The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (28 page)

After Genevieve had taken a few pictures, with her phone, of the damage – her insurance consultant would need proof to believe her – she went upstairs to her apartment.

She had just plopped herself down on her couch, when her phone rang for the second time that day. Glancing, uninterestedly, down at the screen, she saw that it was, again, Cirpian.

He was persisted, she had to give him that.

Yet, at that point, she was in no mood to talk to him...Or, for that matter, anyone.

As much as she would have liked to explain away everything, she just couldn't – her detective brain was too busy laying out the facts.

First, it had been her brakes.

Now this.

After last night's nightmare and now finding her car vandalized, she was officially on over load.

What made Cirpian an even more likely suspect, was that both incidents had happened when he had been over at her apartment.

Sighing, she rubbed her face, and kicking off her shoes she put her feet up on her coffee table. As she stared off into space, it was then, that she noticed the spare laying in the little glass bowl that sat in the middle of her coffee table.

The surprise of seeing her spare key, had her abruptly taking her feet from upon the coffee table's edge, and leaning forward, she retrieved the spare from the bowl. After she had subconsciously traced the edges of the key, she stared perplexedly off into space.

There was no way.

It had to be a different key.

Yet, after she had quickly retrieved her key ring, that had her apartment key on it, from the other side of the coffee table, she started comparing keys. Both keys looked identical.

Yet, there was just no way they could be the same key.

Getting up from her couch, she went over to the door and after trying first the key on the key ring and then the one from the bowl; she was surprised to see, that the one from the bowl, was a perfect match to the one on her key ring.

How was that possible?

As she stood in the middle of the living room, looking first from the coffee table to her apartment's door; she found herself getting more and more puzzled by this whole situation.

How had Cirpian gotten out of her apartment?

Heading into her bedroom, she looked at the window, and, after checking to make sure it was still securely closed, she rubbed her face.

Again, how had Cirpian gotten out of her apartment?

As she thought back to this morning, she had been so out of it, that she hadn't even noticed that the chain had been still on the door. When she had gone to open it, she had...

Well, at that time, she hadn't known what to think or feel. All she had done was removed the chain, unlocked the door, and then left her apartment.

Granted, after finding something that didn't look quite right, the typical response, would have been surprise. Yet, after last night's nightmare, her brain had still been reeling.

Yet, now, that she stood there looking down at her spare, she was baffled on what was going on. In all facts and pretenses, it looked as if he either hadn't been in her apartment that previous night or he hadn't left. 

Yet, he had been, she remembered the incredible, intoxicating, feel of him inside her. And the wonderful ensnaring way, his arms had felt wrapped securely around her.

While she had a pretty good imagination, she was positive that it wasn't that good – there was no way that she could have imagined him being here.

Was it possible that she could have locked the door behind him?

That was another reasonable explanation, that didn't make any sense. For one, she couldn't remember getting up.

She could remember waking-up, but the other...; she couldn't remember doing.

As she stood there, perplexedly, gazing around her bedroom, it was then that her temple started throbbing. She would have one hell of a headache, if she didn't take something right away. Yet, Genevieve knew that with all this thinking, that her head wouldn't be the only thing on the verge of hurting; for her stomach was already feeling those reeling, agitated, twinges of pain – it was so agitated, that it felt like someone had, literally, slugged her a few times in the abdomen.  

It was after she had taken two Tylenols, from the bottle on her nightstand, that she heard the knock on her door.

For a few brief moments, she stood there; just wondering what she should do. She was afraid, that it could be Cirpian.

Yet, it could also be Kyle. She had, after all, called him; that had been a subconscious mistake.

Either way, she wasn't looking forward to seeing either man.

With her partner, it would be an interrogation of some sort.

“
Who did you piss off, over the past few days?
”

Looking over at her unmade bed, Genevieve found herself tempted by the thought of climbing back into bed and calling out sick.

To be honest, it wouldn't be a total lie.

She felt sick to her stomach, and the Tylenol probably wouldn't kick in until her head was about to explode or she was about to barf on everything – most likely it would be all over Kyle's precious Mustang.

“Buck up, be a big girl...” she mumbled these words to herself as she went to answer the door.

And after taking a deep breathe, she readied herself for what this already horrible day had in store for her.

XXX

As it turned out, Kyle was a little more understanding than usual; he knew that Genevieve wasn't in any mood to talk about her cherished car being vandalized in such a way.

Why state the obvious?

Genevieve knew that someone had it out for her. Of all the cars in the parking lot, hers was the only one that this prick had touched.

If she had even bothered to make an effort to deny the obvious, she knew what her partner would have said.

“Yea right, Gen, who'd you piss off?”

While it was true that she had made someone angry, she couldn't really put her finger on who that person was.

She'd been on her best behavior.

Well, she'd been as good as she could be.

There were times when she really pissed people off by being sarcastically outspoken. She couldn't help herself, she got this sick enjoyment at telling people off. Yet, what brought her even more pleasure, was the ability to use sarcasm as her weapon.

Keith had been her latest victim of her outspoken personality. From the moment she had met him, she hated his feminine centered of attention attitude. She had wanted to do something to him. Yet, she had promised Amelia and Kyle that she would be on her best behavior. And lord knows, she had tried.

She had tried so hard, that she had given herself a stomach ache.

As she sat, now, beside Kyle, with the hot Tucson air blowing in her face, she tried to keep her mouth shut and not complain over Kyle's cheap choice for a car.

If the heat and Kyle's silent refusal to turn on his AC, wasn't bad enough, it was the way her hair kept whipping her in the face; that had her appreciating Tucson less.

As tempting as it was, though, to ask Kyle, why he didn't turn on his AC, she was too afraid of him replying with a question of his own.

“Gen, who did you piss off?”

Of course this question would have come after,  he had, none so gallantly, informed her that his AC didn't work.

The prick.

Genevieve was willing to endure the heat, just to get out of answering that question or being put under a scrutinizing interrogation; she was just breathing a sigh of relief, when they pulled into a
O'Reilly's
car dealership.

Yet, before she could even get the door open, Kyle grabbed her arm.  “Gen..,” he hesitated. “did that Cirpian, guy, that you slept with last night, do that to your car?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cirpian had been trying for close to an hour to get a hold of Genevieve. The first three times he had called, the phone had rang. Yet, these last few times his calls had gone directly to voice-mail.

Something was wrong.

Yet, he couldn't sense anything deathly wrong with Genevieve.

He could just sense that she was disturbed by something.

Something he did?

He couldn't say.

Possibly he should have taken that spare, to give the impression that he had left her apartment the normal way.

He hadn't, though. He had dissolved into a fog and slipped under her apartment's door.

Before leaving, he had decided, that since he didn't want to totally leave Genevieve, to leave part of himself in her apartment.

The more darker side of himself...

His shadow.

His shadow had been the one to alert him, that Genevieve was having a nightmare of some kind – a nightmare that she was, apparently, having a very hard time waking from. That's why his shadow had set the alarm off earlier than usual.

Usually the alarm clock went off around six-thirty. Yet, he had made it go off at six.

Sure enough, just the sound of the alarm, had done the trick; in waking her.

As he now stood in his kitchen, stretching his working senses – he tried finding Genevieve. Yet, because of the sunlight outside, he found his abilities to be less than they were at night.

If Genevieve was hurt, he would sense her distress, but he wouldn't be able to get to her as quickly as he would if he had the cover of darkness outside.

Sighing, he, gingerly, fingered this silver Celtic cross, that he had laid in a nice wooden carved box; at the feel of his fingertips being singed, he smiled.

The singeing only meant one thing.

That the cross, and whoever wore it; would be protected from his kind.

XXX 
  

The moment those words had come out of Kyle's mouth, Genevieve, whose hand had been lingering on the Mustang's door handle, abruptly withdrew her hand and stared puzzlingly over at Kyle.

It wasn't the question, itself, that had her stumped.

It was the way he had worded it.

How had Kyle known, that she had been sleeping with Cirpian last night?

Unless, he had been outside her apartment last night.

Now that left her with another potential suspect.

Oh, goody.

If she didn't have enough people that she was suspicious of, she was now, mentally, adding her partner to her list.

“
Kyle...,” she swallowed. “how d...d...d...” she stammered; pausing for a few minutes, to calm herself down, she finally inquired, “How did you know that I was sleeping with Cirpian...last night?”

“
I...” Kyle's own admission was the ever present guilty expression on his face.

She shouldn't have been surprised, she had suspected as much: Kyle, her partner and friend, had been sitting outside, her apartment, last night.

Yet, while he had admitted as much with his ever present guilty expression, she was still shocked...and angry.

“
Dammit, Kyle!”

She was just about to yank that door open and hightail it out of there, when Kyle said, “I was worried about you...” as she suspiciously surveyed him, he said, “Amelia and I...”

Before he could finished, she snapped, “Amelia...of course...Amelia needs to live her own life, and stop trying to live it through her own sisters!”

“
What's that suppose to mean?”

Sighing, she said, “Come on, Kyle...You know that Amelia's life is fucked up...If she had a fairly decent marriage and more going on in her life, she wouldn't insist on always having to interfere in either my life or Jewels.” for a few awkward moments, they just sat there in silence; weighing over what she had just said.

When Genevieve finally spoke, there was this lace of resentment in her voice, “She's married to a dickhead, that she's lied for years about loving...Really it's an ego thing...her marriage.”

All Kyle could do was stoically stare at Genevieve. He couldn't really argue with her. For everything Genevieve had just said was true.

Amelia had met this guy, Bobby Steleman, a total baby face dick wade in all appearances. The man had no backbone, and, yet, for some reason, Amelia had found him to be appealing. At least that was what it seemed. It turned out that the whole marriage had been a facade.  Amelia had married the guy, because her ego couldn't stand to dump a man that was six years younger than herself.

  “
Gen...” he sighed. “I love you..., that's why when Amelia asked me to check this Cirpian out, I didn't do it right away.” after rubbing his face, he said, “It was after those two bouquets of flowers, and what that one card said...Also, when I found out, that you had, just that day, taken your car in..., then I decided to ask a friend of mine to check him out.”