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Compounding my panic was the fact I wasn’t reporting to work, ticking off the first step in the reaper’s purported process: distance the naive human from people who'd notice her absence. Caelan could have instructed a deputy to take the painting.
I pushed the thought away. He and I had established a working relationship. I needed someone with the jaw strength to dismantle walking corpses. He needed someone to lure the necromancer out of hiding. If we both survived to see the case resolved, I’d deal with him then.
For now, Gramps’ voice a broken record on repeat in my head, I started on Gram’s documents and scoured the house for hidden secrets. Turned out her beloved curio had contained more than dolls.
We'd gone by 'Davins' since the move. Gram had done a fine job burying the past, but her marriage certificate, taped inside a false cabinet panel in an envelope also containing birth certificates, bore her true name: Genessa Kahn.
Calico had referred to Gram as ‘Gen,’ and that was dirt worth sifting through, but I needed a break from wolves.
Grandpa didn’t have a birth certificate. His signature beside Gen’s on the marriage license rang false. A German man with a Nazi officer's ring named Warren Benjamin?
They had married February 18th, 1946 at a chapel in Richmond, Virginia.
Mom's birth register was a slip of paper in Greek. Evelyn Lois Kahn. January 4, 1946. Birth witnessed by Elfriede Vlahos.
According to Grandma, allied forces liberated Dachau sometime in late April 1945. She remembered because many hundreds of prisoners, including Elfriede, celebrated Orthodox Easter shortly after. I'd have to research the date Genessa and Warren met, but nine months and no werewolf tendencies inherited by Mom or Rhetta and I?
Maybe Grandpa wasn't my grandpa.
Gram said the war had stolen more than fifty members of our family, and the ones remaining were so distant they had not even remembered her mother’s name. After the war, she instead moved to Greece with Elfriede.
Gram hadn’t saved much correspondence, but I had her address book in a desk drawer. I compared names from there with the guest book from her funeral.
An Elfrie Vlahos was listed in both.
“There are friends you never lie to,” she'd told me one late summer afternoon as we sat on the porch awaiting Elfrie. “You may not tell them everything, but you don’t damn lie.”
From there, it took about an hour’s worth of awkward phone calls to get in touch. Elfrie had moved from her original home and changed numbers in the process.
Her daughter, after enduring a long-winded Facebook explanation from me about researching my grandmother's past, surrendered the phone number to Elfrie’s condo. Elfrie lived Charleston, spent her retirement playing bingo and attending aqua aerobics in a senior living residence. When I called, she couldn't talk. She was on her way out the door to a group mall trip and needed to buy clothes for a baby shower, but if I tried around three, she'd be happy to answer any question she could.
I leaned back in the kitchen chair and stared at the slashed screen above the sink.
Maybe if I'd stayed on the couch, if I kissed the accountant and ignored the world around us. Maybe if we took things upstairs, if Igor and Samson followed...Maybe the cat wouldn't have gotten out, maybe...
Come home.
I took another sip of coffee and thumbed through home insurance papers. Maybe, no matter how much Gram wanted and how hard she tried, normal wasn't my destiny.
chapter 17
THE LAST LEAF
Lisa and Wyatt would arrive around six. Plan was to grab dinner, chat, and figure out what to do with my stressed cats. Igor had scared the hell out of Wyatt when she’d popped out from underneath the bed last night at two AM when he'd went to pee. She’d also licked herself bald around her stomach scars and Samson had decided to fast.
I bought the cats a new scratching post, a bag of food, and toys. On my way home, I purchased a couple budding hydrangeas to replace the blood-engorged plants on the porch and side. After I'd arranged the plants and feasted on a sleeve of crackers, I unfolded a camping chair near the ruins of the back deck and basked in the sunshine under the watchful eye of a cop.
Reluctantly, I dragged myself into the privacy of my home to take the call.
Grandma rarely talked about the numbers inked on her arm or the horrors that had transpired between the time her brother was judged physically handicapped and sterilized to when my mother was born.
And here I was, about to ask her friend for information she'd never given willingly. Here I was, making Elfrie reflect on unimaginable hell. The lifelong friends had met when my grandmother was transferred to Dachau. How do you ask someone about that? Where do you start?
“Thank you," I began, tightness reaching my throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Vlahos.”
“Elfrie is fine.”
“Sorry to dredge up the past.”
