Dragon's Key--Complete

Chapter Nine

By the time Henry found us, we were in the kitchen, plotting our departure.  He didn't seem surprised that we were leaving, just the timing of it.  I already had morning tea made and poured him a cup as he sat down at the kitchen table and regarded the two of us quietly.

“This seems rather abrupt,” Henry observed as he doctored his tea with milk and sugar.

“Had a break-in last night,” Aaron told him.  I noticed that his speech was slowly modernizing.  It was becoming a mixture of mine and the people he'd met at the funeral.  I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

“A break-in?” Henry looked up at me quickly, his expression showing his concern.

“Nothing to worry about, Henry,” I said as I sat down at the little kitchen table next to Aaron.  “I took care of it.”

“She did,” Aaron confirmed with a smile that could be perceived as a proud one.  “But Sofia didn't leave her window open, so someone else did.”

He'd brought that up to me in the early hours of the morning and I hadn't been happy about it.  I'd done a thorough search of my things, including my laptop, wanting to make sure that they hadn't taken anything, or left something else behind.

“We have a spy, then?” Henry didn't seem terribly surprised as he sipped his tea and I fought the urge to kick him under the table.

“You knew?” I demanded indignantly.  I didn't take Henry for a man who felt the need to keep secrets when it affected all of us.

“I had my suspicions,” Henry confirmed with quiet confidence.  “Aaron noticed him yesterday.  He's a groundskeeper on the property, but shouldn't have had access to the house.”

“He must have been sneaking around the house with all the confusion and people yesterday,” Aaron confirmed quietly.

I growled under my breath.  I didn't like them keeping secrets from me, and if they were collaborating in their secret keeping, I was going to have words to say about it.

“You'd already gone to bed yesterday when we talked about him,” Aaron told me quietly, his hand restraining on my shoulder so that I didn't get unnecessarily upset at Henry.

“Oh.  I was asleep then,” I wasn't happy, but I couldn't blame them for that.  I'd disappeared on them with no warning, wallowing in my own sadness.

Aaron smiled at me in response, squeezing my shoulder once before he let go.  He was getting pretty good at reading me after such a short time.

“So he's the one that left my window unlocked?” I asked, wanting to catch up on all the stuff they'd apparently talked about while I was sleeping.

“Probably.  Can't be sure, but he's the most likely culprit,” Henry said.  The word culprit sounded strange coming from him, like a bad spy movie.

I reached up to rub my head.  I was tired, cranky and wanted my life back to normal.  Though that was a losing proposition.  I didn't think my life would ever be normal again.  It was time to move forward, not regret what could never be.

“It won't matter much when we're gone,” I said as I programmed our destination into my GPS.  I'd been quite disappointed when they wouldn't let me use it on the plane.  Flight attendants.  They're all spoilsports.

Aaron was watching me curiously, leaning over my shoulder, his hand on the base of my braid.  He'd twisted it up again this morning, making three normal braids and then braiding them together.  He got such delight out of doing my hair for me that I quietly put up with it.  It didn't matter to me as much as it did to him.