The Doyennes' Worldly Convergence

Chapter 9 - First Move

Cordelia

I asked Micah to take me straight home, not wanting to waste the time getting my car. The awkward silence between us was almost deadly.

"What's going on in that mind of yours?" Micah finally asked as he glanced over at me, breaking my train of thought.

I continued to watch building after blurry building out of the passenger window, "Micah ...."

Tones started going off on Micah's pager, but before they said where and what, he turned the volume down.

"Why do you refuse to call me Lorne? Do you know why my parents named me Micah? It's because my dad wanted to name me Michael, and my mom wanted my name to be Nicola, so they picked a name that was a combination of the two. It's like, I don't know, Brangelina, or Bennifer, or Shefani, or .... something humorous to break the tension that's in this car right now."

I turned to glance at him with a raised brow as a tiny smirk formed on my face from being slightly entertained at his attempt to ease my troubled mind by making fun of himself.

Mic ..... Lorne just smiled in return as he pulled into my driveway and put his car in park before turning to hold eye contact with me, "So, what did you find out, and what are you planning on doing? And don't lie to me, I can tell you're up to something."

I closed my eyes and nodded my head as I reached for the door handle, "Come on, there are a few things I want to show you."

Lorne joined me on my porch as I unlocked the front door, standing so close behind me that I could feel his physical energy, a part of me longing to be held in his arms.

"Have a seat on the couch, I need to grab my personal computer," I instructed as I set my things down on the entrance table before locking the door and latching the security chain.

"You know, Cordelia, I do think that this is the first time that we've ever been alone together."

I ignored Lorne's statement as I grabbed my computer off of my dresser and quietly made my way to the living room, sitting down on the couch next to him.

"This is what I've been working on since the day Harlee and I met you," I opened my computer and quietly waited for it to power on and sync to the TV.

"You mean since the day you decided you couldn't stand me and wanted nothing to do with me?" Lorne's voice had a serious tone behind his question, and I knew that I had sat down for my own little interrogation.

I turned to look into his brown eyes, a little hurt that he felt the way he did, "Why do you think I can't stand you?"

"Every time I come over here, you run off. So either you can't stand me, or you're hiding something. Which one is it?"

I closed my eyes and shook my head, "Could we please not do this right now ..... "

"Sure, we can do this after you show me whatever it is that you want to show me," Lorne quietly turned to look at the TV, making me wonder if inviting him in might have been a mistake.

I let out a sigh as I brought up the first video, "Since you told Harlee and I about how all of this supernatural and paranormal crap is real, I started analyzing as many pictures and videos as I could. Looking for things that they might have in common or just looked wrong. There are a few that I could tell were faked, but these all have something in common ...."

"So you've been trying to prove me wrong this entire time? Is that what you've been hiding, why you would run off?" Lorne turned back to look at me with a questioning expression, as well as a faint grin.

"Did you think that I wouldn't? It's the opposite of not being able to stand you. I just didn't want to offend you by saying what I was doing ...... "

"You're in the wrong profession, Miss Cordelia Craig. And it'd take a lot more to offend me than you trying to prove me wrong," Lorne said with a smile as he looked back at the TV screen.

"Anyway, so far I've found one major similarity in multiple videos and pictures. Look at this ...." I zoomed in on a blonde girl who was at the famous octopus scene before bringing up the saved image of her face and dragging it to the left of the screen.

"Didn't you say that the entire thing was computerized?" Lorne questioned me as he kept his focus on the screen.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes, "That's beside the point, so shush while I make it. So we have the blonde, and this woman here is going to come into play right directly," I zoomed in on a dark-skinned woman with long hair in tight braids, right before she got tackled to the ground by one of the men. I brought up her saved image, dragging it over with the blonde's.

Then, I brought up a picture of the same dark-skinned woman standing on the balcony of a tree house.

"Let me guess, who cares about a tree house, right?" Lorne asked as he stood up and walked over to the TV to get a better look at the images.

"Yeah, well, that's exactly why that story never got any momentum. But this, this is the video of the story that I did," I brought up the video, blurry as it was, pausing it at the best moment to get a somewhat decent view of the blonde that Mr Crazy Eugene Brown was obsessed with.

"Is that the same woman?" Lorne asked.

I immediately brought up a saved image of the blonde from the video that I had been working on clearing up, and dragged it next to her other image, "Yep. I've spent hours trying to clear this video up the best that I could. In doing so, look at who I found," I zoomed in on a dark-skinned man who looked oddly similar to the tree house woman, their strikingly good looks undeniable.

Lorne crossed his arms over his chest and turned to look at me, "So are you saying you've proved it all to be fake, or that you're questioning if it's real? And what does this have to do with Harlee?"

"Today, a guy said that ....."

knock ... knock ... knock ... knock

I looked at the front door before looking back at Lorne, slowly shaking my head to quietly tell him that I wasn't expecting anyone .... I never expect anyone.

Lorne reached down to his ankle and pulled out a small handgun from a holster that I didn't even know he had, and as the knocking repeated itself he nodded his head, telling me it was ok to see who it was.

Before I stood up from my seat on the couch, my paranoia told me to turn off my computer to remove all the images from the TV screen. Afterwards, I made my way over to the front door.

As the knocking repeated itself a third time, I opened the door, leaving the security chain still attached. There stood an older, skinnier couple on the other side of my front door. The man was taller with gray hair, and the woman obviously dyed her hair black, which was probably her natural hair color before age changed it.

"Can I help you?" I asked, still leaving the chain across the door.

"Hello, yes, I'm Gary Harris and this is my wife, Darlene. We're sorry to bother you, but I thought that this is where Harlynn Danovich lived?" Gary asked, raising my suspension of them.

"It is. Is there something I can help you with?"

"She worked for the Blavelts, correct?"

I didn't like how Gary continued to talk about Harlee in the past tense, so I simply glared at them both quietly, wondering what exactly their intentions were.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there was a fire, and we were just wondering, well, you didn't by chance hear from Harlynn, did you?" Darlene's facial expression told me that there was far more behind her question than she wanted me to know.

"Hey honey, is everything ok?" Lorne asked as he removed the safety chain and opened the door all the way before wrapping an arm around my waist, placing his hand on my hip.

Darlene and Gary's faces fell as their eyes widened, clearly shocked to see Lorne, "Officer MacIntyre! I, well, um, we didn't, what a surprise to see you here!" Darlene stammered.

Lorne pulled me in a little closer, and I had to admit, I didn't exactly hate it, "I'm off duty, Mr and Mrs Harris. Harlee and Cordelia are obviously close to me, and I'll be staying here until everything is figured out."

My heart started racing at his words as my palms started sweating. Chill, Dee .... chill ....

"That's very kind ....."

Lorne quickly interrupted Gary, "Not to be rude, but it's been a long day for Cordelia and I, and there are still a few hours left until it's over. I'm sure you understand the fact that we would like to be left alone for the rest of our evening."

"Yes, I completely understand. We hope that the two of you have a good night, and that you hear good news despite this tragedy. Again, I'm sorry that I bothered you, and if ....." before Darlene could finish whatever it was she thought she was going to say, Lorne simply smiled and shut the door, making sure that he re-locked everything.

"What was that about?" I asked as I walked away from Lorne, regretting the fact that I missed his touch on my body, and made my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"Mr and Mrs Harris own the Harris-Inn. Their family has had it forever, that's how they became so rich. That, and playing the stock market. They've been weird since their daughter, Jennifer, ran away ......"

I almost choked on my water, "Wait, are they friends with the Blavelts?"

Lorne crossed his arms over his chest as he gave me a confused look, "They were ....."

"Do they have a distant niece in town?"

Lorne nodded his head, "Michelle ...."

"Michelle is Jennifer, Jennifer is Michelle. That's what that one guy said at the fire. He was friends with her in high school and swore that she's a demon because she hasn't aged a day in 20 years. Lorne, he has seen her go in and out of the funeral home ....."

Lorne pinched the bridge of his nose. "Probably a vampire. Damn it, I should have seen this! There have been rumors that people have disappeared from the hotel, and the Blavelts do go through a lot of workers, but there's never been any evidence of anything. I guess it's easy to get rid of the evidence when a funeral home and crematorium is involved."

I stood quietly as I leaned back against the counter as I mentally took everything in, trying to force the pieces of the puzzle together. The only direction I really had was the one place they all seemed to have something in common. That's the best shot I had at finding out who had Harlee. I hurried to my bedroom and started packing my bag, Lorne's footsteps right behind me.

"Cordelia?"

I ignored Lorne as I continued to shove clothes into my bag, not really sure what exactly to pack.

"Cordelia, you need to talk to me. What are you doing? Where are you even going?"

"I'm going to go talk to the one woman that seems to have something to do with all of this ridiculous stuff," I informed him as I zipped the larger part of my bag up. Toiletries. I needed toiletries .....

"What are you talking about?"

I stopped moving and looked over at Lorne, who was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, "The blonde, I found out who she is. It took a while, I had to go to so many stupid conspiracy theory forums, but I did find a name. Rhiannon Brink. I didn't know if it was right, as it was some girl saying how they used to pick on a girl in high school that looked similar to the blonde in the video. But that was her name, Rhiannon Brink. It was the only lead that I got. I chatted with the woman until I found out what high school they went to, looked up where Rhiannon used to live with her mom, Catherine. I then found out that she used to have horses at her neighbors, Ron and Betty Kurtz. It took a lot, but I found out that her mother's house went up to auction for not paying property taxes, and the Kurtz property sold as well, which I found odd being that they were both connected to her. I spent hours searching Google Earth and even bought a subscription to OnX to figure out property lines and, well, long story short, I found a field that looked almost identical to the one from the interview that I did ....."

"Why didn't you just ask the guy who took the video?"

I glared at Lorne for even mentioning that idea, "Did you see that interview? I didn't want to go back to that sleaze bag for anything. Sometimes the hard way is safer than the easy way. Anyway, there's a guy who kept buying property around that area, Seth Salvatore. It looks like he has a few hotels or something set up there. He also has a lot of farm land, and oddly enough, horses arrived at his property shortly before the Kurtz property went on the market ....."

Lorne leaned up against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest, "You found all that out on Google?"

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, "You just have to know what to ask. It's amazing how far back realtor websites keep their sold properties, and Google Earth is the best at stalking ....."

Lorne let out an amused snort, "I'm beginning to think that you're the best at stalking, you really are in the wrong profession."

"I .... I just need to find Harlee ....." I whispered as I walked past Lorne to go to the bathroom for my toiletries, but Lorne stopped me by lightly taking hold of my right wrist. I swallowed the lump in my throat as my eyes slowly made their way up to his brown ones.

"It'll be Ok, Cordelia. We'll find ....."

Without hesitating, I reached my free hand up behind Lorne's head and pulled until his lips met my own.

As I opened my mouth to trace his lips with my tongue, he moved his hand from my wrist to my waist, pulling my core against him as he cradled my head with his other hand.

He finally gave in to what I was asking for, our tongues caressing one another. Between my brain working in overdrive and the mixture of emotions I already had coursing through my body, I didn't give any of it a second thought. I completely gave in to the desire to be held in his arms, breathing in his scent, tasting him on my tongue ... that is until my lungs started burning in desperation for air.

We both pulled away just enough to end our passionate kissing session, gasping for breath as Lorne placed his chin on the top of my head and continued to hold me tightly against his body.

"So, where are we going?" he whispered.

"Huh?"

"You don't think I'm going to let you go alone after that, do you?"

I smiled into his chest, "We're driving about 3 hours from here ..... to Pennsylvania."