Framing felipe, p.19
Framing Felipe, page 19
“He’s not going to bother me, are you Chauncey?” Sarah asked, looking at the spooked
kid in the rear-‐view mirror.
Chauncey shook his head hard and fast, and his eyes went wide.
Sarah pulled her seatbelt across her body and raised an eyebrow at Felipe. “I think he
knows he’s safer with us than with the bears. Pretty sure Gene did him a favor.”
No one had asked Chauncey, but now he was nodding, just as rapidly.
“Going to get him some lunch and tend to our guests. Please move away from the door.
Tamara’s coming. Don’t want to keep her waiting at the gate. You don’t really want to give
her another reason not to like you, would you?”
Hell no, he didn’t. He moved away from the door, and she slammed it shut so fast, she
nearly caught the tail of his shirt in it. Still, he had no idea what he’d done to alter her mood
so.
Tamara hopped down from Patrick’s truck and jogged toward them as Astrid and Dana
gave up their posts. Before Tamara could entreat him with a choice selection of her favorite
curses, Felipe pulled open the back door and climbed up.
FRAMING FELIPE – 125 – Holley Trent
“Mueve,” he said in a growl, and whether or not Chauncey could translate it, he scooted
all the way to the far door and pressed his side against it.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked, scowling at him via the rear-‐view mirror just like
she had when they’d first met. They really had to stop communicating this way.
“Don’t mind me. I’m just keeping the young man company while you drive.”
“Don’t bother him.”
Bother him? What had gotten into her? He didn’t respond, just fastened his seatbelt and
tried to make himself as comfortable as he could crammed behind Sarah’s seat. He was
pretty sure she had let it back about six inches just to make him that much more miserable.
Once they were on the road with the turn-‐off well behind them, he said, “When I was
gone this last time, I picked up a lead. Do you care?”
She waited a long while before answering. “Do I care about Fabian? Yes.”
“Why do you make it sound like we’re interchangeable?”
“You said it, not me.”
He ground his teeth. She had to be intentionally pushing his buttons, trying to get a rise
out of him. Hadn’t she just said back in the tree stand that she loved him? A woman who
loved him wouldn’t suddenly be so capricious. So mercurial.
It’d felt amazing when she admitted it. He’d wanted to take her away from all this shit
and close them off from everything else in the world for a while. Just him and her. Maybe
take her to Spain and try to snatch some of the vestiges of his roots, if there were any left.
Maybe find his mother’s people in France, who probably didn’t even know she was dead
after all these years. Felipe had been too young to understand as a child, but now, he was
able to piece together some of those whispered conversations his elderly aunt had on the
phone.
His mother had been shunned from her family for marrying whom they called “The
Spaniard.” They didn’t like that he was different. And it wasn’t because he was a circus
performer. Felipe and Fabian had always thought it was because he was Spanish. He didn’t
have the pedigree his wife had. But now Felipe understood it wasn’t his nationality they
were so averse to, but his make-‐up.
He was a freak, just like the sons he eventually had. And now Felipe also understood
that those nights as a child where he thought someone was in their room when they slept
FRAMING FELIPE – 126 – Holley Trent
but he could see no one, his father must have been there. It explained why his saint
medallion always showed up on the table when it’d started the night in a drawer. He’d felt
that same sort of awareness when Fabian, nearby, phased into the air. At the time, Felipe
hadn’t put two and two together.
His father was out there, running from something just like Felipe had. Could he have
been framed for his wife’s death just like Felipe had been for a different crime?
The realization sank into his gut like hardening cement.
His father might be alive somewhere.
“Felipe?” Sarah whispered from the front seat.
When he snapped out of his reverie, he saw Chauncey had fallen asleep with his head
against the window. Sarah, when not navigating sharp turns, turned in her seat and
watched Felipe with a concerned expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just thinking.”
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
“No, querida. Just thinking about one.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 127 – Holley Trent
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
While Chauncey walked the farm’s perimeter and tracked over any non-‐bear scents,
Sarah and Felipe lingered in the house’s basement doorway. A bluish, purplish bruise had
bloomed along his jaw and for a moment, Sarah regretted marring that handsome face.
Then she remembered why she’d done it. If he couldn’t figure out why, he deserved the lick
and more like it.
“You said you had a lead,” she whispered, finding his gaze in the dim light. “Tell me
about it.”
“Yes. One of the Gypsies finally slipped out and got word to me through Eric at the inn.
She’s crafty. Apparently, she was the one who told Fabian about the Shrews and about
Patrick.”
Ah.
“I think he stumbled over the psychic tripwire when the troupe came into the area.
Maybe Patrick walked past her while she was allowed out to do her shopping or
something.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Could be a trap, but that’s no different than
me taking them by surprise, I suppose. They’ll be prepared either way.”
“Where are they?”
“At the time of the message, they were in West Virginia moving toward Kentucky state
line. They circled back around because Jacques got a big advance for a show in the area.
They’d been split up into four groups to avoid detection. Hadn’t done a show in weeks, and
I guess Jacques’ wallet was starting to feel light.”
They began the descent down the stairs. “Do you have any reason to trust the Gypsy?”
His grip on her waist tightened a bit as they alighted on one rickety step. “I’d like to
trust her. She knew my parents quite well. Closest thing to a godmother Fabian and I have.”
“But she’s under Jacques’s influence.”
“I’d say it’s more like she fears Jacques. She’s an old lady. Even before I left, she’d
reached the point where she didn’t care about herself anymore. I think she’s just waiting to
die.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 128 – Holley Trent
Just like those women at the strip club. She shuddered at the recollection. “Shitty way
to live.”
They rounded the corner and found the two Visas leaning over a scavenged
checkerboard. Their game pieces were found bottle caps, buttons, and scraps of paper that
vaguely resembled circles. Judging by the smug grin on Mr. Tolvaj’s face, he was winning.
Sarah waited for his opponent to make his move before speaking. “Saw you’ve been
cleaning up upstairs. Hope you guys have been discreet.”
“We have,” Mr. Tolvaj said. “Tried to get the stove to work. Couldn’t. Gas is off.”
“Ah. Brought you meatball subs and fries. Still hot.” She pointed to the soft-‐sided cooler
she held over one shoulder. “And I guess Patrick was in a good mood. Sent you some beer.”
“Bless him,” Mr. Tolvaj said, a look of reminiscence on his face. “I’ve missed beer.”
“Me, too,” his friend said.
Sarah handed them the cooler, and they moved to the spindly wooden table they’d
overturned and dusted off.
“Been quiet here?” she asked.
Mr. Tolvaj nodded. “Yes. No one comes except the Shrews. We thought we heard a bear
one night, but it may have been a natural one.”
Chauncey descended the staircase right at that moment. Upon seeing the men, he
shrank back, hiding behind Sarah.
She sighed. “I take it you recognize these gentlemen?”
Mr. Tolvaj and his friend laughed heartily and shook their heads over their food. “He is
unlike any bear I’ve ever seen.”
Chauncey growled, although it was so anemic it wouldn’t have frightened a house cat.
“I saw them meetin’ up with them other ones what came and lured the bears away.”
“And what did you do, little man? You hid. You ran.”
“Can’t fight, so what else I’m gonna do? Stick my neck out for them folks? No sir, I sure
ain’t.”
Sarah turned and took in the cowering teenager. “How did you get onto Patrick’s
property, anyway? We didn’t catch you in any of our perimeter footage.”
“Got in the same way I got out. Attached to your axle.”
“You could have died doing that,” Felipe said.
FRAMING FELIPE – 129 – Holley Trent
Chauncey shrugged. “I would have died for sure if I’d tip-‐toed across your property line
on foot. Y’all woulda shot my ass using one of them fancy scopes I bet y’all got.”
Mr. Tolvaj barked with laughter. “He’s got a point.”
“And why are y’all still here?” Chauncey asked the Visas. “Y’all can shift into pretty
much everything. I done seen it. Why y’all locked in this basement?”
Mr. Tolvaj took a bite of his sandwich, and gave his lips a dainty press of his napkin.
“Perhaps it’s more comfortable to be captured than to be out there waging the war.”
“Some mercenary.”
Mr. Tolvaj bobbed his head in agreement. “And some bear.”
“When is Gene expecting you back?” Sarah asked Chauncey.
He shrugged. “I don’t think he thought I’d actually succeed. I reckon he thought it’d be a
suicide mission.”
Sarah sighed. “Why do people think we’re so blood-‐thirsty?”
Felipe raised both eyebrows and rubbed his jaw.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you start, Castillo.”
“Y’all ain’t sending me back, is you? I ain’t going back. I’ll run before I go back.”
Chauncey sniffed and pulled his blanket a bit tighter around his shoulders.
She hated having to do it, but it made perfect sense. If the bears were going to continue
waging war on the cats for acts of war they actually hadn’t committed, their best option
was to call a meeting between the two groups. Gene wouldn’t go for that, though, so the
next best thing they could do was send their little spy back with a gift. A sort of Trojan
horse—Trojan were-bear, anyway.
“I see the gears turning in your head, querida. Whatever you’re thinking, no.” Felipe
crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the old hot water heater, scowling.
She rolled her eyes. “Believe it or not, this is my job.” She pried her phone out of her
pocket and said a prayer of thanks when seeing it had a signal down in the basement. She
dialed Dana. “Hey, Billy nearby? I have an idea and need a couple of cats. Smart ones if you
can manage it.”
Mr. Tolvaj snorted.
Felipe leaned in closer, resting a hand on Sarah’s forearm in warning.
FRAMING FELIPE – 130 – Holley Trent
She narrowed her eyes at him and listened to Dana, who was shouting directions to
someone in the background.
“A couple of cats?” Dana asked with a huff. “That may be a bit of a problem, my love.
Billy has bailed.”
Sarah held her phone back from her ear and checked the speaker for clogs. Surely there
had to be one there. Nope. Perfectly clean. “I’m sorry. Say what now?”
“You heard me right. I don’t know when, specifically, but sometime in the past couple
of days he, his wife, and his granddaughters up and left.”
“They left?”
When Felipe tapped her shoulder with a question, she mouthed, “Billy’s gone,” to him.
His jaw slackened.
Sarah rubbed her eyes and walked some distance away from the boys to pace. “And by
gone, you mean kidnapped?”
“No. That’s wishful thinking. By gone I mean they packed up their shitty little shack and
hit the road. Took everything that wasn’t nailed down from the house and bolted. A lot of
the problems the cats are experiencing right now are starting to make sense. Looks like
he’s been mismanaging the group for his own gain for a very long time.”
“Are you saying he sold them out to the Visas?”
Mr. Tolvaj, obviously overhearing, swallowed a lump of his sandwich and said, “Nope.”
“No, Sarah,” Dana continued. “He’s just a slimy, slack-‐assed, lazy motherfucker who
took a lot of shortcuts and made promises he never intended to follow up on. When Patrick
contacted the werewolves and the goats, it took him twenty minutes in both calls to get
them to calm down enough to listen to what he was saying. The cats have a bit of a
reputation for being flaky. Not following up on their bargains. They left a lot of folks
dangling on several occasions. That’s why the wolves have an alliance with the bears.”
Sarah righted an overturned chair and slumped into it, feeling a very sudden wave of
exhaustion ripple over her. She blew out a breath and cringed. Great. And the Shrews are
associated with the cats. Guess that must make us flakes, too.
“So, here’s the deal,” Dana said. “Obviously I can’t separate myself from the cats
completely because I’m partnered with one who has, I guess, just become the group’s
FRAMING FELIPE – 131 – Holley Trent
leader. Until we untangle the mess Billy made, I don’t want to attach my girls to anything to
do with the cats.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that. So, what was your plan? Can we re-‐work it?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to send Chauncey in with a trophy of sorts, you know? That
would get Gene’s guard down long enough to get one of our people in there and make Gene
see reason. Now with this shit, he really does have good reason to distrust the cats.”
“It’s still a good idea, and it would give us some slack if Gene thought—”
“Hey—” Mr. Tolvaj nodded at his friend and both stood, striding over to Sarah and
shifting as they walked.
“Hold on a sec,” Sarah said to Dana.
Although Felipe put his body in front of hers, and thus Chauncey’s, Sarah felt no fear of
their approach. She’d be tending to the Visas for weeks and had grown fond of them, and
them her. They didn’t mean them any harm, and by the time they arrived at their corner of
the room, their plan was clear.
Mr. Tolvaj made a pretty convincing Billy. His friend, minus the ever-‐present tube top,
frosted lipstick, and Lucite heels, was spitting image of one of his granddaughters.
“What you need?” Mr. Tolvaj asked. “We go in with the sorry bear—”
“Hey!” Chauncey balked.
