Page 50 of After 5
Gertie and I exited through the front door. She stuck her tongue out at the doorman, and we walked back to Central Park in silence.
“I should be done with him, right?” I blinked hard to fight the tears. I didn’t want Gertie to see me cry over him, again.
“Serves him right if you do. You shouldn’t put up with that. Especially when he comes over, gets all frisky, then drops a bomb.”
It was true he didn’t tell me up front about the engagement, but part of that was my doing. I was Miss Horny Pants. He tried to stop things. I was the instigator.
My inner voice pointed out, he could have told me when I filled the pan with water, or while I was rummaging through the pantry. But instead, he told me after he ravaged me on the table.
“Shame on him,” Gertie said as if reading my mind. “Besides, he has ugly silk shirts in his closet. You don’t want to be seen with a guy in those clothes.”
I didn’t recall ever seeing Caiyan wear a silk shirt. Clothes were more of a utility to him. He tended to stay on the dark end of the color wheel. Mahlia was probably buying his clothes, too. The idea was depressing.
We passed a street vendor selling Halal food and another with a selection of pretzels. “Since we’re here,” Gertie said, “how about we grab a hot dog?”
“Sure.” We found a park bench and watched the sun set over Central Park. Since I’d already maxed out my junk food quota for the week, and after my fiasco at Caiyan’s apartment my appetite was zero, I sucked on a giant dill pickle while Gertie ate her sauerkraut-covered hot dog.
“It’s hard for me to believe he’s doing all of this to get his key back. There has to be another reason.” Gertie wiped a smudge of mustard from the side of her mouth and demolished the remainder of the hot dog. “If not, he’s a selfish prick and you’d be better off without him.
“I wish he had confided in me. I mean, what could be so important that he needs to keep me at arm’s length?” My mood felt as sour as the pickle.
“We’ve got to find that sword. Where else would he hide it?” Gertie sucked soda through a straw.
I racked my brain to remember places Caiyan talked about, places that were important to him.
“He still owns the flat in London, but his sister lives there. I’ve never seen it, and he only stays there when he has business in England. He could have left it with her, but he wouldn’t endanger her.”
“Yeah, he would be more likely to endanger you first.”
I sprang off the park bench. “Oh my gosh—Gertie that’s it! I know where the sword is.”
Chapter 9
We arrived at our townhouse, and I hurried upstairs, Attack cat swatting at me as I flew past. Gertie followed me in hot pursuit.
I’d discovered Caiyan in my room. I had a feeling he hadn’t stopped by to see me after all. In fact, he’d looked surprised I was home.
“Gertie, I think it’s here, somewhere.” I looked under my bed and she went through my closet. Nothing. A sword wasn’t a small thing to hide.
I recalled the sliding noise from when he first arrived. It was the door to my shoe closet. I pushed the door sideways. Surely, I would have seen a sword in my shoe closet? I’ve opened and closed the closet several times in the past few weeks. There wasn’t a sword tucked between the shoes on the floor to ceiling shoe racks or hidden next to my collection of vintage hats on the shelves to the right.
I almost shut the closet door, when a corner of a black box on the floor under the bottom shelf of shoes caught my eye. I knelt and slid the box out from under the shelf. My Tom Ford over-the-knee designer boots. Caiyan had given them to me after I went on my first official mission with the WTF. “These are exquisite, like ye are.” His words echoed in my head.
I stored them flat so the soft, buttery leather wouldn’t crease. I loved those boots. I removed the lid, and a giddy smile broke out on my face. The gold gilded handle of the sword peeked out from under the top of my boot. I slid the sword from its hiding place and rested the heavy weapon on my thigh.
Gertie burst into the room. “He didn’t hide it in—you found it!”
The sword was weighty, the scabbard worn. “Oh, what stories you could tell.” I said as I stood and removed the tarnished blade from its housing. The steel reflected the light off the crystals dangling from my vintage chandelier overhead.
“It’s beautiful.” Gertie reached out and ran a hand over the gilt gold handle. “I read the gold was added after the war.”
I laid it onto the bed so we could examine the words engraved on the blade.
“What’s it say?” Gertie asked, peering closer.
It had been years since the sword had hung above the mantle in Mr. Raney’s farmhouse. Parts of the inscription were damaged, and I recalled the vandal from my trip to 1949. Caiyan had scuffed the blade before he took it from Mr. Raney. I could read the first word, FIND.
“Caiyan scratched the blade when he was at Mr. Raney’s house in Purley,” I explained to Gertie.
