“I need to talk to someone before I give you an answer.”

“How much time do you need?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.” He wasn’t going far, just up to the second floor.

“In that case, why don’t I go over to the diner and pick up a couple of sandwiches?”

Grimshaw walked out with Hargreaves, then walked up the flight of stairs that led to two offices. He knocked on the door that had no stenciling on the glass that identified the business and walked in.

Ilya Sanguinati stepped out from behind the bookcases that formed the wall of his office. “Come in, Officer Grimshaw.”

Ilya returned to the seat behind the desk. Grimshaw leaned against the bookcases.

“If I accept the position of chief of police here in Sproing, will you have a problem with that?” he asked.

“‘You’ meaning me, the Sanguinati, or all the terra indigene who live in and around Lake Silence?”

“All of the above.”

“Then the answer to all of the above is, no, we would not have a problem with that.”

“You okay with Osgood staying?”

Ilya nodded. “You may choose whatever cabin would suit you for a residence, with the exception of the one already occupied by Julian Farrow. The rest are currently unfurnished . . .”

Grimshaw shrugged. “I have an efficiency apartment in Bristol. I can bring what I need.”

“You should also be aware that Silence Lodge is considering offering three of the cabins for short-term leases—three months minimum.”

“Good to know.” It would certainly influence his decision of which cabin to claim for himself.

“Is there anything you’ll regret leaving in Bristol?”

Wondering if that was Ilya’s subtle way of asking about a lover, Grimshaw smiled. “I’ll miss the pool hall.”

Ilya sat back. “I beg your pardon?”

Now he grinned. “Pool is a game played on a felt-covered—”

“I know what it is.” Ilya sounded grouchy. “I was just surprised by your answer.”

Uh-huh. Couldn’t be an easy transition going from the behind-the-scenes controlling power to having to deal with all the pesky humans directly. Considering his own job change, he felt some sympathy for the vampire, especially since that change happened by their own choices.

“There is a pool hall in Bristol, just seedy enough to have character. I would go there on my day off and shoot some pool, have a beer and a burger.” It was as close to a social life as he’d had in a while. Not something he would share with one of the Sanguinati. “I won’t miss the establishment all that much, but I did enjoy the game.”

“None of the businesses in Sproing have a pool table?” Ilya asked.

Grimshaw hesitated, then decided there had to be honesty between them if nothing else. “There are a couple of bars in the village. Not sure if they’re both open or if one has odd hours, but the one that does regular business has a pool table in the back. But I’d always be a cop there.”

“Is that what you would call a deal breaker?”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to be sure we were good before I accepted the position.”

“We’re good . . . Chief Grimshaw.”

And they would do some good, Grimshaw thought as he returned to the police station and gave Hargreaves his answer.

EPILOGUE

Vicki

Julian had been right. The Jumble’s newfound notoriety might have scared off some people—and proved interesting to others, like the man who wanted to book a cabin in the hopes an Elder would eat his wife and save him the cost of a divorce. (I declined to take his reservation.) On moving day, my office was returned to working order first, and they—meaning all the big scary males I knew, plus Aggie—parked me behind the desk with the pad of paper containing all the names and phone numbers Aggie had carefully written down from the humans who wanted to rent a cabin. Between returning calls and answering new calls and making notes so that I could ask Fred and Larry at the bait-and-tackle shop which weeks would be ideal for fishing in the lake—and asking Conan when the trout returned to the creek, information I assumed he knew because he’d chosen to live in one of the creekside cabins specifically to get his paws on the fish—I had booked all the available cabins into late fall, when I stopped booking humans into the more primitive cabins, thinking of how I would feel if I had to put on boots and a winter coat in order to go out and pee. I had a waiting list for the two suites in the main house and the two renovated lakeside cabins. The three universities in the Finger Lakes area solved their inability to rent cabins in The Jumble or rent rooms at Ineke’s boardinghouse by renting three of the Mill Creek Cabins from Silence Lodge on a year’s lease, negotiating with Ilya Sanguinati to allow their people to explore The Jumble as part of the lease agreement.

I remained the Reader and, with Julian’s assistance, continued to do a story hour three evenings a week. Gershwin Jones brought over a piano and a couple of drums, and we had a music night a couple of evenings a month. Hector and Horace acquired some ponies and ran a pony camp for visiting children—a couple of hours of learning how to ride combined with trail rides where the kids would see a Hawk or a Coyote up close. For people who didn’t want to walk the trails in The Jumble for one reason or another, they could take a donkey-cart tour and attempt conversation with whichever terra indigene was driving the cart and who couldn’t understand what the humans were saying half the time.

For reasons he wouldn’t explain, Ilya Sanguinati purchased a pool table and installed it in one of the undesignated ground-floor rooms—and asked Julian Farrow to provide the information for proper decorations to make it look like a pool hall. A few women grumbled about their men disappearing into the pool room in the evenings instead of spending time with them, but I ignored the grumbles when I noticed that our new chief of police stopped by a couple of evenings a week to shoot pool. Sometimes he wanted solitude and played alone. Sometimes he played with Julian or even Ilya, who was learning the game. It felt strange to see Wayne—because when he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he was Wayne, not Chief Grimshaw—looking relaxed, but it also felt good. And it felt good to spend time with Julian, to take walks and talk—and to go swimming once my stitches and cast were removed.

It was toward the end of summer when a young Intuit photographer came to The Jumble—a friend of a friend of Julian’s. Because of that connection, and because this was his chance to build a portfolio of nature shots, I introduced the young man to Conan and Cougar, who permitted him to take photographs of them in both their forms—something they hadn’t done for other people who had been busy snapping pictures. He took pictures of Aggie, Jozi, and Eddie as Crows and in the black-and-white outfits they had selected when I hired them to help me take care of all the guests. It worked out well. Smart guests gave them a shiny, inexpensive trinket. In return, you could count on those sharp Crow eyes finding a guest’s missing earring whether it was under the bed, under a dresser, or in some other Crow’s stash of shinies.

That day the young photographer wanted to photograph the lake, and he asked me to go into the water. I demurred. I protested. I whined. But he was a pleasant young man, and maybe, being an Intuit, he had a feeling I needed to be in the water that day.

I waded in, up to my waist. And she rose out of the water right in front of me.

I looked at the photographer, who was staring at her and not quite daring to raise his camera and take a shot.

“He would like to take your picture,” I said. “Is that all right?”

“Our picture,” she said.

“I don’t like having my picture taken.” You couldn’t explain self-esteem and body image issues to an Elemental.

“Our picture. Then I will allow him to take one of me.”

“Why with me?”

“So that you remember why it was possible for him to take the other.”

He stood on the beach, with the water lapping at his feet, and took several shots of the two of us facing each other as if conversing. Then I moved away, and she turned to face him.

As a thank-you, he framed a copy of the photograph of me and the Lady of the Lake. He also gave me a framed copy of the photograph of her.