Framing Felipe, page 16
“I try.”
“Patrick did try that. Didn’t come up with anything recent.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 104 – Holley Trent
“Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while she thought. Tracking
was what she was best at. All she needed was a tiny lead and she could amplify it, or find
someone who could. She wasn’t averse to relying on supernatural help if she could get it.
Often, one of the very first things she did when rolling into a new town was going to a gas
station, checking the phone booth for the yellow pages, and calling the psychics. She always
knew which ones were legit, because when they answered their phones, they said things
like, “Who are you looking for, honey?”
“The other thing you might want to try is checking public social media accounts that
don’t get picked up very high in search engine rankings. Twitter. Instagram. Look for
people talking in general terms about the circus, and see if you can hone in from there on
the one they’re referring to. Maybe even search the names of specific performers.”
“I have no idea how to do that, but it sounds logical.”
“I’ll show you later…”
“Where are you going now?”
“My place. I live near the airport. I have a small plane my dad gave me, and I like to be
near it.”
“Are you heading back to the mountains tonight?”
“Why? Did Dana tell you to try to keep me here a couple more days?”
He didn’t answer, but Sarah knew the boss lady well enough that he didn’t need to.
“She’s thinking about forcing me into a paid medical leave, you know.”
Obviously he didn’t, because his eyebrows darted up. “Medical leave? What for?”
“Oh, variety of things,” she said darkly.
“Can she make you do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Not real sure what North Carolina’s employment laws say about
that. Most people would consider it a vacation, right? We’re talking full pay while I sit at
home on my ass.”
“You…want to talk about it?”
She didn’t answer. She turned off of the freeway and set the car on the artery that led to
her house.
No, she didn’t want to talk about it, but she suspected she would whether she wanted
to or not.
FRAMING FELIPE – 105 – Holley Trent
Felipe stabbed the seatbelt release button, and wrapped his fingers around the door
handle while Sarah fiddled with the garage door opener.
He hadn’t known what to expect when she’d revealed she was driving to her house, but
certainly he didn’t expect this. The house was a two-‐story Greek revival set back on several
acres. When she’d said she lived near the airport, she was overstating things a bit. They had
to be more than half an hour out.
“This is what you call close?” he asked.
She shrugged and undid her seatbelt. “Close enough. Technically, this is Chapel Hill, but
the Chatham County bit and not the rich people bit.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
They got out and closed their doors. He followed Sarah out of the detached garage,
waited as she let the door down, then padded behind her toward the dark house. The way
her hips swayed in that long, clingy sequined dress fogged his brain sufficiently that he
didn’t hear what she was asking that required a response.
She stopped on the path between the garage and the house—very near the back door,
turned, and stared at him.
“¿Qué? ”
She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “I said the house was a good deal. I bought it
off an old vet who couldn’t keep up the maintenance. I couldn’t afford the asking price, but
the gent cut me a deal because he thought out of all the other folks making offers, I’d be
most likely to hang onto it long-‐term. I moved in a couple of weeks before my last long case.
I’m still unpacking. I asked if you’ll forgive the mess.”
“Oh. Certainly.”
“Mess” was yet another overstatement. Yes, there were a number of unpacked boxes,
the place needed fresh paint, and the fixtures needed updating, but compared to what
Felipe was used to, the house was a mansion.
His awe must have been apparent on his face, because Sarah grinned from the counter
where she was divesting herself of her costume jewelry and raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
FRAMING FELIPE – 106 – Holley Trent
“You live here alone?” He moved through the ground floor, turning on lights as he went,
idling a while in each room. Kitchen. Living room. Dining room. Parlor? Powder room…
She eased in front of him in the hallway where he stood studying the chipping plaster
on the ceiling and pointed to her zipper.
He brushed her hair aside, resisted the temptation to kiss her bare shoulders, and let it
down for her.
“Yes.”
“Why does one woman need so much space?”
She shrugged, and wrapped an arm around her belly to hold her dress up. “Five out of
five Shrews would prefer to live someplace isolated than in a condo wedged next to some
stranger. Ask Dana. She could tell you from personal experience.”
“You’re not that antisocial.”
She shook her head and skirted around him.
He followed her up the worn staircase.
“I can make nice when I have to,” she said. “But it’s a lot of work for me.”
“Ah.”
They trooped down the hallway and entered what must have been the master
bedroom. Surprisingly, this room was finished, and recently so. It must have been the one
thing Sarah had gotten done in the time since she’d purchased the house.
The hardwood floors had been lovingly repaired and coated so they shone a glossy
amber color. The baseboards and chair railings received a coat or two of satin white paint
that popped against wall colors the Shrew had closen. Below the chair rail, she’d filled in a
dark gray color. Above, up to the high ceilings, a Tiffany blue that carried over to the
bedding on her four-‐poster bed.
“You look stunned,” she said with a laugh as she stepped out of her dress.
“Now I am, yes.” He joined her at the bed where she was disrobing and relished the
sight of her in her underthings. Firm breasts pushed high by her bustier’s boning, toned
legs shown at their best advantage due to the high cut of her panties and the sky-‐high silver
heels she wore.
She kicked those off as he soon as he noticed them, teasing him with a cheeky grin.
“Tell me why you’re stunned?”
FRAMING FELIPE – 107 – Holley Trent
“Well…” He cradled her bottom and helped her up onto the high bed.
Lying on her back like that, his base impulse was to help her out of those lacy little
panties. They had to be uncomfortable, the poor dear. But, he resisted the urge for the
moment and instead heeled off his shoes and climbed up next to her. He laid on his left side
and stared down at her lovely, but tired, face.
“I suppose I’m surprised because this has the potential to be an actual home.” Any
woman who would so lovingly personalize the room where she spent the most time
probably understood that concept perfectly well.
“Well, that’s the general idea. A girl’s gotta put down roots somewhere, right? I saw this
place while Tam and I were on the way back from a job, and I knew I had to have it. Used
the last of the money from my settlement to pay for it. It’ll be nice not having a mortgage.”
He let his forehead furrow. “Settlement?”
Her mouth opened, closed, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She
worried at it a moment, then said, “Um. Settlement.” She pushed up onto her elbows and
wriggled back on the bed until her spine met the headboard.
Felipe followed, propping his back on the headboard beside her and nudging her with
his left arm. “Tell me.”
“Hold on. I’m trying to figure out how to make it sound less like a cut-‐rate straight-‐to-‐
DVD movie plot.”
“Come on. I’m weird, too. You won’t shock me.”
The slight widening of her eyes revealed she didn’t exactly believe that, but she started
anyway.
“There was a drug trial a few years ago. It was what was responsible for making the
Shrews what they are.”
“What was the drug supposed to do?”
“What they told the participants was that it was designed to minimize the feeling of
anxiety and stress in dangerous work situations. That seemed to make sense. Most of the
women who got drafted came out of fields like military and police, or else grew up in war-‐
torn areas. That’s how Dana, Tamara, and I got escalated to the next stage. Tam’s father was
a Romanian official, and they lived in Bosnia for a large chunk of her childhood. Maria and
Astrid fit other trial requirements that we didn’t know about at the time.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 108 – Holley Trent
“What happened?”
Her fingers toyed with a small section of the duvet cover’s quilt work for a moment
before she answered. “It wasn’t true. That was just what the drug company got approval to
test. They were more interested in the off-‐label applications of the drug.”
“Which were?”
Her dark eyes rolled up, slowly, to met his. “Compliance. They theorized if we felt less
stress, we’d be sweeter.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t work.”
“The only reason I’m not punching you for that comment is because it would be too
ironic.”
He put his hands up in a defeated gesture and offered her an apologetic grin. “I don’t
like that kind of irony. Besides, I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
“Sure, you say that now…”
“And so this drug, it mutated you?”
She nodded. “It affected some of us more than others. All the women involved survived,
though in a few cases that’s just a polite way of saying they’re not quite buried yet. They
might as well be dead. They’re in nursing homes. Dana, Tamara, Astrid, Maria and I got
lucky. Don’t know why, but after the worst of it, we got stronger. Developed some new
traits during all that time we spent in hospitals.”
“I see. And why did you sign up for this study?”
“I didn’t. My ex signed me up. I’d been back from overseas and still recovering from
injuries I received, and I guess I was just too surly for him. I went along with it since I was
in and out of the hospital getting burn care anyway.”
His eyes, then fingertips, trailed down her torso to her thighs, caressing the soft skin
there. “I can imagine you having burns.”
She shrugged. “Positive side-‐effect of being a mutant. The drug nearly killed me, but I
was going to die with my skin regenerated, so there’s that…”
“I’m glad you survived. That you’re here.”
“You don’t want to hear about all the freaky shit I can do that you haven’t seen yet?”
FRAMING FELIPE – 109 – Holley Trent
Did he? Nah. He wasn’t really that curious about that. Seeing this side of her—the side
with the interest in interior decorating and old houses—was what sparked his curiosity
even more. He shrugged. “As long as you don’t use it against me at some point.”
She let out a breath and smiled. When she brought a hand up to her forehead to swat
her hair away, he saw that it shook.
He grabbed it, stilled it in his own, and kissed it. Poor thing. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
“It’s over now, right?”
She dragged the back of her other forearm over her eyes and sniffed. “Don’t know. We
Shrews see our doctor far more than the average person.”
“Well, we can hope.”
He leaned in, kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, and finally her lips. He kissed her until the
tears stopped, and more beyond that.
He held her against his chest, chafing her bare arms with his hands until she was quiet.
He thought perhaps she’d fallen asleep, but when he reached for the covers, she said, “I
need to set the intruder alarm.”
“Tell me how, I’ll do it. You stay.”
She shook her head, and with some effort, sat up. “Let me do it. I guess since I’m off for
the next couple of days, I should finally get my appliances delivered. They’ve been in the
local warehouse for a month. I need to go online and take care of it and some other things.”
It seemed a good reason to let her up as any, so he did.
She shrugged into fluffy robe and tied the sash tight, watching him.
“What?” he asked.
“What are you doing the next couple of days?”
Any fucking thing she wanted. He’d even scrape her peeling plaster if she’d asked.
“Looking for leads.”
“Maybe you can do that here. I…hate being alone with delivery guys and contractors.”
She had to be joking, but the look on her face and the way she shifted her weight
confirmed otherwise. But then again, he’d seen a hint of that hesitance at the lodge when
the great room had filled for dinner. She had a hard time with strangers…and maybe that
was part of the reason Dana wanted her on leave. Maybe it was a new thing she needed to
FRAMING FELIPE – 110 – Holley Trent
work out. Might have been something she’d always had that got amplified by her psychic
traits. Either way, it didn’t matter.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll deal with them.”
With that she nodded, and padded out the room.
He followed. When they were on the stairs, heading down, he said in a light tone,
“Querida, you need a dog.”
She laughed, and it was a real, throaty laugh and not a scoff. “Why would I need a dog?”
“Big house like this and all this land? You need something here to make noise.”
She seemed to consider it as she paused at the landing. “Maybe.”
“Perhaps a mastiff?” Oh yeah, something big that would be as protective of Sarah as
Felipe was.
“No way. Didn’t the conquistadors use those to quell the natives? I don’t think my part-‐
Taíno mother would find that cute.” She pushed her code into the alarm panel at the front
door and waited for the beep.
Maybe she had a point there. “Water dog, then?”
She grinned and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the den where her desk was
half-‐set up. “Maybe. Have you never had a pet, Felipe?”
“Not even a goldfish, querida. Fabian and I hadn’t earned that privilege.”
“Yeah, Jacques needs a throat punch.”
Felipe didn’t disagree.
FRAMING FELIPE – 111 – Holley Trent
CHAPTER TWELVE
Being back around the Shrews and in the midst of things felt great, invigorating, but
Sarah couldn’t slake the feeling there was somewhere else she needed to be.
