Chapter 18
Elena stared at the empty spot on her counter for a second and then let out a heavy sigh. She took a second sip of wine and closed her eyes.
“I will not let this ruin my meal,” she told herself. I will think about other things and enjoy my dinner. Then I will throw things.” She opened her eyes and picked up her fork. While her dinner had cooled slightly it was still hot. “I would have had to let it cool a bit before eating anyway,” she told herself. Spin came out of the back room where she had skittered off to when Smith and Jonathan had come in. The cat had a decided aversion to both men. She returned to watching Elena’s plate with soulful eyes. Elena sighed and cut a small bite of chicken from her plate. She dropped it into Spin’s bowl where the cat immediately pounced.
“I knew I’d give in first,” she said. “The force is strong with you,” she told Spin. The cat ignored her, giving the chicken her full attention. Elena decided to do likewise and began eating. It was fully as good as the smells had promised. Her mind still threatened to dwell on the missing powdered geras so she pulled her stack of mail towards her and began sorting through it as she ate. As she had suspected the mass of the pile was junk mail. She weeded out the credit card offers to shred and put the circulars in another pile for the trash. Most of them were for stores she didn’t even shop in. All of her bills were on-line at this point as were most of her family and friends communications. It made actual mail rather rare. She did have a couple of promising letters though. The first she noticed was a small invitation on thick, cream colored stationary. The Calabrese crest was intertwined with a second crest she didn’t recognize on a sticker used as a seal. Elena slit the envelope open while avoiding breaking the seal. It was an invitation to her cousin Nate’s wedding. She recalled her grandfather saying he was marrying a pilot.
“That must be her crest.” The fact that both the crests were on the envelope was somewhat significant, socially at least. Since Nate’s soon to be wife was a pilot the invitation should have borne her crest alone. The fact that it had both crests embossed equally meant that the Calabrese family was higher on the social food chain.
“Therese must love that,” Elena muttered forking up another bit. To Therese’s mind the only way to marry was up. Elena wondered if Therese was causing any problems for their new family. She tapped the invitation thoughtfully. Mateo might know. She would ask when he arrived in the morning to begin his move into the apartment above All Wrapped Up, the sandwich and wrap place a few blocks over. Elena noticed a small note in the envelope and pulled it free. She recognized her Aunt’s handwriting from numerous birthday and Christmas cards.
“I’ve already put you on the RSVP list so you don’t need to send the card in. See you in the Fall, Love Aunt C.” Elena shook her head with a smile at the note. Apparently she would be going to the wedding. She put the invitation to the side to mark on her calendar later. The second actual piece of mail was for a baby shower and Elena put it on top of Nate’s wedding invitation. She would check her calendar for that date as well. That left two final pieces of mail to deal with. Both were in the blue international envelopes and were thin to save on postage. Elena opened the first one. It was a very short letter and she read it twice. She blinked hard. The wording didn’t change. She resisted the urge to read it out loud incase the kitchen were still bugged. The letter was from a woman named Maria Sanchez. Elena flipped over the envelope. The post markings were from Madrid. The letter was a request for transferring to Elena’s home port of Grant’s Inlet. It listed several contact names for references including Maria’s own head of House.
“Huh,” Elena said leaning back in her chair. She took another sip of wine. She didn’t know what was involved with such a transfer. She knew that to get her cousin Mateo to work with her paperwork had to be done so that she was his head of House rather than his mother, Catherine. “But that’s family,” she said to herself. Her self taught crash course in what rights the title Head of House granted her didn’t cover non family transfers. Elena had the feeling she would need to call her grandfather for some pointers as well as council advice before contacting Maria or any of her listed references. Elena slid the letter back into its envelope and set it down with the invitations in what was now the things to check on pile. She picked up the second international envelope and spit it open with her thumb. She checked the address before sliding the letter out. Hong Kong. The pulled the letter from its envelope and opened it. This letter was a little longer.
“Damn,” Elena said. The letter was from Jasmine Anderson. Jasmine was a pilot who had been grounded. She was also blood tied to both Riko and council member Anderson. Elena thought she vaguely remembered meeting Jasmine a while back although she was somewhat younger than Elena. Apparently Jasmine had heard Elena had solved the problem of the Calling and that she and Mateo were working on a solution to un-ground pilots affected with the Calling.
“Make that my supernaturally brilliant cousin,” Elena said reading the line aloud. “I’m sure he will love that.” Elena wondered what the gossip going around was. Elena shook her head. In the letter it sounded almost like Jasmine was volunteering to be a test subject for whatever she and Mateo were concocting.
“Of course she could be a spy,” Elena muttered, thinking of Riko. She refolded the letter and put it in the stack. “Well hell,” she said. The tone of the letter had sounded almost desperate and Elena wondered how bad her current situation was. She didn’t have the heart to ignore the letter but at the moment she didn’t have the understanding to answer it.
“Alexandro would,” she said thinking of her grandfather. She looked down to see Spin staring at her forgotten plate. Elena picked up the plate and walked over to Spin’s bowl. She added a few of the remaining bits of chicken to the cat’s dish and then began to clean up from dinner. She put spices in the cabinet and left over’s in the fridge. Dishes were washed and set to dry.
“I need to talk to him,” she decided. The problem she faced was how. She of course had his numbers and as long as it wasn’t Sunday he would answer the phone regardless of what hour she called. However she was pretty sure the apartment was still bugged as was the car and she had no idea about the shops or even Andre’s apartment. Somehow letting Smith know there was the potential to have more pilots moving into his vicinity didn’t seem like a bright idea.
“Although I’m sure he’d pick up on it sooner or later.” Elena thought about it a second remembering the earpiece Smith often wore during their interviews and how he would cock his head to the side a little as if listening to instructions. She often had the feeling that Smith was the blustering, bumbling front man the military put out so that she would think they were inept while the bright boys worked behind the scenes. “Well maybe not Smith, but someone.” Alexandro would be coming into town for the grand opening of Nibbles. That was only a few days away, perhaps the matter could wait and she could talk to him in his hotel room. After all they couldn’t have bugged every hotel room in the city.”
“Could they?” she asked Spin. Spin looked up from her bowl, gave Elena a rather sardonic look and went back to her chicken.
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