What The Cat Dragged In Ch. 13

He released her wrist. "Go."

Kelly got out and walked around the back of the car. Halfway up the walk, the porch light came on. The nervousness of a few minutes ago melted away and she started to walk more quickly. As soon as her feet hit the wooden stairs the door opened and a couple stepped out onto the cold porch.

"Kelly?" The woman stepped forward.

"Granna?" She smiled.

"Thank God." The older woman pulled Kelly into her arms. Her grandfather embraced both women. Kelly was fighting tears. Her grandmother was letting them fall.

Her grandfather was the first one to regain his composure. "Come inside, it's freezing out here." His voice was thick with emotion.

Kelly was reluctant to let go of either one of them. She kept one arm around her grandmother; her grandfather's hand was on her shoulder, leading them both into the warm, yellow and white kitchen.

As soon as they were inside, both of them stepped back and looked at Kelly. The years of separation seemed harder on the older couple than she would have thought. Wrinkles reached out from around the corners of eyes and mouths; hers were brown, his were blue-green seaglass like Kelly's. Hair had turned from salt and pepper to nearly white. Her grandfather's had thinned; her grandmother wore hers shorter than Kelly remembered.

Words weren't wide enough or deep enough to convey or encompass all of the emotion in that cheery room, so none were exchanged. The soft ticking of the garishly ornate cuckoo clock over the kitchen sink was the only sound in the room. Her grandmother reached out and stroked Kelly's cheek.

"I never thought I'd see you again," she said.

Kelly smiled. "I was sure I'd never see you again either. Victor-"

"Is he here with you?" Her grandfather asked.

"He's outside. I think he wanted to give us a few minutes." Kelly said.

"I should-"

"Can't we have a little time to ourselves?" Her grandmother asked.

Kelly was shocked and angry. "He saved my life, Granna."

"I know he helped you-"

"It was more than that."

"Kelly, let me take your coat." Her grandfather interjected. "You can sit down and tell us about it."

Kelly let him take her coat, but she watched the nervous tension in his jaw and shoulders. "You already know."

"I know the way Victor told it." He sat down. Kelly sat too. "I figure he wasn't there for all of it."

"She doesn't want to talk about it." Her grandmother turned away and started fussing with a kettle and mugs for tea.

"Stan sent me to live with a man named Roland Dawes." Kelly didn't want to talk about it any more than either of them wanted to hear about it. She hoped a sanitized version would be enough. "Roland investigated sites for new CoH chapters, and I guess that Stan thought that once I got into doing something 'important' I would settle down. It didn't exactly work though." She tried to force a smile.

"So you ran away." Granna glanced over her shoulder.

"Kind of. Dawes was living in a shack in the middle of nowhere, probably so he could observe and be invisible. When I ran I was in the middle of the woods, in the snow. I was cold and running and I slipped and hit my head. I happened to be on Victor's land and he found me laying unconscious in the snow."

Her grandfather was watching her eyes. He knew that wasn't the whole story. She held his gaze for a long moment.

He smiled a little and took her hand. "Damn good thing he was there."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed checked his watch and yawned. It had been fifteen minutes since she went in, all the kissing and crying must be over by now. He got out of the car and stretched. There was a reason he was glad he didn't have a family. He'd thought about getting the fuck out of Dodge all together. Leaving her stuff on the porch and driving off to whatever job was next on the list. As soon as he had the thought he knew he was as likely to do that as he was to take up ballet dancing and flower arranging. Didn't mean he knew what the fuck he was going to do in there. Make small talk? Concentrate on not saying 'fuck'? Sit there and try not to look dangerous? No matter what he did, he knew they were gonna hate him. The best he could hope for was that he wouldn't fuck it up for her too.

He'd only taken one step toward the house when his phone vibrated. He checked it and was surprised to see the call was from Link. Now that was out of the ordinary.

"Creed."

"You have got a major security breech going on, amigo." He was chomping on something again.

"What?" He got back in the car. The system was his own design, and the additional bells and whistles weren't exactly commercially available. Someone had to monitor everything and Link could keep his mouth shut.

"You got alarms going off all over your place in Maine. Since you don't know, I take it you're not there."

"Got that right. How long ago and how many?"

"Less than five minutes. Perimeter alarms on the fence went off first."

"How many?" His annoyance was starting to leak through.

"Three to start with. Thanks to your modifications, only one made it over. He made it as far as the back door. Pretty damn determined after watching his friends get fried. Want me to send a clean-up crew out there?"

Creed had a good idea of exactly what they were after; they were just a few days late. "I'll call Conlon."

There was a little silence on the other end of the line. "This about the girl?"

"What girl?"

"C'mon, the girl the PI was looking for-"

Creed growled low and menacing.

The hacker took a deep breath. "Okay, if you're gonna take care of the clean-up I'll just say my goodnights now."

"Smarter than you sound." He ended the call and dialed Conlon.

"Con-"

"You still in Maine?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Get over to the house, there's a mess to clean up." He described the particulars and gave Conlon the new codes. "Find out who they were and who sent them. Call me when you're done."

He didn't wait for an answer. He ended the call and started toward the house. The who was pretty fucking obvious, now he just had to figure out why they were so goddamn determined.