Criminal Beware: The Lykanos Chronicles 1

Chapter Thirteen

"My friend explained the directions rather precisely, but I have a feeling we'll need to rely on intuition. The place is somewhere along the main road, so we should meander until we get a good length up into those hills ahead. She promised we can't miss it. It's large and made of large bricks, and the front has just been covered in a cream stucco. No doubt it looks out of place in that wilderness. They're barely halfway through construction, but the main room is complete, and she wants me to see it."

"It's not finished? What have you gotten me into?"

"My friend is creating a natural preserve of sorts," Gabrielle smiled. "She's building a visitor's center in the middle of it. Ellen showed me sketches of the structure when I was at her home last year, and I'm too excited to finally see it in person."

"That's interesting," I said incredulously. "My friends can barely slice bread."

"I must be one of your friends, then," she laughed.

"That's for you," I nodded my head to the wrapped book seated between us.

"Is it?" she murmured.

Gabrielle looked down as if she hadn't noticed the package or bag of books underneath. She examined the white paper packaging in her finely gloved hands for several moments before pulling on the black silk string to release the wrapping paper.

"Is this us?" she asked, staring at the disgruntled man and woman on the cover. "The Beautiful and the Damned. We look as if we've been arguing. I do hope I'm meant to be the beautiful one and not the damned."

I couldn't stifle a nervous laugh in response. "There's a little book shop across the street from your salon. The sales lady said that it just came out and she can barely keep it on her shelves. Perhaps, you'll enjoy it."

"That's very sweet of you, Daniel. Thank you for this, I'll give it a try. Fitzgerald," she said absently, reading his name from the small biography printed on the inside cover flap. "I'll be sure to confirm what the scoundrel did to disappoint Beauty and let you know."

"Perfect," I beamed.

"These are yours?" she looked down at the bag holding the other books. "What did you find? May I?" she asked, pulling the bag up to peek inside before I'd answered her. She pulled out the large book on Japan and thumbed through it quickly. "You enjoy history? I was expecting to find the latest adventure novel."

"History is an adventure," I told her, "and I'd give anything to go there one day."

"Really? Well, maybe I'd better give them a try. I used to travel quite a lot when I was a girl, but I can't say I ever made it quite so far. To northern Africa with my family a few times; as far as India, once. Though, I suppose we'd have to travel west now that we're both a pair of Californians."

"Indeed, we'd likely have to sail up and around to Russia and down the continent."

Roussade didn't respond. I pulled my eyes from the road to see her caught in silence, holding my other purchase in her hands. Her eyes were affixed upon the cover for several loud heartbeats that arose in my chest.

"The sales lady gave a start when I handed her that one," I said, affecting only more silence from her. "I don't know why it caught my interest, really. I don't believe in any of that stuff."

"No?" she answered finally.

"My mom used to read Charles Dickens, and his heroes were always hunting down con-artists who used the "dark arts" as a distraction to conceal their criminal plans. It just stood out to me as an interesting bit of fun."