But all those things were the reason he was driving out to the Gardners’ farm a day later to talk with them and the one other cassandra sangue who had been brought out of the Midwest compound that had been run by the Controller: Jean, the blood prophet who had helped Meg Corbyn escape.
Parking near the house, Steve picked up the digital camera and got out just as Lorna Gardner walked around the side of the house, followed by her two children. He hadn’t expected to see James. Every family had their own allotment of land, but the Simple Life farmers worked together for the sowing and harvesting, and it was the growing season.
Lorna took him to the guest cottage, a smaller version of the main house.
“Jean?” Lorna called, opening the door just enough to be heard. “Steve Ferryman would like to talk to you. Can you do that?”
She took a step back and lowered her voice. “If you have answers . . .”
“I have some,” Steve replied. “But it will mean allowing some technology into your home. Not equipment you’ll have to use, but you’ll need the results.”
After a thoughtful moment, Lorna nodded. “If it will help her.”
“Come in,” Jean said.
“Come to the house when you’re done,” Lorna said, stepping aside.
Steve entered the cottage, standing in the doorway while his eyes adjusted to the dark room. All the curtains were closed. All the windows were closed. No light. No fresh air.
“Close the door,” Jean snapped.
He closed the door and leaned against it.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I wanted this,” she said. “From the day I was brought to that compound and given a designation, I wanted to live outside; I wanted to be a person again instead of property. But I didn’t realize it would be this hard.” She hesitated. “How is Meg?”
“Meg is fine. She and her friends in the Lakeside Courtyard have found some answers that, hopefully, will make things easier for all the blood prophets who have left the compounds.”
“She sent me a letter. I haven’t opened it yet.”
“Why not?”
“Just receiving a letter was one new thing too many that day.”
“Maybe you should read it soon.”
The curtains didn’t block all the light. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he could see her sitting at a simple wood table, turning her silver razor over and over in her hands.
His heart gave one hard bump, then seemed to freeze in his chest for a long moment before it started beating again.
“What I’d like to do is open the curtains and get enough light in here to take pictures of the rooms,” he said. “Then I’ll take pictures of the Gardners’ house and the barn and other buildings. I’ll take pictures of the animals.”
“So I can stay in here and see outside through images?”
He heard bitter, weary resignation in her voice.
“It’s reference so that going outside and seeing the real thing isn’t as much of a shock. Meg and the women working with her to create a guide for blood prophets suggested this. We did this for the girls staying at the B and B, and it helped them. Today I’m here to do the same for you, if you’ll let me.”
“Meg, the Pathfinder,” Jean said softly. “Meg, the Trailblazer. All right, Steve Ferryman. Show me the first trail marker.” She gave him a strange smile. “I don’t know what such a thing is or what it does, but it was one of the training images.”
“You never saw it in context?”
Her smile chilled him. “That would have provided too much information.”
In the compound, she had been battered and abused in almost every way one person could abuse another. He’d heard, in confidence from one of the island’s doctors, that she had a crosshatching of scars over several parts of her body and, in some places, layers of scar tissue.
Was she sane? No one wanted to make a diagnosis one way or the other. As long as she wasn’t a threat to the Gardners, the doctors and the terra indigene were willing to let her stay in the guest cottage.
Steve held up the camera. “Start of a new life, Jean, and a way to live outside again. Ready to try?”
She pushed away from the table. “I’m ready.” She paused. “And while you take the pictures out there, I will write a short note to Meg.”
CHAPTER 13
Firesday, Maius 11
“The two apartment buildings are in pretty good shape,” Pete Denby said, sitting at one of the tables in A Little Bite. “Eve says all the apartments need sprucing up—fresh paint and wallpaper, that sort of thing.”
“Nothing the new tenants couldn’t do for themselves,” Eve said. “You might want to hire a professional to check out the buildings, but we didn’t see any structural problems.”
“Then why sell the buildings?” Simon asked. Elliot, Tess, Henry, and Vlad had joined him in the coffee shop to hear the Denbys’ report. Since she was a member of the Business Association, he’d told Jenni Crowgard about this meeting, but she’d expressed no interest in joining them. That troubled him a little, but hearing about something wasn’t the same as having the opportunity to poke around someplace new, so maybe it was all the blah, blah that wasn’t of interest to the Crows.
“Lack of tenants,” Pete said. “The current owner of the buildings is behind on the mortgage payments because he’s not getting the rental income he needs. Each building has four two-bedroom apartments. Only half those units are occupied now, and all the tenants will be out by the end of the month, with no new ones moving in.”
“The owner and the real estate representative didn’t put it in quite those terms,” Eve said. “They talked about potential and a clean sweep—new landlord, new tenants. They were very careful not to say why tenants didn’t stay. Like I said, Pete and I didn’t see any sign of insect infestation or water damage or any structural reason why people wouldn’t want to live in those apartments.”
“Mayor Rogers told me the other day that there was a housing shortage in Lakeside,” Elliot said. “If that’s true, why are acceptable dens still empty?”
Pete looked uncomfortable. “Location.”
“Meaning the humans suddenly object to living so close to the Courtyard?” Vlad asked with chilling politeness.
“The real estate representative didn’t say that,” Eve said. She glanced at Pete. “But we both had the impression that was the reason the apartments hadn’t been filled when the previous tenants moved out at the end of last year—and why the existing tenants are leaving.”
Pete removed a piece of paper from his inner jacket pocket. “This is the asking price for each building. We did inquire about property taxes and the average cost of utilities. I think we were being told optimistic numbers.”
“More like numbers based on having two apartments in use in each building, and none of the tenants having children,” Eve said. “I’d double the figures for utilities for each building, minimum.”
“When asked, I told the owner that I was the attorney representing a business association that was looking at the buildings for an investment and income property,” Pete said. “One question I couldn’t answer was how my client intended to pay for the property.”
Simon frowned. “We give them money. They give us the papers that say we own the buildings. How else would we pay for it?” Did Pete think they would just take what wasn’t theirs? The Others in the Courtyard weren’t that human, no matter how well they could assume the form.
Then again, even animals fought among themselves to hold on to, or acquire more, territory.
“They were asking how you were going to finance the purchase,” Pete said. “Can the terra indigene get a mortgage from a bank?”
“Why would we want this mortgage when we have money?” Henry asked.
“Cash? You’re thinking of paying cash for both buildings?” Pete blinked. “Do you understand the asking price?”