Nikola made it into an empty suite and found a chair in the dark. The absence of light didn't matter; his vision was clouded with flashing light patterns anyway.
He hadn't had an attack this bad for years, but he knew it was caused by the stress he'd been under lately. It was that photo—that damned photo that had thrown him.
Initially he'd been on the horns of a dilemma- say nothing, or tell the story. Then he'd realized he could just lie about it, but he'd rushed been telling into it and he was pretty sure Helen hadn't bought it. She would check up on his tale, and then he'd be right back in the soup.
He sighed and tried to be calm and relaxed. He couldn't work in his current condition, so he might as well take the opportunity to consider his options.
The one thing he couldn't do was tell the truth. He loved his son, Danny, too much to do that and he wouldn't see him hurt in any way. That left him three choices of action—disappear, say nothing, or lie again. Any way he considered it, he was in trouble.
If he left, Helen and everyone else would assume he was guilty. It would almost be worth it to avoid saying anything and get away from the whole mess, but not quite. He wouldn't be there for Danny, wouldn't see him grow up, and it would sever his relationship with Helen. He could imagine what meeting her again in a few decades would be like if he ran now, and it made him shudder.
Lying again wasn't a good option either. It would be much harder to get anyone to believe him after the first lie was exposed, and he didn't know what else to say. So that left him with silence or the truth, and he couldn't tell the truth, he just couldn't.
He wondered what Helen would do to him if he just refused to speak. He was sure she wouldn't execute him nor would she allow Will to murder him. But what? Imprisonment? Exile? And for how long? He couldn't—he wouldn't—miss his son's childhood, he refused to not be there when Danny came to truly need him.
Nikola sighed and tried to settle himself. None of the choices he had were acceptable and he couldn't think of a good course of action that would get them out of this mess. All he could do for the moment was try to relax and let the visions run their course. When they were done, he would lay low and stay out of Helen's sight for a while. Maybe some brilliant idea would come to him.
Helen's research on Vera Chisolm revealed about what she expected. As far as she could tell, the woman and all her ancestors had been quite human. She had married in middle age, had two children, and died in a nursing home five years ago.
Nikola's friend could have been a different Vera Chisolm, of course, but Helen could find no record of anyone else by that name that fit in terms of age and location. The one she had found had lived in the area where the murders took place for quite a long time- fifteen or twenty years, from young adulthood to her late thirties. But she had moved to Michigan a few months before the first killing and lived out her life there.
The only conclusion she could draw was that Nikola made the story up. He'd made a mistake using the name of a real person, probably someone he knew. He'd needed a name and just blurted out the first one that came to mind. When Nikola couldn't tell a better lie than that, he was really rattled.
So that left her where she started, without anything to tell Will. And she no longer had the advantage of surprise to pry something out of Nikola. She was deeply disturbed and a little afraid of his refusal to tell her the truth. If he really was completely innocent as he claimed, surely he would simply have told her what had actually happened. What other motive would he have to lie, other than to protect himself from retribution? Maybe that's where she could probe.
If he wasn't completely innocent . . . What could she actually do about it? Will was right that there should be some sort of justice for the murdered women. But Nikola wasn't a killer, at least not in his right mind. There had been periods in the past, mental breakdowns, when he might have done anything. But if he'd been mentally ill and now recovered, should he be punished? If he was guilty, he certainly shouldn't get away with it, and yet . . .
Will would never let go of the idea that the murderer of his mother had to pay for the crime, and Helen couldn't blame him much. Unless Nikola were truly innocent and she could convince Will of that, the two men would never be able to live or work under the same roof again. And other Sanctuary employees would take sides; it would shatter the organization she had worked so long and hard to build.
She thought of Henry, friends with Will and Nikola both. Chances were good he was going to be hurt by whatever happened the next few days, and he wouldn't be alone. And Danny . . . if his father was guilty, if she had to separate them that would hurt her child a great deal. She'd gone through that once with Ashley, raising her daughter alone because of what John had become, and knew how difficult it had been for both of them.
The thought of losing Nikola herself made her stomach hurt. Personally, she wanted to forget the whole thing, just keep her vampire safe by her side. But as the head of the Sanctuary, she had a duty to perform, and she never shirked her duty, no matter how unpleasant.
Helen wasn't entirely sure she wanted the truth, but she needed it in order to decide what to do. Reluctantly, she left her desk and went to find Tesla.
She didn't find him immediately. She took breaks from her normal work throughout the day to check on places he might be- his lab, the library, their suite, the wine cellar, his office, the roof. He had to be in building somewhere, and she grew uneasy the later it got without seeing him. Had he left the building against her orders? He couldn't have left the compound, the sensors would alert security to a vampire passing in or out and security would alert her.
She finally found him in the day care center. The greater security offered by the new underground Sanctuary had encouraged more employees and residents to procreate and had attracted a number of abnormal families. There were now fourteen children age four and under in day care and she had started a small school for a growing contingent of older children as well.
Nikola was just lounging off to one side watching the kids. They paid no attention to him; it wasn't all that unusual for him to visit. Danny ignored his papa too. He was almost three and had developed into a bright, happy boy who had a big dollop of his father's charm. At the moment he was engaged in a game involving toy vehicles with three other children.
Tesla stood when he saw her. For a moment he looked like he wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to go. He came over to her, took her arm, and steered her to the door.
"We need to talk," Helen said quietly.
"I guess we do," he replied as they went out into the hall. "Somewhere private, though."
They went up on the roof. With all the pigeons, pigeon feathers and pigeon droppings no one else ever spent any time there. They unfolded a couple of chairs and sat.
Helen started. "I researched Vera Chisholm. She wasn't a HAP, Nikola, and she had moved away by the time the killings started."
"That must have been a different Vera Chisholm."
"Nikola, please don't insult my intelligence. Why did you lie to me?"
He picked up a bag of pigeon food and started distributing it to his little friends. Helen watched him for a few moments then put her hand lightly on his arm, arresting his movement.
Concerned and frustrated, she asked, "Why are you acting like this? At least tell me why you can't tell me the truth. You have to give me something here, Nikola, otherwise what am I to do?"
He set down the bag of food and turned to her. "Telling you would violate the reason I can't tell you."
"That is not a help. You need to do better. If I have to assume you are guilty, I will have to act on that, even if I also assume you were not in your right mind at the time."
Nikola seized on that idea. "Maybe I don't really remember, exactly."
"Then how did you recognize the man in the photo?"
"Oh, yeah, the photo. Um . . ."
"No more lies. Please, just tell me. You know I love you, I will do everything I can to help you. But I have to know the truth, otherwise you and Will are going to be permanent enemies and whatever I do, our Sanctuary family is going to be torn to shreds."
"Aw, hell. If I tell you, if anyone finds out, it will hurt Danny. And I can't do that, no matter what the consequences."
"That's not possible. What could Danny have to do with murders that took place decades ago? You're just trying to frighten me off the subject, Nikola. Not telling me the truth is leaving me in an untenable position and it's going to get worse when Will's week is up. I have to act but I no information! Bloody hell, what am I going to do?"
He looked at her and saw she meant it. He wasn't the only one under stress; the uncertainty was tearing at her, the possibility he was guilty scaring her and hurting her deeply. He finally understood the horrible position she was in, the one he was putting her in. He was tanking her life. Maybe the truth wasn't as bad as where they were headed without it.
"Okay, okay. Helen, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want you to be in pain over this, I don't want to destroy the Sanctuary. And annoying as he is, I don't really even want to hurt Will. I just want to protect Danny. Promise you won't tell anyone what I'm going to tell you, at least not the part that will hurt our son."
Helen hugged him and held him. "Of course I promise. I would never allow any harm to come to Danny. I would give my life before I would let that happen."
"We would give our lives," he corrected, holding her tight to him. And then they moved a little apart and he began to tell her the truth.
