Framing Felipe, page 23
gesture. “They are good people!”
“Brother, you are a traitor,” the man with the gun said, and he swung his weapon
around and fired a slug directly into the right side of Mr. Tolvaj’s chest, with Sarah
watching helplessly. As fast as she was with her Shrew reflexes, she couldn’t have predicted
that betrayal.
“No!” she shrieked, falling to her knees, with one landing hard on something firm and
ridged.
That fucking collateral damage. And she wasn’t the only one angry. The Gypsy ran over,
firefight be damned, and laid her body over Mr. Tolvaj’s, weeping.
Sarah patted the ground beneath her knee and wrapped her fingers around the cold
metal oval. A caress of her thumb revealed a smooth back, and on the front, a relief of a
man. A familiar shape. A saint. Felipe’s. She squeezed the medallion hard in her palm and
made a quick circular scan of the lot. Where was her lover? Had he left that there for her?
Or had it been taken from him?
Jacques laughed, carelessly dangling his gun from his forefinger. “Come out, Castillo. I
know you’re here somewhere lurking. Well guess what?” He took a step down and scanned
the area as if he genuinely believed Felipe would come out. “Just like your father, huh? Are
you going to hide the rest of your life? Go ahead. Make it easy for me.”
Sarah tuned in, her confusion over his words muddling her alertness, but kept one eye
on the Visa. What was Jacques talking about? What about Felipe’s father?
“Just shut up!” the Gypsy yelled, still sobbing. “Shut up! Enough of this. Somebody,
please, call an ambulance. Just this once, call the ambulance! Just pack up and go. We won’t
say nothing!”
He ignored her as if she were so inconsequential. And maybe to him, she was. “Come,
on Felipe. It’ll be just like old times. Police in Spain still think Papa Castillo killed his wife,
huh? The meddling bitch.”
“Rat bastard,” Sarah mumbled as the Visa with the syringe pulled her close, pressing
the tip of the needle against her neck. In the shuffle, she dropped the medallion, but didn’t
dare to struggle. She didn’t want what was in that syringe in her body. Her situation was
tenuous enough as it was without introducing suspicious drugs to the mix.
FRAMING FELIPE – 153 – Holley Trent
The Visa pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, “I did it. Me. Bashed her head in.
Made it look like he pushed her from the high wire.” He laughed, and Sarah knew without a
doubt this man had no soul. He couldn’t have. If he had any fear of Hell, he wouldn’t laugh.
Bile foamed up her throat and she clamped her teeth, meditating on sure things and
finding her center the way Dana taught her.
Chauncey was safe. The wolves were out. The bears released. Patrick had an advantage.
And Felipe…how long could Felipe hold that form?
“Oh, that stupid whore,” Jacques continued, now pacing the ground in front of the
office.
The fourth Visa who’d been minding Sarah aimed his sights on Dana, now that Sarah
was under duress of the syringe.
Jacques kept pacing. Kept posturing. “It was arranged from childhood. She was
supposed to be mine!” His voice deepened, yet increased in volume at the end. It was the
closest thing to a villain speech Sarah had ever heard, and it scared her. She couldn’t
believe people like him existed in real life.
“Spawned you two freaks, just like your father. Maybe it was for the best she died so
there wouldn’t be more.”
Keep your cool, Felipe. Even as she thought it, she knew it was something that’d be
damned near impossible if she’d been in his shoes. If that fool had called her mother a bitch,
he wouldn’t have lived long enough to get the next word out. But then again, she wouldn’t
have lasted much longer after that herself with all the muscle around.
Now, RV park residents—human or freak, Sarah couldn’t tell which—pressed hands
and faces to the glass of their homes, peeking out, but too scared to assist.
Sarah couldn’t blame them, but she hoped at least one of them had the good sense to
dial 9-‐1-‐1. If Mr. Tolvaj could hold on just a bit longer…
“You’re never going to find him, Castillo. If he were a good man, he wouldn’t have left
you two in the dust, huh? Maybe he’s dead, too. Oh well. He’ll never get found. And guess
what? When I’m done with the two of you idiots, there’ll be nothing left of you to find,
either.”
So, Fabian was alive. Maybe there was hope. Sarah swallowed, cognizant of the needle’s
placement, and made good eye contact with Dana.
FRAMING FELIPE – 154 – Holley Trent
Dana closed both eyelids in a long blink. At your leisure, she was saying. She trusted
Sarah to do what she needed to at the right time, even if it was reckless. They’d clean up the
mess later.
“Hey, boss. Here’s his girlfriend,” the needle-‐wielding Visa yelled, now back in the
original form he’d taken as a circus hand. Must have been his natural one. “Guess what?
She’s the same bitch who fed info to the FBI at the club.”
“Oh. Good to know.” Jacques raised his gun, and though Sarah should have been
concentrating on that, black smoke was now pouring out of the office behind it. It pulled
her attention away from the needle prick at her neck.
She growled out her anger as a blur of fur streaked past in her periphery. Patrick. He
darted between the trailers, and she was unsure if anyone had seen him beyond her. But a
quick glance at Dana, whose eyes tracked to the left briefly, indicated she’d seen her dirty
cat as well.
A shot rang out during Sarah’s moment of distraction, and she saw the flames from the
trailer at the same time Felipe phased to his physical form in front of her.
The fiery pain in her side registered as she hit the ground, Felipe falling on top of her.
She’d been shot?
“Felipe?” she croaked, trying to will her heart rate down, hoping it’d keep her blood
loss to a minimum. It was more important than ever she be whole. Healthy.
“Querida?”
“Just checking.” She closed her eyes on the pain, and there was darkness.
FRAMING FELIPE – 155 – Holley Trent
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sarah watched the hospital’s on-‐call surgeon quietly exit the room, and she blew out a
deep breath, letting the events of the day fully settle in her brain. For the most part, she felt
like they’d failed their mission. Jacques and his Visas got away at the first sound of sirens,
and Felipe was no closer to locating his brother. But, the good news was the fire he’d
started when Jacques was busy terrorizing them all destroyed many of the contracts
binding the long-‐time performers to the troupe. They could leave and no court anywhere
would tell them otherwise.
Felipe did find his birth records and passport, along with Fabian’s, and squirreled those
out before lighting the match. He was thirty-‐four years old and born in Cataluna, Spain to
Felipe and Jacqueline. That saint’s medallion had belonged to his father, and he hoped to
get it back. He hadn’t realized he dropped it.
The door swung open and a hand gripped the divider curtain’s edge. Sarah braced
herself for yet another nurse or doctor checking in on their charge, but no. She breathed a
sigh of relief to see part of her troupe.
Doc trailed Dana and Patrick, and bringing up the rear was an ashen-‐faced Felipe, who
walked with a slight slump to his shoulders.
“Hi,” she said to them all. “Is everyone all right?”
Dana brushed some hair back from Sarah’s forehead and nodded. “Mr. Tolvaj is in
critical condition, but stable. We put the Gypsies up at Eric’s lodge until we can figure out
something else. They’re watching over Chauncey.”
“Send Chauncey to my parents. I told him I’d get him a home.”
“Okay.” She smiled, but it was a weak one. “I’ll do it in the morning. I think it’ll be good
for him to get far away from here. Your parents have enough land out there in the boonies
he can shift and run during the full moon without being spotted.” She gripped Sarah’s hand
and squeezed hard. “Sorry, honey. That whole thing was a mess. We should have had more
bodies there.”
Sarah tried to sit up, and cringed. “No! Don’t apologize. I’m the one who jumped in that
van trying to play lone gun. If it weren’t for you and Patrick, I’d probably be toast.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 156 – Holley Trent
“It’s my fault,” Felipe said, edging close to the bed and raking his fingers through his
disheveled hair. “I thought I could confront him on my own, but everything by then had
become so intertwined that we all had something at stake. I’m sorry it took me so long to
come to you. I saw the needle, but I thought you—no, I knew you’d hold down the fort while
I got the papers I needed. Still, it was stupid of me to leave you exposed.”
“You trusted me to hold them off?”
He raised his shoulders in a small shrug and his face pulled into a grimace as he
reached for his wound. She’d been the one carried off in an ambulance, right behind Mr.
Tolvaj. His gunshot wound had yet to be tended. He’d, literally, disappeared when the cops
arrived. Fortunately, the few non-‐weirdo residents of the campground couldn’t remember
seeing him at all. They saw and heard some animals—one of which attacked Sarah—and
they saw a bunch of men with guns. “I’ve seen you work. Know you’re careful.”
“I wasn’t at my best. I was distracted by that pedophile, and I—”
“Hey.” Dana snapped her fingers, and when Sarah raised her gaze to the lead Shrew,
she found her wagging her index finger at her. “Don’t go there. Yeah, you were tired and
couldn’t react to the twelve million explosions going off around you. I felt like everything
was happening in slow motion myself, and I’m nowhere near as tired as you. You did
damned good given the circumstances. The past few months for you have been pretty
shitty, and we’re going to fix that.”
Sarah cocked up a brow, but before she could say anything, Felipe held her face
between his hands and stared into her eyes, assessing her. Dana backed away, whispering
to Patrick at the door while Doc scanned Sarah’s chart.
“Querida. ”
She stared into his pale gaze and found his eyes tired. She felt like if she could see into
his soul, it’d be weary. Exhausted. Maybe even a little frightened. “Yeah?”
And his eyes were just as penetrating. He seemed to be reading her fear and hesitance
and desire and everything else she’d been trying so long to suppress, but couldn’t anymore.
“You’re with me, huh?”
She knew he was asking more than what those simple words were saying. She nodded.
“I’m with you.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 157 – Holley Trent
“Good.” His thumbs grazed her cheeks as he studied her. “I didn’t say it before because
I was stupid. Wasn’t thinking. I’m not so good with words sometimes.”
She sucked in and held a breath, and regretted it because it pulled at the edges of
wound. Say it.
“Sarah, I love you. That doesn’t make all this better, but—”
She stilled his lips by pressing a kiss onto them. He deepened it, twining his fingers
through her hair and leaning his torso onto the bed until she croaked.
“Easy now,” Doc said.
“I hate the thought of leaving you again,” he said, patting down the hair he’d molested.
“Even for a day, but I have so many cold trails to pick up to find Fabian and…my father.”
“She’s the best at picking up cold trails,” Dana said matter-‐of-‐factly. “Ever better than
me, and I was a cop. If something is trackable, she’ll find it. She found you, right?”
“Yes, she did.” He smiled down at her like all of a sudden he’d become a very wealthy
man—as if she were some sort of treasure.
Her cheeks burned with his scrutiny, and she felt like a teenaged fool for it. This man—
this was her man, and here she was being bashful? Who the hell was the woman in the
hospital bed if not Sarah? Bashful had never been one of her temperatures.
“Of course I’ll help you. Even if it means I have to detach myself from the action for a
while.” She tried to smirk, but the best she could manage was a twitching of her lips.
“You go where I go,” he said, and it came out sounding more like a question than a
statement.
Still, she nodded, and pressed her hands on the backsides of his for a moment before
letting her palms slip up to his wrists. She cinched them and drew his hands onto her lap
and cleared her throat. “The other doctor said—”
She couldn’t get out because Dana, who’d stepped out momentarily, returned with a
duffel bag Sarah recognized as one of the Shrew emergency kits. They’d been Sarah’s idea.
Each Shrew kept one at all the places they regularly frequented—the office, Patrick’s cabin,
the Shrew vehicles, and so on. They usually contained some paper currency, a few changes
of clothes, some toiletries, and a few other items a private detective would need if she were
going to be away from home for an undetermined period of time.
Sarah let go of Felipe’s wrists and pushed herself more upright. “What’s that for?”
FRAMING FELIPE – 158 – Holley Trent
Dana unzipped the bag and held it up so Sarah could see her holster and primary
weapons on top. Dana re-‐zipped it and tossed the bag toward the lounger in the corner.
“You’re not going to be able to fly commercially with those weapons, so I arranged for you
to take a seven a.m. chartered flight to Madrid out of Hartford. Going to be flying with a
bunch of stuffy businessmen. Be nice. They’re clients. Are you feeling well enough to take
your plane up there?”
Sarah’s jaw flapped open.
Felipe nudged it shut.
“Tonight? The doctor said they wanted to keep me for forty-‐eight hours.”
Doc scoffed. “Doctors don’t know what you are. I want to get you out of here before
they draw any substantial amount of blood and order any tests beyond the usual. That I.V.
isn’t doing you a damned bit of good, anyway. You’re metabolizing the painkillers too
quickly, and they’re pretty weak ones to start with. Wonder why they gave you those.”
Sarah didn’t.
“I’ll give you something stronger that’ll take the edge off until your regenerative cells
amp up.” She held out her hand and Sarah placed hers into it, backside up, and Doc slid the
I.V. catheter out.
“Let me check that wound. If it’s clean, you’ll be okay, but a bit sore.”
