See Part One for Disclaimers

Kelly looked at the phone in her hand curiously.  Somehow, it didn't seem like the man she had met to hang up on her like that.  She put the phone down and moved to the window.  She pulled the curtain aside a little and saw Harve walking out to the car.  He opened the hood, removed some wires and closed it again.  She watched, frowning as he tossed the wires into the bushes beside the driveway.  She let the curtain drop before he turned around.

She felt a surge of panic.  She looked around the small living room, so unlike the living room at the home they shared in the States.  Comforting, actually.  She was frightened of her brother.  There was something very, very wrong with Harve.

She went into the kitchen to make some tea.  Tea was soothing.  She poured the water into the kettle as the front door opened and closed.  She heard him walking around the house and wondered when he'd find her.  Then she realized it was odd that he hadn't just called her name when he came in, the way he always did.

Her hands shook as she pulled out a tin of loose tea, English Breakfast, Harve's favorite.  She measured the right amount into the tea ball and closed it, then closed the tin and put it away.  Always neat, that was Harve's rule.

She stared blankly at the counter for a moment.  Harve's rule.  Harve's car.  Harve's -- always Harve's way.  Was that why Libby had never visited once she grew up?  Was that why she had no friends, no love interest, no one except her brother to look after her, to care for her?

Too late, she realized that Harve had entered the kitchen.  Something cold and wet and slightly sweet smelling was held in place over her mouth and nose as Harve's arm surrounded her and held her tight.  Darkness.




Ski called several real estate agents he knew and got lucky.  A small, rundown house on the outskirts of the city had been purchased by Harve Cheyne The man had paid cash for the place, which surprised the agent and caused it to stick in her head.  "Got it!" he called as he hung up the phone.

Jonathan and Ski piled into the Jeep and took off.  Jonathan had a really bad feeling about the abrupt disconnection of the line when he had been talking to Kelly.  Twenty minutes later, they pulled up on the street next to the driveway leading up to the small house Harve had purchased.  They parked and moved cautiously up the driveway.  Ski nearly tripped over the plug wires Harve had removed from the car.  He frowned at the wires and shoved them in his pocket.  He looked around to see Jonathan slide around the corner of the house into the backyard.

"Be careful," he muttered under his breath as he headed for the front door.  You never knew when a direct approach was going to work.  Or when it was going to blow up in your face.

Luckily, Havre was explaining to his unconscious sister that the accident she was about to have was really all her fault for surviving the accident three years earlier.  "You should have died, you know," he told her conversationally as he poured gasoline around the edges of the room.  "It was all set.  No one else to get hurt.  You should have stayed unconscious.  You wouldn't have felt a thing.  But no, you have to stumble out of the car and get burned.  You couldn't even manage to get clear of the car so I didn't have to look at your grotesque face for the last three years.  Not that you were anything to look at anyway, but geez, you got ugly after you got burned."

He surveyed his work and nodded, satisfied.  He pulled out a box of matches.  "Just a little fire, just an accident in an old house.  You won't feel a thing.  Not like last time."

Tap, tap.  Something tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned, almost involuntarily.  He saw only the fast approaching fist that nailed his jaw firmly.  Jonathan Raven, looking like an ominous thundercloud, stood over the fallen man he'd just hit.  There was a black rage in his heart and a red mist clouding his vision.  He wanted nothing so much as to take this man apart with his bare hands.

Kelly made an indecipherable sound on the bed and shifted.  Her eyes opened and closed.  Jonathan moved to the bed to check her.  He could smell ether as he got close to her.  He checked her pulse, it was steady.  He'd only put her to sleep and the drug was beginning to wear off.  He leaned over the bed to shake her.

Something solid connected with the back of his head.  There was a hollow sound, like a metal can hitting something.  Lights flickered in front of his eyes as he fell forward across Kelly.  He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to scramble backwards away from the blow, away from the bed, he took a grazing second blow to the side of the head.  He fell backwards off the bed, blocking a third and fourth blow from the nearly empty gas can in Harve's hands.

Thud.  Pain.  Darkness.  Harve looked down at the man on the floor.  There was anger in his face and murder in his eyes as he sneered at the man who had seduced his cousin.  The back of his head seemed to have contacted solidly with the oak bedside table.  He hoped the man's head had cracked under the impact, but he doubted it.  Nothing ever seemed to work out that simply, for him.

He set the can down and checked Jonathan's pulse.  Unconscious.  Good.  Now, where to put his body?  After all, an intruder, an arsonist, setting a fire and getting caught in his own fire, it happened all the time.

Knock.  Knock.  Now what?  He sighed and struck the match.  He dropped it near the door to the bedroom and went to answer the front door.

Ski looked at the man answering the door and went into his spiel about collecting for a worthy cause.  Harve looked annoyed, disgusted and did his best to get rid of Ski.  Then they both smelled smoke.  Ski observed that there was a fire behind Harve.

"Man, you got a fire!  Damn, get out, man.  Get out now!" He shoved Harve out the front door and slammed the door closed behind him.  "Jonathan!" he yelled.  Silence.  He ran toward the doorway and shied back as the flames engulfed the doorway.  Damn.  He could smell gasoline.  He dodged through the thickening smoke and into the kitchen.  The back door was locked.  He fumbled the door open and got out of the smoke and into the back yard.

Flames were licking at the curtains of the window to the bedroom where Jonathan and Kelly were.  Jonathan, beginning to recover from the blow to the back of his head, choked on the smoke from the fire.  He rolled onto his stomach, instinctively keeping his face near the floor, gasping for clean air.  Gasoline.  He choked on the smell, coughing and gagging.  He found the side of the bed and pulled himself up.  Kelly.

Crash.  The window behind him shattered, smoke and flame taking the easy path out into the air.

"Jonathan!" Ski yelled, flinching back from the flames.  Someone struck him across the shoulders with something heavy.  He turned to face Harve who had picked up a heavy branch and launched himself at Ski.  They grappled in the backyard, fighting for Ski's life while Jonathan tried to focus on getting Kelly off the bed and out of the house.

"Kelly!" he yelled over the fire.

She blinked at him sleepily and coughed.  The smoke penetrated her drowsiness.  She struggled to focus, reaching up and touching Jonathan.  Her fingers touched the back of his head, coming away sticky with blood.  Her eyes widened.

"You're hurt," she blurted out and choked on the smoke.  She sat up and looked around, discovering the fire.  "Harve?" she whispered, suddenly terrified as she put a number of things together.

"Come on.  We've got to get out of here."  Jonathan pulled her off the bed and to her feet.  She staggered and headed for the door, only to be pulled back.  "Window."

Her eyes widened and she shied back, the flames holding her attention.  "No," she said softly, shaking her head.  "I can't."

"Then we'll both die," he told her, shaking his head to try to clear the darkness closing in on him away.

She looked at him and realized he was in trouble.  She swallowed and nodded, pulling him toward the burning wall and the window.  She took a deep breath and threw herself out the window.  Jonathan steadied himself and tried to focus on the window.  He sagged and blinked at the window.

"Jonathan!"

He could hear Kelly outside the window, and then Ski, also calling him.  He made an effort and pulled his concentration together.  He took a deep breath and threw himself through the wall of flame that shot up across the window.  He lay on the grass outside, taking in deep breaths of clean air.  He could feel hands on him, Ski and Kelly pulling him over to make certain he was all right.

He heard Ski swear at the blood flowing down the back of his friends head and neck.  "Damn it, Jonathan!  You're supposed to be careful!" Ski was ignoring his own wounds, a black eye and cut lip, not to mention the bruises on his shoulders where Harve had hit him with the branch.

A few feet away, Harve groaned as he regained consciousness.  He shifted and sat up.  The house was engulfed in flames.  In the distance, a siren sounded.  He smiled, then he spotted Kelly, Ski and Jonathan.  His face contorted in hatred.

"No!" he screamed and scrambled to his feet.  No, he was not going to lose, not now.  He ran for the front of the house and the car parked there.

Ski frowned at him, left Jonathan to Kelly for the moment and followed Harve cautiously.  He pulled a gun from somewhere on his person and had it cocked and ready when Harve came back around the house, gun in hand.  Twin explosions as they both fired.  For a moment, Ski wasn't certain if either of them had been hit.  Then Harve staggered, lost his grip on his gun, and fell face first onto the grass.

"Damn."





For the second time since he met Libby Harris, Jonathan awoke in the hospital with a throbbing head.  He frowned at the ceiling and wondered what he'd done this time.  He remembered smoke, and a fire.

"Oh, hi.  You're awake."

He looked around and smiled.  "Kelly."

She smiled back.  "How do you feel?"

"Not bad."

"Which is why you're frowning?" she asked with smile.

"My head hurts."

"Understandable.  I think you hit the bedside table with your head when you fell."

That reminded him of the fight.  "Your brother?"

She shook her head, tearing up slightly.  "Ski had to shoot him.  It's OK," she assured him hurriedly.  "Well, maybe not OK," she amended, "but necessary.  He was going to shoot Ski -- "

"And probably us afterwards?"

She nodded.  "I -- " her gaze dropped.  How to tell him that Harve had engineered the explosion that killed Libby?

"Let me guess.  Harve was responsible for -- for Libby's plane exploding."

She nodded again, this time the tears ran freely.  "I am -- so sorry.  I didn't know," she said softly.  "I -- "

"I know."  It hurt, but not as much as not knowing had done.  "Financial problems?"

"No.  I don't understand at all.  I guess -- I found his diary.  I didn't know he kept one.  But it went back -- oh, to high school, I think.  And -- he hated us.  He hated sharing what he thought should have been his and only his.  There was something really very wrong with Harve.  I wish I'd realized sooner.  Maybe --"

He reached out and took her hands in his.  "Don't.  I don't think you could have done anything to help.  Are you all right?"

She brightened.  Such a little thing, asking how she was, and she was so pleased to be noticed.  He found himself thankful he had not had to kill the man, and regretting it at the same time.  How her brother could have treated her the way he did was almost incomprehensible.

"I'll be all right.  I've had to deal with the police and keeping your friend out of jail and you in the hospital -- I'm discovering that I'm really quite good at organization," she ended with a laugh.  "The doctor told Ski that you could go home tomorrow if you woke up today."

"I have to wait until tomorrow?"

"You have a fracture.  They want to make sure you haven't done anything really nasty to yourself."

"No wonder it hurts.  What will you do now?"

"I have to go home.  There are a lot of loose ends to wrap up, business things -- and Libby's estate -- and I get to learn how to do all of it.  I'll send the pictures as soon as I find them."  She hesitated before continuing.  " I thought I'd leave the house to you to dispose of, or whatever.  If you don't mind?"

He gazed into her no longer so scared looking hazel eyes for a long moment.  Did he mind?  No.  The house wasn't important, only who and what it had contained.  "I can handle it.  Will you come back?"

"I dunno.  I don't know a lot of people here, you know.  I don't know if I'd be welcome."

He smiled at that.  "I can't imagine why you wouldn't be.  Call me."

"I will."  She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.  "I've given Ski my number -- if you just want to talk.  I think Libby would approve."  She glanced at her watch.  "Oh, I've been here too long.  They'll throw me out."

She stopped in the doorway and looked back at him.  "I've had the three paintings that were here put in your house.  Ski found a place to stack them.  That's OK?"

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded.  "Yes.  Thank you."

Kelly had to leave Hawaii before Jonathan got out of the hospital.  Ski saw her off and reported that the plane had left without incident.  He drove Jonathan home, talking about anything and everything and nothing.  At least it didn't make his head ache.

The house still seemed empty, until he walked into the living room to find a sheet draped easel.  "Ski."

"I couldn't figure out where else to put it," Ski put in before Jonathan could say anything else.

"It's all right."  He took a breath, centered down and pulled the sheet away.  It was a large canvas.  At the top, on each corner, were two women, one oriental in kimono and long black hair; one auburn haired and medieval gowned.  Their hair flowed together to form a backdrop for the other figures.  One definitely Ski armed with his guns faced left, one definitely Jonathan Raven armed with a katana faced right.  In the center were four faces, the bottom one unformed, the next one up youthful and male, a combination of the features of the oriental female and Raven.  The upper two were apparently female, but unfilled in, one turned toward Ski and one toward Jonathan.  And entwined around it all were the sinuous coils of an oriental dragon, black scales shimmered with silver.

"Damn," Ski breathed behind him.  "That is one Hell of a painting."

fin

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