A lot like Heidi, in fact. After he’d gotten Vicki off his back, Yorick hadn’t understood why Hershel hadn’t dumped Heidi years ago. But that was before he realized that Hershel sometimes needed to tune up his partner a bit in order to really enjoy sex, and Heidi was enough of a doormat to take it.

If he hadn’t needed to divorce Vicki and marry Constance in order to remain in good standing with Vaughn and the rest of the Tie Clippers, would he and Vicki have reached the point where foreplay included the back of his hand to make things good? Not something he could try on Constance, of course, with her being Vaughn’s cousin.

“If Vicki showed that attorney all the paperwork, he’ll wonder about me presenting this document now,” Yorick said.

“We’ll swear we saw it with the rest of the paperwork when you were working out the terms of the settlement,” Darren said. “She destroyed her copy in order to retain her hold on property that was no longer hers. Her signature is on the document, same as yours. And it’s notarized.”

“First thing tomorrow morning, you’ll go to the police station and insist that Officer Grimshaw, in his capacity as the chief of police, help you issue the eviction notice,” Vaughn said with a nasty smile.

Yeah. He liked that idea.

They discussed going out to eat, not that there was anything remotely adequate in Sproing, but the rooms included breakfast and dinner in their price, and not eating at the boardinghouse didn’t reduce the price of the rooms. Hershel had already checked.

Pamella claimed a severe allergy to dogs, so at least that beast wasn’t tormenting him while they ate dinner.

“Ms. Xavier,” Vaughn said when Ineke filled the coffee cups and set out plates of fruit, cheese, and chocolate at the end of the meal. “If we decide to stay a bit longer tomorrow . . .”

“Checkout is eleven o’clock,” Ineke said. “Other guests are coming in and we need to turn over the rooms, so I’m not offering extensions.”

“If we choose not to leave, what are you going to do?” Vaughn persisted. “Call the police?”

She stared at Vaughn for so long, Yorick began to squirm in his seat.

Then she smiled. “No, I wouldn’t call the police. There’s someone else I call when I need to eliminate vermin.”

CHAPTER 51

Vicki

Sunsday, Sumor 4

I had just finished washing the breakfast dishes when I heard a quick whoop of a police siren—a bloop of sound, there and gone so fast I wasn’t even sure I had heard it until Aggie ran into the kitchen.

“Jozi says Officer Grimshaw is here with those other humans,” Aggie said. “He flashed the lights and made the car howl, but just a little.”

Since Aggie was naked and had more feathers than usual in her hair and framing her face, I deduced that she had been in her Crow form when Jozi gave the warning. Or maybe it was more accurate to say Jozi was passing along Grimshaw’s warning.

Grimshaw didn’t make idle warnings.

Trembling, I hurried to the kitchen phone and called Ilya Sanguinati.

“I’ll be there,” he said when I stumbled out the reason for the call. “Make sure the porch door and kitchen door are unlocked. Take your time answering the front door. Make some excuse.”

Doing the dishes. Had soapy hands. Wasn’t sure I’d heard the bell with the water running.

Since I’d seen Ilya flow through a screen door, I figured unlocking the doors was for the convenience of someone—or something—else who would deal with a lock by ripping the door off its hinges. Wanting to save myself the expense of repairs, I made sure the back doors were unlocked before heading toward the front of the house. The doorbell rang again, immediately followed by someone pounding on the door.

“Damn it, Vicki!” Yorick shouted. “Open this door!”

What was he doing here?

“Miss Vicki?”

Had I stopped moving toward the door because I had stopped to respond to Aggie? Or had I frozen the moment I heard the anger in Yorick’s voice? But he couldn’t shove me against the wall and tell me how angry I had made him, not with Grimshaw right there. Could he?

“Better if you’re not here right now,” I told Aggie. “Not undressed in human form.”

She shifted to her Crow form and flew up to the railing at the top of the stairs—not in anyone’s line of sight but able to see and hear everything.

In Crow form, there wasn’t much she could do against a human—not much she could do against a grown man in her human form either—but I felt braver knowing Aggie was there as a witness.

I opened the door and saw Yorick’s fist coming toward my face before Grimshaw grabbed his wrist and stopped the movement.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was washing dishes and didn’t hear the doorbell.”

“Ms. DeVine, we need to come in,” Grimshaw said.

His police-issue sunglasses made it impossible to see his eyes, but I had the impression he was either really ticked off about being here or had a vicious case of indigestion and needed some seltzer. Either way, he wasn’t asking permission to come in; he was telling me I didn’t have a choice.

I backed up and kept moving back as Yorick, Darren, Vaughn, and Hershel strode in, followed by their wives and, finally, Grimshaw, who didn’t fully shut the door.

“Ms. DeVine,” Grimshaw said, coming to the front of the group, “it is my unpleasant task to serve you with this eviction notice, effective immediately.”

“Eviction?” I wanted to wiggle a finger in my ear like they do in movies to show that the person couldn’t possibly have heard what they had heard. “How can you evict me? I’m the legal owner of this property.”

“No, you’re not,” Yorick said, looking insufferably smug.

Grimshaw held out the folded paper. “You have to take it.”

Ilya Sanguinati strolled in from the back of the house, carrying a thin briefcase that must have been really expensive and top quality, judging by the envy in Yorick’s and Darren’s eyes when they spotted it. Even Vaughn looked uncomfortably impressed.

“I’ll take it.” Ilya held out his hand.

Grimshaw didn’t hesitate to hand over the paper. I suppose giving it to my attorney was the same as giving it to me. I wasn’t sure about that, but no one protested.

Ilya took his time reading it. I was too busy struggling to avoid a meltdown to try to read over his shoulder—or past his arm since I wasn’t tall enough to see over his shoulder, let alone read anything.

He folded the eviction notice and handed it to me. When I started to open the paper, figuring I was supposed to read it now, he said in a voice as sharp as a slap, “Don’t bother.”

If Yorick started in on me, I would buckle. I knew it and Yorick knew it. His way of discussing anything had been to yell until I agreed with him.

“Mr. Dane, what makes you believe you are entitled to repossess this property?” Ilya asked, his voice still sharp but now also cold.

“This.” Yorick produced another document with a flourish. He tried to hand it to me, but Ilya reached in front of me and snapped it out of Yorick’s hand. “It’s signed by both of us and it’s notarized.”

“It couldn’t be,” I protested.

“Victoria.”

Ilya using that tone of voice was his way of issuing a warning, so I clenched my teeth to avoid trying to stick up for myself. Of course, if Yorick and I went at it with all his friends taking his side, I’d probably end up in the hospital heavily sedated, so hoping that Ilya had a plan made more sense than having a breakdown.

“This document seems to be more obscurely written than most human agreements, but stripping it down to its essence, it says that since The Jumble had been in the possession of the Dane family for several generations, it came to you, Victoria, in the divorce settlement with the provision that you could prove it to be a viable living so that you wouldn’t be a burden on the Dane family or a homeless embarrassment.” Ilya paused. “Ah. You had six months to do this, and if you hadn’t made sufficient effort to have income coming from the property, it would revert back to the Dane family—specifically back to Yorick Dane.”