth saying,” I answered with a half-smile. “Stop, drop, and roll were directions taught to kids. For what to do if you caught on fire.”

“But you were not on fire?” he asked, confused again.

I snorted. “I didn’t say it was logical. Anyway,” I continued, pushing the memory of the smoke and heat down. The next part…

“I dropped to the floor below the worst of the smoke and held my shirt over my face. I crawled down the hall, calling out for Bowyer. Our house was one story at ground level—not like where we are now, up a flight of stairs,” I explained.

“Understood.”

“My room was on one side of the house and his was on the other, closer to the kitchen and storage room.” The sound of my blood thumping roared in my ears, but I knew it wouldn’t drown out the sounds of what came next.

“I had reached the living area when I saw the flames. Bowyer’s side of the house appeared engulfed. Imagine great plumes of smoke with licks of fire interspersed. That’s what I saw. Until a figure emerged.” I swallowed several times, trying to moisten my bone-dry mouth and throat.

“It… he…was on fire. His mouth opened and—” Tears streamed down my cheeks. I roughly brushed them away with the back of my hand. I needed to get through this. “The most awful scream came out.” I shook my head at the remembered horror. “I rose from the floor, intending to go to him. It was too late. He fell forward and didn’t move.”

I strode back to the couch and retook my seat, my eyes raw from the tears, though they’d at least stopped flowing. “I knew he was dead and that I would be too if I didn’t leave immediately. The front door was to my left. I made a sharp pivot and ran, hunched over, shirt back over my face, toward the door. The smoke and heat swirled around me while I fumbled with the lock at the front door. But I got it.” I inhaled deeply. “That was the sweetest air I’d ever breathed,” I finished. “I’d made it out. Then I turned around to watch the rest of the house burn down.”

Dane’s face remained stoic as I told my story. At the end, the corner of one eye twitched, and I wondered what that meant. “Who responded to the fire?” he asked.

“Idhova’s version of the fire department. I stayed huddled outside while they put the fire out. The firefighters checked on me. My neighbors asked if I needed anything. Everything seemed like a terrible tragedy. And I was lucky to be alive.” My voice hardened. “That’s when I learned I might still be in danger.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“The fire warden came over to talk to me. It started innocuously enough. He told me the house was a total loss—not that surprising. When the firefighters finished, it was a burned-out husk. Then, when he asked questions about what happened, his tone changed. He told me an accelerant had been used. I played dumb and asked what that meant. Of course, he told me they suspected arson.”

“Given what you have said, arson seems like a natural guess, even before they found the accelerant,” Dane interrupted. “Why would you be in danger? You would not set fire to a house you were living in,” he concluded.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” I responded. “The warden began asking pointed questions about who I was, why I was in Bowyer’s life…”

“What is it?” Dane asked when my voice trailed off.

I mentally slapped my forehead. “The warden also asked me about the business Bowyer was in. Like you did. At the time, I didn’t make the connection, and assumed that the warden was wondering if I’d killed Bowyer for personal reasons. Now I wonder just how much authorities knew of his illicit trade, and overlooked it, in exchange for kickbacks or—” I shuddered. “—samples of the procured exotics.”

Dane followed my train of thought. “It is reasonable that the warden suspected Bowyer was killed related to his line of work. That is even Vadhea’s suspicion.”

“Thanks for the reminder that everyone wants a piece of me.”

“If Peregrine Curiosities was known to the authorities,” Dane said, ignoring my last statement, “then we may have access to additional information.”

“Even though the house and Bowyer’s office literally burned to the ground with nothing left?”

“Yes,” Dane said with a grim smile. “Let us say, I know a guy.”

I laughed at his use of the Earth idiom and a smidge of tension drained from my body. Maybe we had a way forward after all.