Page 37 of Snow Blind

Chapter 11-Causality

Helen was feeling whatBryan felt as well. She sat on the couch, staring into the crackling fireplace, watching the flames dance. In her mind, a thought occurred which never had before; she didn't need this shit. She could be home with her man, setting up her craft room to make cutesy embroidered shit for the house. Hell, it was the holiday season, and she hadn't visited her man's new job or even met his co-workers. Now that she was his wife, there was planning to do, cookies to bake for the office, and cute gifts to give. If, and she thought about it carefully, she left on the fifteenth of the sixteenth of the month; she had time to purchase a new sewing and embroidery machine. It only took maybe half an hour to an hour to make a cute mug rug, and in the back, she could slide in candy canes, hot chocolate, and tea bags. Heck, she even had enough time to get a few clear coffee mugs and use the sublimation machine to personalize the mugs. Well, once she knew the names of his co-workers.

"Cranberry?" Passion Fruit said, pulling her from her thoughts. Thus far, from both Bad Apple and Lemon, she'd heard how clever the new Technician Trainee was, how she thought differently, and how she saw ways through problems based on her survival instincts. This would be a lesson in staging accidents the lady would never forget, but Lemon needed to know what she was thinking before making a plan. "Your thoughts?"

Helen looked up and said, "I was thinking, I could be home with my man, preparing gifts for the holidays. Instead, I'm here with the two of you, preparing to plan a means to kill this man."

"I don't like that idea very much either, Ms. Cranberry," Bryan said. "Wait, you need to kill me?"

"Yes," Passion Fruit said softly, "but what I'm not understanding is where are your ID's? There was nothing on your body."

"Left boot," he replied, "under the insole. I keep it there in case someone tries to rob me while I’m hiking, or worse, someone shoots me and leaves me for dead."

Helen didn't like it. She also didn't particularly care for Bryan's withholding of information. Her hand went up. "First, your broken up ass needs to be honest. How in the hell did you find out Kurtzwilde is Imperial, and what is Imperial?"

Bryan swallowed hard, "The Chrysalis has three head butterflies, the Tiger Swallowtail, The Tomato Hornworm, and Imperial."

Helen asked, "You know this how?"

"Friends of mine took me to the Velvet Vault, his adult club in Chicago," Bryan said. "They paid for me to get the VIP treatment, and I was going to the bathroom, got turned around, and ended up by his office. I saw him, heard his voice, and learned about a shipment of fresh talent. He spotted me, so I pretended to be drunk, stumbling all over the place, holding my junk, saying I had to whiz in the pot before I whizzed in a THOT."

"Classy," Helen said, turning up her lips.

"Hey, spur of the moment," he replied. "Anyway, one of my friends is also with Homeland Security, and I mentioned the shipment, nothing more. The next day, the shipment was intercepted, and I knew that I needed to tell someone who Imperial was and what else I heard that night, but I was going to wait until after the hiking trip, then I was due in Colorado to start working on my novel."

Passion Fruit shook her head. "The clubs have cameras throughout, you numbskull. Yes, you may have pretended to be drunk to get past him, but on the way from the bathroom, were you still stumbling? By the look on your face, I guess that means no. Also, your ID was scanned when you came in the club, so at any given time, that man knows who is in his building, and he's recording. He is always recording. If you got a lap dance with your pants pulled down, he has a recording of it for future use."

"What?" Bryan said, shocked there was proof of him being in the club and the treat his friends paid for him to receive.

"That's how those places work, Bryan. How do you think he's managed to stay in business for so long? No one can touch him, and he's evil," Passion Fruit snapped. "Now I have to stage your death."

Bryan leaned forward and asked, "Why did you save me?"

"Instinct kicked in to save your life, but I also wanted to understand why there was a shooter on my turf when I was there to do the same thing," she replied. "It might not have been the Chrysalis who put the bullet in you, especially if my father knew there was a contract on you. There is another player and someone you have pissed off. Who could that be?"

Bryan pointed at himself. "I am a college English professor. I don't really fail anyone, but I help them write well. As far as I know, I don't have any enemies."

"And your aunt’s kids? Who is getting her house? Someone wants you dead," Passion Fruit said.

Helen was over all of it. "That's all well and dandy, and we have established someone or several someones want him dead. The question is, how do we kill him off? Better yet, where are you going to get a replacement for the live, carnivorous, six-foot, green-eyed man with dusty blond hair?"

Bryan didn’t care for her classification of him, "Why I gotta be carnivorous?"

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