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“It’s a long story.” Stalking down the hallway, he called her name as he went, clicking his tongue now and again. He rounded the corner for the library and stopped short, spinning to face me in the doorway. “Don’t tell me you don’t like cats.”
“I’m allergic,” I answered with a grim smile.
“Of course you are.” He sighed, like it was some personal choice of mine instead of fucking genetics, and carried on.
I was sure there was more he wanted to say on the matter, but I let it go in favor of keeping the peace. The four-hour drive from the city in our separate vehicles had given us both space and time to think. In the driveway, he promised to let drug thing go — again, as if I had a fucking choice in the matter — and I agreed to a tad less salty about how he was handling, ornothandling, his former mistress.
Checking behind curtains and every sunny spot we could locate, we wove through the rooms on the ground floor quickly. Leander’s frown deepened as he climbed the stairs.
“Maybe she’s up here,” I offered weakly.
On the second floor, he took the west wing, while I took the east. Even though most of the doors were shut, there was no telling if the cat snuck in somewhere while Yolanda was cleaning, like his grandmother’s room.
Pushing the door open, I assessed Irene’s former bedroom quickly. White sheets covered all of the furniture with no obvious dips from a cat trying to walk across them. The screen in front of the green, marble fireplace was securely in place, which meant it didn’t somehow make its way up the chimney. All of the heavy drapes were tied back and I couldn’t spy a single cat silhouette behind the lace curtains.
I was re-emerging from the master bathroom when Leander appeared, his jaw set.
“I can’t find her,” he said, his worried tone matching the crease between his eyebrows.
“How many thousands of square feet are there? I’m sure she’s here. She’s probably chasing mice in the basement or something.”
He shook his head, about to say something, when he recoiled, as if he suddenly remembered what room we were standing in. Without another word, he spun on his heel and strode out, not even bothering to see if I was behind him.
I was, but I lingered in the doorway. Glancing back at the bed, I studied the spot where his grandmother had been beaten to a bloody pulp a decade ago. It might as well have been yesterday with how viscerally he reacted any time he went near her room.
If there was a way to purge her from his memory, I’d do it in a heartbeat, just like I would rid him of the memories from Parkview. With a sigh, I closed Irene’s door behind me and followed the sound of Leander’s voice to the second-floor landing.
He had his phone pressed to his ear, his scowl back in full force. “Where is Annabel? Sí. La gata.”
Ah, Yolanda. Hopefully she had an answer so he would calm down. He hadn’t eaten all day and with the amount of brisk pacing he was doing, it didn’t look like he had any plans for the evening, either.
“She what?!” Leander snarled into the phone. Oh fuck…
Keeping my expression neutral, I folded my arms and watched his face darken. Nope. He definitely wasn’t eating now. Looked like I was on my own. Maybe Cole would want to go grab something somewhere with a lot of fucking alcohol.
“Gracias.” Hanging up, Leander exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “She took my cat.”
“Yolanda?”
His eyes flew open, pupils narrowed to pinpricks. “Lorelei! She took my goddamn cat!” He launched the phone across the hallway, pegging one of the solid oak doors and shattering the screen.
“Feel better?” I asked in a monotone voice. If only he’d shown a fraction of that possessiveness over humans, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this situation. But, c’est la vie. Keep it on the high road, Reeve…
He shot me a glare before jogging down the main staircase and disappearing around the corner. If I had to guess, he was en route to the library. At least he had the foresight to keep a stash of burners for occasions such as this, when he destroyed his current phone or needed to plan a murder on the fly.
Sighing, I pulled out my own phone and called Gavin. Time to do what I did best — getting my clients what they wanted.
“No, I haven’t scheduled to have your shit picked up from the St. Louis apartment yet,” Gavin huffed instead of a normal greeting.
“That’s actually not why I’m calling.” I strolled down the hallway, stepping inside Leander’s room. Our room? We’d have to discuss sleeping arrangements. In fact, I wanted to discuss an entire house remodel, if he’d let me. Anything to get rid of Lorelei’s apparition haunting me from every room.
Despite the fact she cleared out weeks ago, I could still smell an alien perfume in the air. I wrinkled my nose, trying to figure out what brand it was. Whatever it was, it was bland, boring, and entirely fitting from what I knew of her unexciting personality.
Even if Yolanda changed the sheets and bleached every inch of this room, I wasn’t sleeping in that bed until there was a new mattress. My formerly broken ribs would come in handy as reasonable excuse for wanting a new, “more supportive” bed.
“Can you put me through to Lorelei Clayton? Doctor, Stratford,” I said to Gavin as I pulled open the door to the armoire, relieved to see nothing but black. I wasn’t above burning her shit in the backyard if she happened to leave a wardrobe full of clothing behind. Or anything else, for that matter.
There was an unimpressed grunt and a flurry of typing on the other side of the phone. “Don’t forget you’re supposed to be at that auction on Thursday. Sergei has more pieces to move.”
