Page 82 of Tin God

“Understood.” She leaned her arm on the table. “Can ya find him?”

“Paulson? Doubtful. He only lives on boats.” Gavin smirked. “I might be able to find some of his money. It would give the children something to do.”

“The children” were Gavin’s small army of brilliant computer programmers and hackers.

“See if they can help.” Brigid glanced at the dark forest behind the house. “I want to leave now. I’ll send a message when I’m at your place. I’m startin’ to see assassins behind every tree lately.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find on Paulson’s assets and let you know. Send Chloe a message when you and Tenzin are safe.”

By the timeBrigid reached the nondescript wood-sided house in a small residential tract near Mendenhall Lake, it was still dark, but it was well past six in the morning and she was getting tired. She noticed the open door off the upstairs deck before she entered the house with the code Chloe had texted her.

Her gun was out before she walked in. “Tenzin?”

“I’m upstairs. Put that thing away.”

Brigid kept her 9mm out just to be contrary. Also, she liked the weight of it in her palm. She closed the door, fastened the dead bolt, and took off her jacket, hanging it by the door before she tossed her backpack in an overstuffed chair.

“The bedrooms are in the basement,” Brigid said as she climbed the stairs.

“I know.” Tenzin’s voice sounded hollow. “I want Benjamin.”

Brigid stood in the doorway where Tenzin had set her tablet on a desk. The door to the deck was open, and the bedroom was frigid. The picture on the tablet was a picture of two brightly colored birds.

“I didn’t know ye had pets.” Brigid walked over and closed the door as rain started to fall.

“They were at the house in New York.”

Damn. “I’m sorry, Tenzin.”

“They were old, but they should have lived at least a few more years.” Tenzin stared at the picture.

“It’s shite.” Brigid sat on the edge of the bed.

“It’s my fault they’re dead.”

Part of Brigid wanted to console her, but Tenzin was correct. The birds were sad collateral damage in a fight that Tenzin had willingly entered.

“You made their lives beautiful while they lived,” Brigid said. “That’s all we can do for delicate things.”

Tenzin glanced at her. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault. Ben would have tried to make me feel it less.”

“He woulda tried to make the feelingssofter, not less,” Brigid said. “Cos no one did that for him when he was young.”

Tenzin swiped the picture of the birds to the side, and a picture of Ben appeared. It must have been taken when Ben was human because he was lying in the sun, smiling at whoever was behind the camera. His beard was half grown in, and hair was falling in his eyes. He looked like he was about twenty-one or twenty-two.

Older than Tenzin looked. As old as she was, Ben physically looked older and had for years.

Tenzin stared at the photograph. “Sometimes I think I do not know him at all. And other times I think I have always known him.”

Brigid stared at Tenzin. She’d known Ben before he mated Tenzin, but she’d never known a Ben without Tenzin in his life. She had a hard time separating the two of them in her mind. As opposite as they were, they were two sides of the same coin.

“If you want to call him, you should,” Brigid said. “I don’t think we can do this without him and Carwyn.”

“I don’t want to call him.” Tenzin stared at the sun-washed picture. “I want to send him far away so I can dispose of this weight hanging around my neck. Then I want to build him a beautiful house and fill a garden with birds and flowers so he can remember the sunlight.”

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