Chapter Thirteen

Grandmother’s Crowns

Sardius’s mellow words came through Jenna’s earpiece. “They went through your grandfather’s house when they removed it, looking for the crowns, but they didn’t find anything.”

Jenna squashed her annoyance that they took her grandfather’s house. Like it was the house itself that had mattered to her! However, she had been the one to clean it when her grandfather died and a pile of crowns like the one permanently affixed to her skull would have stood out.

“How did they search the house?” she questioned, feeling snotty.

“They scanned it. The crowns would have pinged hard.”

“Really? Why didn’t they do that on Earth?”

“We may have to, but it would be better if we didn’t have to call in that crew. Do you have any ideas about where they could be?”

“I have three ideas,” Jenna said. “They all suck. My grandmother had a plane called The Spirit of Ink that she used to fly more than she drove a car. It was eventually grounded, and I don’t know what happened to it.”

“That’s more than enough information for me to find it,” Sardius proclaimed happily.

“The second place was a houseboat she and my grandfather used to bob around the island in. He still used it long after she was gone.”

“Name?”

“The Hole in the Log,” she replied.

“You sound sad, Jenna. Is everything okay?”

“It’s not okay. The only other place I can think of to look is upsetting.”

Sardius waited a moment before he said as tactfully as he could, “If it’s upsetting you, then that’s probably where it is.”

“It’s her grave,” Jenna admitted. “She was buried in a graveyard outside a church, but if I go there I’ll have to dig up her grave. No one will give me permission to do that.”

“After a quick look at your country’s laws regarding that, I have to say it would take an ice age to get their permission. We don’t have that kind of time. Have you ever thought that it would be cool to achieve the label ‘grave robber’?”

“It would be cooler if I were digging someone else up,” she replied crossly.

“Agreed,” he said through her earpiece. “Let’s start with the airplane and the boat. I already have information on the airplane. It’s at an aircraft museum. It’s not on display yet, as they are still restoring it. If you have anything among your possessions that would help you gain access to the back of the museum, that would be the best. For instance, is there a picture of you and your grandmother in front of the airplane? Preferably with the call sign visible on it?”

“No. My grandmother died before I was five.”

“Do you have a picture of her in front of the aircraft?” Sardius persisted.

“There was one in my grandfather’s house.”

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“Great. I’ll get someone into the house to get me a copy of the picture this morning. What room was it in?”

“Have you forgotten? That house belonged to someone else. Anything in that house belonged to other people. That house was where I was raised, but it has been repainted and remodeled since my grandfather sold it. I was there a couple of years ago and they painted his brown house red. The nostalgia value is low since everything has already been changed, and there’s not going to be anything there. The picture is in my apartment. I haven’t been through what the Octavians saved from the apartment yet. Armen was in such a freakin’ hurry… Bah! Was it among what they took or do we need to go to my apartment?”

“Good call. I’ll talk to the boys who packed up your stuff. In the meantime, can I take you out for breakfast?”

Jenna looked around at the empty space surrounding her. She was back in Victoria, but it didn’t feel like home. It felt like nothing. Had she really lived there for her whole adult life? It felt like a life someone else had lived. Even what she was doing now, standing outside a car rental place, leaning against her rental car, and pretending to talk on the phone through her headphones seemed stupid.

She should have been with Sardius. He should be a real man. He should be next to her. She should be resting her head on his shoulder while he did whatever internet searches he did on his phone next to her. He should be showing her the screen from time to time when he found something interesting. He should be her partner in crime.

She indulged in the fantasy for a moment, trying to envision what his face should look like, what his body would look like. Imagining his body was easy. He was lean and brown. His fingers were long and boney. He was tall with muscle patterns that made her mentally ill. But no matter how much she played in the theater of her mind, she couldn’t figure out what his face should look like. What was his mouth like? She envisioned something sharp about his mouth because he minced his words. Maybe big incisors. Maybe a gap between his two front teeth. Maybe his teeth were very white like a ceramic knife in someone’s mouth.

She didn’t get further than that.

“Jenna? Breakfast?” his voice sounded in her ear. “Your blood sugar is low.”

He smashed her fantasy.

“Yeah, let’s get breakfast.”

***

Armed with a photograph of her grandmother in front of her plane, Jenna entered the museum and spoke to a tour guide, then a manager, and finally, the man restoring the plane before she got into the hangar where The Spirit of Ink was being kept.

It was yellow with great indigo stripes painted along the sides. Jenna had only seen it when she was a very little girl, but the memory burned bright as she looked around.

“Can we make a copy of this picture?” Harold, the mechanic asked.

“You can keep that copy,” Jenna said, thinking at once that there was no way her grandmother or grandfather had been so careless that they had left a box of crowns in this airplane before parting with it, but she had to ask anyway. “Did you see anything strange when you were restoring it?”

“Like what?”

Jenna prepared herself to ask the question she had to ask with as little fanfare as possible. “When pulling this plane apart, did you find a cash of black octopus beaks?”

“No. That would have been something!” the man laughed, slapping his thigh.

“Thank you. I’ve been trying to find my grandmother’s collection for another museum,” she lied. “Thank you very much for your help.” She shook hands with him and left the museum.

Once she was back in the car, she said to Sardius, “I told you. This is a wild goose chase. We’ll just have to wait until it gets dark and go to the graveyard.”

“I like a girl who doesn’t mind digging up dead people.”

“So go dig up your old lady!”

Jenna clenched her teeth and drummed her fingers against her bicep, trying to recall exactly where her grandmother, Letty, had been buried.

“Jenna,” Sardius suddenly said. “You know…” he hesitated. “What I really wanted to say before… about why I wanted to be your personal assistant… It’s because I know how to turn you into someone they can’t push around. Neither of them! Not the Octavians and not the Adamis. I appreciate that this is an unpleasant task for a woman of your sensitivity and charm… even if you had to order other people to do this for you It would be hard for a feminine woman, full of pounding feelings, to do. To go be the grave digger personally is another level. Take it. Be the woman of sensitivity and charm with limits no one can see.”

Jenna’s breath caught.

She had been trying to propel herself forward on the idea of preventing mess, clearing mess… Maybe she needed to be the one to make a mess.

“Sardius… I… I…” she couldn’t explain how he’d moved her. Jenna covered her mouth on a whimper or a choke. When she could talk again, she snapped, “Shut up, Sardius.”