Dangerous Territory

Nineteen

Jon was uncharacteristically antsy.

He hadn't stopped shuffling for the last twenty minutes, tapping at the keyboard and the sides of his chair, scratching at his chin and shaking his foot.

It was driving Malandra crazy with curiosity.

Even Mattheus was sighing more than usual, eyeing his friend every two seconds with warning in his eyes.

Tanya looked up from her papers, "do you have a problem?"

Mala shook her head, quickly averting her eyes from the two men and back to the sheets in front of her, "no. Just lost in my thoughts for a moment."

Tanya gave an uninterested hum and stood up, "I'm just popping to the toilet. I'll be right back."

All the shifters waited with baited breath until the human had left the room and then Jon was spinning around and Mala jumping up.

"We have to be quick." Jon rushed out, looking nervously at the door.

"What is it?" She asked quietly, keeping an ear open for the sound of the other woman's return.

"That name Cesca Ovilio," he started. "I knew it didn't sound right and I wasn't wrong. In the only article I'd read, there was no Cesca Ovilio."

"She doesn't exist?" Mala whispered.

Jon frowned, looking annoyed that she hadn't him finish before asking questions. "She did exist. The newspaper had her down as Francesca Ovilio but even that wasn't her real name."

"You're not making sense, Jon."

Jon whipped his head to Mattheus, "tell her."

Leaning forward, Mattheus said, "her real name was actually Francesca Burton, she was a divorcee, born and bred in the UK."

"Not Auden's real mother?" She interjected again, trying to propel the boys into getting to the crux of the matter.

"She was his real mum." He took a deep breath. "All of the files I found, trace signatures and archived addresses all pointed to her being married but when I looked for a marriage certificate, there was no record of her ever being married to a Daego Ovilio."

"What year was this?" Mala asked.

"Sometime in the eighties or nineties, not that long ago."

She frowned, "the only reason marriages didn't go on record back then was if shifters and humans got married."

Auden's mother was a human.

Mattheus nodded, "exactly." He gave her a meaningful stare. "Remember I said she was a divorcee?"

Mala heard the toilet flush from down the hall and she hurried to nod, "what about it?"

"She wasn't divorced from Daego at all." Jon spoke up, looking towards the door as the bathroom hand dryer switched on.

"Turns out Jon and I knew about her personally, even though we'd never seen her face to face." Mattheus said, looking nervous about his next words. "But we'd heard of her as Franny Wellington."

She could physically feel the blood rush out of her head and went to sit back down in her chair.

"What?" She looked between the two men. "There's no way."

The hand dryer switched off.

"Unfortunately, there is." Jon starting tapping his foot on the ground again, "all we knew was that she was Wellington's much younger wife back in the day. They'd been divorced for a while before we started working here so we'd only heard stories. Gossip was all it was."