Epilogue

Plus a bit of Fang in Fang - 2

McKinley walked out of the conference room and turned back to look at it.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “We could have our morning meetings in there. Love the wallpaper.”

Fros shot a glare at the giant pink rose and white lily pattern on the wall facing the conference table. Whoever had thought this was good decoration for a conference room deserved to be flogged.

“We could paint over it,” she said.

“No, no, leave it,” McKinley said and continued to the kitchen corner that stood in one end of the main space, the other containing four round tables each with two chairs, for a more flexible office space as the agent had explained when Fros had signed the final documents on the lease. “It teaches us there is a lot of sorrow in this world.”

“There sure is,” Fros said and followed him.

McKinley had retired a week earlier and she didn’t even need to ask him if he would consider joining her at Fang in Fang. He had called the name odd but catchy.

“I think you should be president,” McKinley said. “Young and promising, and all that.” They sat at one of the flexible office space tables and McKinley had just brought two cups of tea.

“No,” Fros said. “We talked about that. You will be president since Peter… Since Peter can’t. I don’t want any official titles.”

McKinley hung his head.

“Anyway,” Fros continued. “I hear Sam is adapting well. As well as can be expected, I suppose.”

Her father looked up.

“She really spilled it all, didn’t she? Everything.” He shook his head. “I never thought she’d go through with it.”

Fros shrugged.

“She wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t think she had thought clearly for a long time. I hope they help her at the hospital.”

“Do you really?”

“I do,” Fros said. “It wasn’t her fault our mother abandoned her.”

McKinley looked around, anywhere but at Fros. He even flushed a little, embarrassed for the woman he’d loved.

“Well,” he said and sipped from his tea – jasmine-scented green that added an unexpected sense of home to the place. “I guess we need to start hiring, then.”

“I guess we do,” his daughter said and looked at her watch. “I need to go.”

McKinley nodded.

“Oh, but before that. Remember I told you how I found all those pictures you’d taken on Tina’s computer? There were also other pictures there. Of you. With some woman. They looked like blackmail material.”

McKinley laughed and shook his head.

“Christina wanted to fast-track herself to detective. She threatened to send these pictures – a victim’s wife, by the way – to the commissioner unless I retired and put her up for promotion. She set up a meeting to discuss it, as she called it, but she never came. Now I know why. I guess I must thank you for that.”

“That’s all right,” Fros said and took a sip of tea. “Anytime. Now I really need to go.”

“Are you sure she’s… safe?” McKinley said.

“Oh, yeah,” Fros said. “Unless Tal switches sides she’s safe where she is.”

Tal poked his head out of the kitchen to greet Fros. She sniffed the air as she always did when she came here and, as always, relaxed when she caught the weak but distinct mix of musk and tangerine.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Stable,” Tal said. He’d grown even thinner in the past two months, regardless of Fros’s regular reminders to eat and take better care of himself. She had started to sound like her mother. Today, there was no need for that, however. “Do you want lunch? I’m making veggie frittata.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be right back.”

She took her boots off and tiptoed to the bedroom. She had no idea why she tiptoed but she always did it. It was a bad habit she needed to kick, like smoking.

The blinds were up in the bedroom, the bright summer sun drowning the room in light, emphasising the grey tint of the body in the bed, his hollow cheeks, sunken eyes and bloodless lips.

“Hey there,” Fros said and lay next to the body. The sheet that covered Peter was pulled down to his hips because it was warm in the room. The black stitches on his neck stood out against the pale skin. His chest, under the white T-shirt, was still.

“I’m beginning to lose my patience, you know. While you’re rolling around in bed here, I’ve been trying to get that detective agency you set up going. McKinley’s helping. He agreed to become president after his retirement came through. You can be CEO when you come back and I suggest you do this soon.” She stroked his cold forehead.

“Tal says there’s no point trying to give you blood until you get stronger but I see no way you can get stronger if you don’t get any blood. He also says it’s really dangerous but you know Tal, he’s a drama king. Now,” she said as she turned on her side and ran the inside of her wrist over his mouth and nose. “Doesn’t that smell delicious?”

THE END

A little taste of what comes next:

If Julianne De Luca was a writer, she would’ve described the night as chilly and quiet, which was why she wasn’t a writer. She was a banker. This wasn’t of any help right now, however. Nothing she had ever learned could help her right now.

The dog that had been staring at her for what felt like a couple of centuries growled – a long, deepening rumble that ended with a warning bark. It sounded like a volcano’s pre-eruption belch. To Julianne, suddenly fluent in Canine, the bark said “All right, now I’m going to eat you.”

“Good dog,” she said through lips numb from the cold and the terror. She then dragged her left foot back for what she hoped could become a full step away from the huge black beast with the wrinkled snout that had appeared out of nowhere the moment Julianne had climbed over the wrought iron fence of the Peterson estate.

Nobody had told her anything about a dog. Nobody had warned her. And now she was going to die and she was going to die with peed pants because the moment the dog had come out of nowhere her brain had short-circuited. An eternity had passed since then. Nobody had come, which was a tiny little relief. At least Jennifer Peterson wouldn’t catch Julianne trespassing in her garden. She might die in a few seconds but at least she would die a professional even if it wasn’t her job to be here in the first place.

As she started to drag her right foot back the dog barked again and slinked forwards. Julianne had to bite her lip to resist the urge to run, now, immediately, as fast as she could. If she ran, she was dead.

“I wasn’t breaking in,” she whispered and swallowed what little spit stress had left in her mouth through a tightened throat. “I was only looking around.”

The dog growled again and stepped closer. Julianne made a sound, not loud enough to be a scream but a lot more desperate than a whine. She looked around wildly, searching for an escape route, any escape route, even if it involved running up that wrought iron fence with the spiky top. Coming in, she’d conquered it with a blanket but the blanket was far from here. Perhaps a whole ten steps.

“Good dog,” she whispered and for lack of anything better to do started to make another step backwards. Something rustled in the deepest shadows beneath the thick oak trees that lined this part of the garden, which the light from the yard lamps around the house couldn’t reach.

Julianne froze with her left foot a couple of inches above the ground. The rustle came again, long and deliberate as if whatever was moving in the grass wanted to be heard. As if it wanted to make an appearance. And while Julianne didn’t know a lot about nature and its denizens she knew one thing: the rustler was a hell of a lot bigger than a hedgehog.

The dog turned, his attention temporarily drawn away. Julianne was already running before the conscious part of her brain had told her body to do it. Through the wind whistling in her ears — she’d been top of her class in all athletic disciplines at high school — Julianne heard another growl but this one ended in a yelp. Somehow, this yelp, this short burst of suffering sounded a lot worse than the growl. Julianne almost flew up the fence, climbed out at the same spot she’d climbed in, ran to the car she’d parked half a mile away and drove off.