Strange Bedfellows
Nineteen
A fine watery mist generated
by the launch leaving Spoon Island cooled the air.
None of its passengers uttered a word as they departed.
Instead, each entertained private thoughts.
It was not difficult to guess
at the direction the thoughts of the launch’s crewmen took.
Every few seconds their eyes surreptitiously darted toward the graceful,
innocuously harmless figure seated regally on a padded bench in the center of
the launch.
“I must know.”
Aristide Cassadine took a seat on the bench a discreet distance from his
benefactor. His finely honed sense
of self-preservation was overridden by his curiosity.
“Why did you allow Stefan’s farce of a marriage to go
unchallenged?”
Helena swiveled her gaze from
the rapidly approaching docks of Port Charles to the elderly lawyer she had
chosen as her candidate for the trusteeship. “It did not suit my purposes to challenge the marriage at
this time,” she replied evenly. “Although
Miss Jensen has been placed before me as an obstacle by my weakling son, it is
of no consequence. Dara Jensen is a
familiar obstacle and at the right moment will be removed as all other obstacles
before her have been.”
“Then you no longer have
need of me?”
“No.” Helena dismissed
Aristide with a blithe wave. “Not
for the time being.”
The wizened old lawyer
breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. An
association with Helena Cassadine held the potential for untold profit and
prestige. But it also held an equal
potential for personal disaster. Having
survived a life of Cassadine intrigue thus far, Aristide preferred nothing more
than to enjoy his remaining years.
