Page 71 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
When I did, I found myself face-to-face with Gulliver, Mathias, and Honey. Gulliver jumped up when he noticed me, but Mathias motioned for him to wait. Mathias loaned me an arm and helped me get to the couch where Gulliver sat.
“Did we wake you?” he asked as Mojo lumbered over and plopped his head on my leg. I rubbed the dog’s chin for a moment, and he shifted his eyes at me several times. I patted his head once, and he turned, walked over to Honey, and rested his head on her thigh. He knew who needed him tonight, and while it should be me, it wasn’t. Honey was so sad it was impossible to miss the hunch of her shoulders and pinched face. She was struggling, and Mojo would keep her calm. She stroked the big dog’s head, and his low whine of contentment brought a smile to her lips. Score one for Mojo.
“A noise woke me, and I noticed you weren’t in the room. What’s going on?” I asked, checking the clock. “We haven’t been asleep long. Why are you guys here?”
Gulliver rubbed my back, and I struggled to wake up and make sense of the world again. “They caught the two guys responsible for running you off the road.”
Honey leaned toward me. “I was able to identify both of them, and they turned in the third guy. It was the same threesome who broke my arm.”
My gaze tracked between all of them. “Which is good, right? We’re one step closer to getting the person behind it?”
Mathias spoke next. “Right. The two guys they picked up tonight said the guy wearing the Bill Clinton mask was the ringleader. They don’t have him yet.”
“Three sets of hands in the fire is never good,” I said, confused. “It feels like a last-man-standing-wins-the-pot kind of situation.”
“True, but it doesn’t matter if all three of them stayed in the game,” Gulliver said. “Even splitting the pot evenly, they’d all be billionaires.”
Mathias pointed at Gulliver. “Without a doubt. The police are looking for the third man now. He’s the one behind communicating on the forum with Honey and the one responsible for the hacking, at least according to the two guys they picked up earlier tonight. Are you ready for his name?”
I nodded rather than speak.
“Vincent Butterfly. His name is Vincent Butterfly.”
I couldn’t stop the choked laughter from escaping. “What the hell? Some people shouldn’t exist in this world.” All three nodded in agreement. “So who are these guys? How did they find out about the formula?”
Gulliver lifted my leg onto his lap to elevate it. “All we know right now is they are low-level management for a large pesticide company. How they came to find out about it is anyone’s guess. Though, I do remember giving a speech at a consortium last year for lepidopterists and I mentioned it. It should have been a safe audience, but that doesn’t mean it was. I could kick myself for it, but it never crossed my mind that something like this would happen.” He shook his head with frustration. “Anyway, the police asked Honey and Mathias to stay here since the building is already under guard. They didn’t want to split resources while they were trying to find Vincent.”
Honey trudged to the kitchen and rummaged in Gulliver’s freezer until she returned with an ice pack. I accepted it and offered her a smile. “Thanks,” I said, fixing it on my ankle.
“It’s the least I can do considering this happened because I wasn’t strong enough or smart enough to stop it immediately.”
“Honeybee,” Mathias warned. She held up her hand and lowered herself to the chair, completely dejected. Her head fell into her hand, and I noticed her finger was spasming up in the air again, but she didn’t seem to notice it.
I made eye contact with Mathias.Is she all right?I mouthed, and he shook his head no, his lips in a grim line. He rested her head on his shoulder and carefully massaged her hand again until the finger stopped tweaking and rested against the palm with the rest of them.
“I’m having a hard time grasping this,” I said, shaking my head. “I know people will do anything for money, including murder, but what did they think would happen when they released the formula and you had proof it was yours? Did they think this out?”
Gulliver shook his head slowly, and his eyes rolled to the top of his head. “I don’t think any of them have a lot of brain cells to rub together. The dollar signs blinded them, and they jumped in. That or Vincent had plans to make sure none of us were alive long enough for it to matter. If we were all dead, the research was theirs. Their downfall was this four-foot-tall blonde beauty who, even in the face of a threat to her own life, stood taller than any of us and fixed the problem,” Gulliver said, kissing me tenderly. “If you hadn’t followed your moral compass and decided to walk away after they knocked you down the first time, I don’t know where we’d be. The entire planet will never know it, but they owe their futures to you, sweetheart.” He stroked my hair like a lifeline, and while what he’d said was fierce and dramatic, I understood what he was really trying to say just by looking in his eyes. They were the color of copper, but clear and open to the truth. He had found his forever love in that four-foot-tall beauty, and he was never letting her go.
Honey’s shoulders started to shake, and I flicked my eyes to Mathias, who was rubbing her shoulder. “She’s having a hard time dealing with the idea they attempted to kill you and Simon while thinking it was me again.”
“Oh God,” she cried, holding her head in her hands. “What have I done? Why wasn’t I stronger? So many people got hurt,” she said, the fingers on her right hand spasming as she held her head. There was nothing but tears and emptiness in her eyes when Mathias lifted her and sat in her chair, cradling her on his lap.
“Honeybee, you’re okay,” he promised, hushing her with his lips to her temple. “Please, stop crying, sweetheart,” he begged, his right hand massaging hers in a way that said he’d done it many times.
I leaned into Gulliver and whispered into his ear, “I can’t imagine what she’s going through.”
“I can,” he whispered, running a finger over the knotted bruise on my forehead. “It’s a horrible, horrible feeling,” he whispered.
A tear fell from my eye at his words, and he wiped it away. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “I’m okay.”
“I love you,” he whispered, his fingers twining into mine.
“I love you too. Promise me something?”
“Absolutely anything,” he said, offering me a genuine Gulliver Winsome smile.
“When this is over and we’re free of the danger and uncertainty, will you take me to see the butterflies? I mean, really see them, the way you do.”
