Secrets At Crescent Point, page 23
“Do not say another word, Siyah,” Deakon ordered.
Not even glancing at his father, Siyah continued to address the council. “My father, and the family of Lenora, brutally harassed Raven Nevasta, to the point that she was injured and nearly killed last night.”
“Killed?” Lenora shook her head vehemently. “We never touched her.”
“So you did not lay hands on her, but you did terrorize her?” Szoram turned, eyeing Lenora, Vincent, and their cousins. “Is this true? Did you do this?”
“A rivalry among girls,” Deakon interjected, his face tense. “Nothing more. The rightful intended bride facing off with a threat to her place.”
“Is that why you did it?” Siyah said, his anger seething just below his control. “Is your precious grasp on Noble the reason you helped them terrorize her?” He shot a withering glance at Lenora and her family, who shrank beneath the intensity of his fury, save for Vincent, who stared impassively.
“I did,” Deakon said and met Siyah’s gaze with a flash of anger. “I had to. Raven needs to leave Noble. She needs to leave you, for good, this time.”
Siyah’s heart sank with the reality of the betrayal twisting into something dark in his chest.
“You fed Lenora and her family Raven’s guilt over the death of that boy Crawley, guilt you yourself instilled when you demanded her silence?”
“That terrible time is in the past,” Szoram said, waving his wrinkly hand. “But this behavior, this terrorizing of one of our own…”
“I had every right to protect you,” Deakon yelled suddenly. He strode over to Siyah, his stature shaky, but insolent. “Your future is with Lenora’s family, at the head of the council.”
“They nearly drove her mad!” Siyah shouted, the anger burning through him. He faced his father. “Lenora and her family frightened her in the darkness of the woods. On my own property, she was attacked and injured, for what?”
“For the good of Noble,” Deakon snapped.
“For the good of…” Siyah shook his head, his face hot with anger. “You did it to tighten your grasp on the council through me.”
“The Cavaler legacy—”
“Enough!” Siyah shouted. “I am done with this jostling for position. If you want to do this, then let us do it now.” He backed up as he spread his arms out to his sides. “I call for a council vote,” Siyah said evenly, facing each man in turn. “For the Cavaler seat.”
Murmurs broke out in the room and Deakon banged his hand on the table. “You cannot do this!”
“But I can,” Szoram said and stood. “This behavior is to be condemned. Deakon Cavaler, arrogant as he is, admitted that he did this proudly. I contend that a man willing to this to a woman, to a member of our own families, has lost his way.” His words were met with murmured assent and nods from the other members.
Lenora’s father stepped forward, but she stopped him, her lip trembling.
Szoram pointed a twisted finger at Siyah. “You will abide with the council’s decision?”
“I will,” Siyah said, his heart pounding.
“Siyah, think what you are doing,” Deakon said and his worried gaze drifted to his brother, standing in the corner of the room with his wife. “Drayden has entered a claim to the seat. You need Lenora and Luka’s families to keep the seat from him.”
Siyah ignored his father, and instead leveled his gaze at Szoram. “Vote.”
“I cast in favor of Drayden house,” Lenora’s father said quickly, his gaze boring into Siyah. “On the condition that the Nevasta family is exiled from Noble.”
Gasps from the women in the room masked Siyah’s own shock.
Lenora’s father meant to use the council to punish Raven’s entire family if he chose her.
“A promise I will keep,” Drayden said nodding. “I have no desire to shield a divisive woman and her family.”
“Siyah, look what it happening,” his father yelled. “Think of Noble. Think of what you planned for the boardwalk, the jobs for the artisans.”
“I cast for Drayden house as well,” Luka’s father said. “The Nevasta family was involved in the theft of jewels and now, the death of an honored son. Raven will never be the wife of a council member, let alone the one who sits at the head of the table.”
“Raven took those rubies to keep me from prison,” Siyah snapped and a round of muttering met him. “Everything she has ever done was to protect me, or help others.”
“That is beside the point and years too late,” Drayden said. “I will honor the request of fellow council members if the seat goes to me.”
“If the choice is to marry Raven or lose Noble, I will not look back,” Siyah said, turning to Szoram. “I will not sit on a council so corrupt and broken that it would condone what my father and others did, and force a family from their home out of vengeance.”
Drayden shrugged, completely unimpressed. “So be it.”
“Son,” Deakon said, his expression urgent. He tugged Siyah’s shirt sleeve. “Think of what you are saying. Noble needs you, the families need you. You would turn your back on them for a woman who left you once before?”
“We were to leave together that night, Father.” He pulled his arm from his father’s grasp. “She pled with me to keep my promise to her, but I refused. I turned my back on the only one I have ever loved for duty and honor. To protect your legacy,” Siyah said and heard the sorrow and regret in his own voice. He shook his head. “I already chose Noble over her once. I will not do it again.”
“How could you do this to me? To my family?” Lenora wailed. “What gives you the right to accuse my family of terror? Because she was frightened a little? How does that justify—”
“A little?” Siyah’s hands balled at his sides.
“Cries in the woods, a man with a mask chasing her in the rain…” She hugged herself. “I…we did nothing more.”
“Do you deny that someone nearly crushed her within the funhouse? Attacked her family on their own vessel?” Siyah shot back, his gaze traveling over her cousins and back to her father. “Shoved her from the Titan almost to her death? Do you deny this?”
“Yes, I deny it,” Lenora cried. “We would never.”
Lenora’s father stood abruptly. “You are speaking of attempted murder, Siyah. Do you believe our family would go that far over a marriage?”
“I do not know what to think. I only know what happened this night.” He pulled the dagger from the holster at his hip and slammed it on the table.
The council men reared from the bloody dagger, pushing back their seats as everyone shouted at once.
“Someone tried to kill me with this. Niklos’s dagger; the one that took his life. They attacked Raven, and then came at me.” Pulling at the collar of his oxford, Siyah showed them the bandage at his shoulder.
“What is this madness?” Szoram shouted. “Are you saying that there is a murderer among us?”
“I am saying that the murder of Niklos, the strange death of Elgin from the hill houses, and the other unexplained events on Noble are all connected…” Siyah strode around the table to face Lenora’s family. He hesitated, something familiar throwing off his thoughts.
“Yes, but you said that whoever is scaring your Raven, is also responsible for the murders?” Szoram asked.
“That is what I thought before.” Siyah tilted his head. “But I was wrong.”
“What?” Several members of the council intoned at once.
Realization spread through Siyah like a wildfire. “I thought that those terrorizing Raven and those actually trying to hurt her were one in the same, but now I know that is not the case. Lenora is guilty of vandalism and the pranks. These are all things a spoiled adolescent might do, but now that I am here—”
In one swift motion, Siyah grabbed Vincent by the collar of the shirt and slammed him against the wall.
Screams and shouts tangled with toppled chairs as they ran to stop Siyah, but he would not let go. He leaned in, getting into the man’s face. “Did you think I would not recognize you? Even in the rain you stink of that cologne.”
“Siyah,” Lenora screamed, pulling at his arm. “Let him go!”
“Childish pranks and parlor tricks were not enough?” Siyah shouted at Vincent as more men ran into the room and dragged him away. “You had to try to kill her and frame me? Why?”
“What?” Lenora sobbed, obviously confused. “What is going on?”
“Check him! Vincent is the attacker. See that he was recently in a fight. I know that I left marks on his body.”
“Be still!” Szoram yelled at Siyah. And to the other men, “Let him go.”
Yanking his arms from them, Siyah straightened his shirt, wiping the blood from his lip. He turned to Szoram. “I am not wrong.”
“Show us your chest,” the old man ordered. “Let this be over.”
Vincent looked at them, his face ashen. “You believe him?”
“I will believe my own eyes,” Szoram snapped. “Now.”
Vincent undid the buttons on his shirt. Whipping it open, those gathered gasped. He was covered in bruises.
“Why are you doing this?” Siyah snapped, shaking with anger. “Tell us.”
“Luka…” Vincent looked to the corner and blinked. “He’s gone.”
37
I woke to the sound of computer keys clacking and cracked my eyes open. With my view of Thompson from his office sofa, I could tell he had not slept since we returned to the station. Pushing back the jacket draped over me, I caught the slight scent of sandalwood…Siyah.
“You’re up,” Thompson said, looked over at me, frowned, and let his gaze go back to his computer monitor. “We have to talk.”
“About what?” I rubbed my eyes. “Where’s Siyah?”
“That’s what we need to talk about,” Thompson said and turned in his office chair. He rubbed his sideburns as he gazed at me with a wrinkled brow. “He called some sort of meeting and told me to keep you here.”
“What?” I stood, irritation grating down my spine. “I am not to be kept, like a child, out of harm’s way.”
Thompson didn’t react, he simply nodded, his lips pressed together. “Yeah, he said you’d probably react this way about it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I sat down again, cheeks flushed.
“It means he knows you’ll want to go and confront them, but he wanted to do it right. He’s calling for a council vote.” Thompson leaned back in his chair and took in a deep breath. “If it goes sideways, I think he’ll end up leaving Noble for you. The council is full of old guys with old ways. I’m not quite sure what they’ll make of Siyah’s philosopher-king routine.”
I wrinkled my nose, unsure of what to say. Siyah was complicated, unwilling to do things a certain way just because they’d always been done that way, but in his heart he loved his home and the families here. Siyah had the potential to be a great leader, if only they believed in him as much as I did.
“They don’t know him. If they did, they’d trust him,” I said.
“Seems like there’s a lot of that going around,” Thompson said and tossed a file at me. “I read the accident report.”
I opened the file, leafing through the forms describing the auto accident that nearly took Siyah’s life in more ways than one. Blood, lies, and fear. Everything seemed to be coming back again.
“He told you,” I said and it wasn’t a question. Of course, Siyah would set the record straight where I was concerned. “About the rubies.”
“Yes,” Thompson said, and nodded at the file in my hands. “You probably kept him from prison. He said you did it despite him having been in the company of another girl when it happened.”
“He was lost. We both were.” I closed the file and set it aside. “And I kept pulling him further from where he needed to be.”
“How do you mean?” Thompson raised a brow. “From what I hear, he was lost when you weren’t here.”
“No, I think…” I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “I think that we needed to be apart for a season.”
“You don’t think he would have changed if you had stayed?”
“I think that sometimes God can reach us best when we have nothing left to cling to except Him,” I whispered, and wiped at my cheek. “I wouldn’t have found my own faith if all I could see was Siyah. He’s all I ever thought of, all I had wanted, before then.”
“So it was good, all that happened?” Thompson raised a brow.
“No, but it was used for good in the end,” I said and knew that it was true.
Thompson looked at me for a beat, and then nodded. “I can get behind that.”
“You are a strange man,” I said, smiling. “A sheriff willing to share authority with a Romany council, one who shows dead bodies to suspects, and lends evidence to men running off to create unrest among a huge part of Noble’s population…”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, and then his expression turned serious. “If the council votes, do you think they will choose Siyah?”
“I don’t know.” I bit my bottom lip, thinking. “If they make him choose, I believe your first thought will be correct.”
“What’s that?”
“Siyah would leave Noble for me.” I sat up, looked around for my bag and slipped Siyah’s jacket on. “I need to go.”
“Uh…” Thompson stood, eyeing the door. “Where? It’s storming outside again.”
“I cannot just sit here twisting my thumbs,” I said and dug in my bag.
“Twiddling,” Thompson said. “What are you going to do?”
I pulled out the postcard from Sonja, the one that first set me flying across the country back to Noble. “This all started with one missing boy. Sonja’s fiancé, Niklos.”
“Whom we already found.”
“Yes, but why him?” My mind worked to see through the haze of lies and unknowns. “We know he went missing before I even returned. His death could not be at all related to me…but he was left on Siyah’s property. Sonja said he was threatened and involved with something dangerous and…there is the boat. It is where Sonja found the receipt for Niklos’s gun. He has to be involved, somehow. More than we think.”
“What boat?” Thompson asked. “No, I checked for property and vessels under his name, his father’s, even his mother’s maiden name. There is nothing we didn’t find.”
“He put it in Sonja’s name. It was supposed to be their home.”
“You told me about the gun receipt, but not the boat?” He looked at me incredulous, and I was immediately sorry I had not trusted him enough before. “Where?”
“Black Shore Harbor,” I said.
“You think you can get her to meet us there so I can take a look?” Thompson opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out his sidearm. “I can’t get hold of a judge in this storm. You think she’ll be up yet?”
“It’s almost six…so yes. On one condition,” I said and headed for the door.
“I know,” Thompson said getting there first and holding it open. “You get to come, too.”
****
The main road was still obstructed by a downed power line, so it took a while to navigate the twisted back road that cut across the edge of the woods to the harbor. Though the forest canopy offered some shelter, the wipers of Thompson’s cruiser barely kept up with the rain. The wind blew leaves against the passenger side window and I looked at their fragile network of veins until another gust tore them from the glass. I wondered where Siyah was and what had become of the council vote. The possible outcomes made me fist my hands with frustration.
“Raven…”
Lost in thought, I turned at the alarm in the sheriff’s voice.
The car’s radio crackled and I heard a deputy’s voice warble through the static.
Called it in…don’t know…casualties…
“What in the world?” Thompson slowed to a stop just inside the towering arch of Black Shore Harbor’s entrance sign. In the distance, a few hundred yards in, flames curled and snapped against the dark morning sky.
“Is that…?” I unbuckled, the metal of the seatbelt cracking against the window as I pushed the door open. In the haze of rain, I could make out the vessel. It was my parents’ home. “No!”
“Raven, wait,” Thompson yelled.
Ignoring him, I sprinted down the ramp as the rain slashed at my skin with ice-cold licks. I heard Thompson behind me, his heavy steps pounding the planks. Closer now, I saw my mother and father tossing our possessions from the boat to our neighbors. They stood in their robes and night clothes catching small pieces of furniture, picture frames, and bags. An inferno raged in the aft deck, eating up the back cabins, the windows cracking as the flames blew heated air that hit me as I ran up.
“Get down, Mama!” I screamed, trying for the ladder.
Thompson pulled me away.
My father tossed down a box, his face red with the heat and work. Overhead, the whine of the fire alarm on my family’s boat drowned me out.
“Get off the vessel, Mr. and Mrs. Nevasta,” Thompson shouted as he started up towards them. “Please, the fire volunteers are on their way.”
“No time,” my father grunted. “They will not get here in time.”
“Raven.” My mother sobbed, her hair plastered to her forehead with rain. “All of our things, your sister’s things. Who would do this?”
“Sonja…” I scanned the crowd next to me, and then the windows of the boat and my heart thrummed painfully. “Where is Sonja?”
“She’s…” My mother’s face paled. Looking at my father with panic, they turned in unison towards the burning cabins. “Did she run back inside?”
“I did not see her.” My father scanned the people below the boat on the walkway. They surged, reaching to help with our things. “Look for her, Raven!”
I glanced around, panic swelling. The shouts and cries of those helping my father made it hard to hear. “When did you see her last?”
“I told her to climb down,” my father yelled, his hands to the sides of his face. “I saw her go down.”
“There, on the steps,” my mother added, her face twisted with confusion. “She said she was going to get something. Something to stop all of this.”
