On My Way - Eve Langlais Page 0,17
the kitchen with a glance over a shoulder that said, Move faster, human.
My kitten was becoming a cat. And I, his servant.
“Coming, your majesty. I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” I grumbled as I hung up my dusty jacket and purse.
An insistent ring had me eyeing the satchel of doom. It made no sense. The darned thing had died on the road. I dug into the bag and managed to pull the phone out and answer just before it would have gone to voicemail. The first thing to go right today.
“Hey, Trish,” I said, recognizing the number.
“Are you okay?” she yelled. “I just saw a dispatch come in on the city emergency line about a car on fire not far from your place.”
“And immediately assumed it was me.”
“Only two people living on that road are you and Jace. And he drives a truck. Oh shit, was it Winnie? Did her date end early?”
“No, it was my car. A tree fell on it.”
“How?”
“Since there is a lack of wind, I’m going to say beavers.” I meant it as a joke, but Trish ran with it.
“The beavers abandoned this area when the orcs moved in.” Every now and then my best friend said the weirdest things.
“I was joking. I don’t know how the tree fell, only that it did and now my car is toast.”
“Do you need to borrow mine? I can always carpool with JoJo.”
“I don’t know yet. I should probably just go buy one.” Which meant dipping into my stash. Yet what choice did I have? Living in the boonies, I needed my own wheels.
“Might want to buy a tank if they’re going to get brazen about attacking you,” Trish muttered.
“Excuse me? Who’s attacking me?” My voice lilted. I’d not told her I thought someone Molotov-ed me.
“The orcs. I’m going to wager this is their way of coming after your property.”
For a moment, I played into Trish’s delusion. What if the accident was actually a murder attempt? Kill me and, when my kids inherit, pressure them to sell. Only to realize it made no sense.
“Why save me if he wants me gone?”
“Who saved you?”
“Jace. He was the one to find me on the road after the crash and give me a ride.”
“Bah, that man might want your property, but he won’t kill you for it. His brother though…” Trish didn’t like Kane. Very few people did.
“Maybe it really was just an accident because, let’s be honest, if someone wants me dead, there are easier ways.” Like they could set fire to my house while I was inside it.
I glanced at the walls and began looking for smoke detectors. Didn’t find a single one. Another thing to buy in town after I purchased a new car. And by new, I meant something probably at least ten years old with a working heater.
The exhaustion hit after I hung up with Trish. I headed up the stairs, glancing only briefly at the pictures hanging on the walls. A pictography of my life, my mother’s short one, and my grandmother’s. I halted mid-step as some new images caught my attention.
There was Wendy as a chubby-cheeked baby. In the first grade with pigtails. Winnie in all the stages of growing up. That morning when I’d left, the only pictures of her included me. Now she had a whole set of them featuring her alone.
Who had done this? Who had access to those images? Not me. All my things had burned in the fire at my old house. I know I had some images saved online, but not the ones on the wall.
Could Martin have done this?
Possible, but this kind of meticulous act didn’t seem like him. When he moved out, he took no photo albums. Not to mention, he had to know coming near me would result in him getting caught and sent back to jail. I still couldn’t believe that he’d managed to escape prison. The man who couldn’t find the jar of jam in the fridge. But Martin was out, considered armed and dangerous, and—according to my lawyer, who warned me about it—he had anger issues where I was concerned.
Me. The person who only ever kowtowed to his every demand. And he dared think I was to blame for all his woes?
I guess there was a chance he might show up and see if he could finish the job. I should have been more worried, but I could still picture the last time I saw Martin. We were in court, and a judge denied