Gargoyle: Kinswoman

Part 2

She had let him go.

It was the only thing that kept ringing in her ears when she registered her worker ID on the small machine on the steps of the library, blocking out everything from traffic to the voice of the older man in the front desk.

"Morning, Miss Brent!" the security guard nodded and let her pass like every other morning.

"Morning!"

She hadn't slept well, but make-up had this wonderful effect of hiding it. She just couldn't believe she had finally got a lead on Selene's disappearance and she'd simply let it get away so easily, literally walk out of her life as it had never been there. Selene had been gone for months now and so far all she had managed was to have her declared missing by police without no help from Selene's own family, not that she really expected it from them. About a week in, she'd got the fifteen thousand in small bills with handwritten note that supposedly had been a printed e-mail from Selene's personal mail address. Which she never believed it to be, because she couldn't believe she'd walk out with a mere e-mail. Not after their little chat with Isilia about good manners and importance of sending postcards. Not that the police thought it relevant. They'd only confiscated the money and the e-mail, took her fingerprints and said she'd probably hitchhiked to Canaries to stay out of jail. With what miracle, she couldn't even begin to imagine, because according to Knockfinger, she hadn't been registered to any of the flights and had no such funds. Yet that was their response until a month ago when she still hadn't turned out and they quietly moved the case into the possibly deceased pile. And from there on she'd been on her own.

"Should have tied him up and made him talk!" She cursed. Yeah, her against that huge piece of mythology that could smash through her and be done with it. She should have been afraid of it, she was aware of that fact, but with her past, compared with her ex, he somehow seemed the safer option.

She followed the line of mud carpets that lead her from the elevator to the small office given to her five years back. It was far away from other people in the building, but not from the piles of books that looked like thick trees surrounding the only path that took you deep in the forest to your granny's place. Buzzing skylights and trolleys of books – her coworkers. Despite that, she actually liked this job. It wasn't because Robert had deemed it good respectable workplace. She was good at it and people here were nice. Even after they found out from the newspapers what scandal she'd been living in last year. They didn't change, they didn't judge. And that's what kept her there. She could still grab her electric kettle, take the lift to second floor and come back up without somebody constantly rallying her up. Serenity and sanctuary.

She turned around the corner and found herself face to face with much larger gun barrel than she carried in my purse. Second later it fell lower and she heared familiar voice sigh with a relief before the gun was locked up in the holster.

"I thought it was that security guard again!" he huffed, slumping against the blue plaster.

She should be screaming, she reminded her idle brain, but instead kept pointing at him with her finger with very obvious question lingering on her lips. "How?"

"The hell are you doing here anyway?" he pushed himself up again and started back in the dead end of the corridor.

"I should ask you the same. How did you get past the guard?"

"One guard – large house, how hard do you think that is?" He was fidgeting, his head kept moving, as if checking the books over and he reached out to raise a cover here and there. It sent dust flying.

"You've been here before?" The house was practically an ants nest – so many corridors with seemingly irregular rooms, it drove all the temporary assistants crazy. To make it all the way to the top floor, he had to have at least an inkling of which routs to take.