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Waiting for Abby to return from whatever errands she was running for Orson was not an option, not when I had the sketching of a plan in my head. Or at least the beginnings of one.
First, I’d need to have to find the means to reach out to my friends, and I wasn’t going to find that in the shed.
Cautiously, I opened the door to the shed and peered into the late afternoon. The sun blazed relentlessly over the lawn, burning up what was left of Abby’s already charred grass.
This is hardly the place for a little garden,I mused.
Abby couldn’t be happy here, no matter what she said about her position in the Verity Gang. Pario City had much better spots, places that were lusher and greener, set closer to water. It made me wonder if Orson was punishing her by keeping her out there or why he had chosen to live in the center of the city. I suspected it was to be closer to the middle of everything. He had always held something of a paranoid edge.
Ensuring I wasn’t being observed, I made my way back toward the house and to the back door. To my chagrin, it was locked.
Smart girl,I thought, despite my disappointment.Smart, but jaded.
I’d either have to wait or break in.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission,I decided, and checked the windows along the back of the main floor. Like the door, they, too, were locked, forcing me to make yet another choice: climb or break a window.
Abby was apt to have my head on a platter if I broke in, but if I climbed onto the roof, I ran the risk of being seen.
And she’d hate that much more. Breaking a window it is.
Without bothering to wrap my hand, I punched through the glass of the kitchen window and popped out the frame, easing myself through the pane. Blood dripped along the floor, and I made a mental note to clean it up on the way out. Grabbing a dishtowel, I tied it around my shredded fist—which would heal quickly—and began exploring Abby’s house.
In Seven Rock, some of the farms had telephones attached to their walls by long, curling cords. I’d never used one myself, but I had some understanding of how they worked. Abby had no such device in her home, but I suspected she had some form of communicative technology, knowing her line of work. Perhaps she had one of those mobile telephones I’d seen others carrying pressed to their ears.
But she might have it with her. And even if she does have it here, how am I going to use it?
These were all tomorrow’s problems. First, I had to find the means of communication. Then I could find the way to communicate.
I started on the main floor, searching through kitchen drawers and cupboards, but found nothing but pots and pans, some papers and bills indicative that a single woman lived there.
As I snooped through the living room, I came to realize that there was no hint of another soul in the house, no mementos of past lovers or friends, no pets or keepsakes. My chest tightened.
She’s had no one.
Guilt seized me as I recognized that I was the cause of her solitude. She had been on her own because I had turned her away, all those years ago.
I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let her go. I couldn’t have known things were going to turn out like this.
But I had nothing to offer Abby, and until I could provide her with the same security that I was able to before everything had gone to shit, I had no business disrupting her life. I had to reclaim my empire, take back what was mine. That was why I’d been brought back to Pario City. Someone had sent me here to recapture what I’d lost, to find the answers I’d forsaken and give me a second shot when I’d so foolishly discarded them in the first place. I couldn’t let that happen again.
Climbing the stairs, I found myself in a simple but spacious bedroom. A double bed sat in the center, properly made. It looked like it hadn’t been slept in for weeks.
Underneath the brass frame, a box poked out, and I dropped to my knees to pull it forward. Instantly, I yanked it out, throwing off the cover. Inside, I found two black portable telephone devices and dozens of papers.
My eyes popped when I realized what else lay among them.
An address book!
With my left hand, I opened the phone, eying it while simultaneously using my right to flip through the red covered address book.
My pulse raced at the prospect of what I might find inside.
Does she have Ash’s telephone number in here?
I turned to the letter “A” and pored over the entries.
Aemon
