Owen, Finn, Bria, Mosley, Mallory, Lorelei, and I watched them move from one person to the next, Alanna exchanging air kisses and cooing pleasantries to everyone, while Tucker stood silently by her side.
Phelps handed Alanna a glass of champagne, but he didn’t even look at Tucker, much less offer to get the other man a drink, which told me that he was loyal only to Alanna. It made me even more curious about what she was doing here with Tucker. He certainly wasn’t her date, despite her claims.
Finn was the first one to shake off his surprise and speak up. “Hugh Tucker out in the open for everyone to see. This can’t be good.”
“No, no, it can’t be.” I looked at Mosley. “There’s something I need to show you.”
I had been hoping to pull him aside and do this privately, but I wanted answers right now. So I grabbed my phone out of my black clutch and called up that photo of him with Amelia Eaton, since Silvio had scanned and emailed the picture to me earlier. I passed the phone over to Mosley, and he held it out where the others could see it.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“Fletcher had it.”
With everything that had been going on, I hadn’t had a chance to tell Finn about the photo, and he gave me a sharp look, realizing that I’d found it in the old man’s files. I shrugged back at him.
“I’m guessing this photo has something to do with why Alanna hates you so much,” I said.
Mosley sighed and handed the phone back to me. “Alanna’s never been fond of me, but I can’t really blame her for it.”
“Why not?”
He sighed again, longer and deeper this time. “Amelia didn’t manage the Eaton family fortune very well. She always spent far too much money, a mistake that she compounded by making several bad investments. Eventually, those investments wiped out her cash reserves. Long story short, the estate was mortgaged to the hilt. That photo was taken after I agreed to extend Amelia yet another loan. But she never got the chance to repay it, since she died soon after that.” He paused a moment, as if what he was going to say next made him uncomfortable. “After her death, the bank took possession of the property.”
“Wait a minute,” Owen said. “First Trust bank—you—actually own the Eaton Estate?”
Mosley nodded. “Yes, I own the estate. I rent it out for various events to pay for the taxes, upkeep, and the like. The remainder of the money goes into a trust fund for Alanna. She was only fifteen when her mother died. I thought it was the least I could do for her, since Amelia left her with nothing.”
Mallory patted his arm. “That’s a lot more than most folks would have done for that girl. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Stuey. Nothing at all. It was just business. You didn’t make Amelia spend her money and put the estate up as collateral. She made those choices all on her own.”
He flashed her a grateful smile. Mallory leaned in a little closer to him, and Mosley curled his arm around her waist.
“It must be a very sizable trust fund,” Lorelei murmured. “Given that Fiona Fine designer gown that Alanna is wearing.”
“And her hoity-toity attitude,” Bria chimed in.
We all looked over at Alanna again, who was still air-kissing her way through the crowd, with Phelps and Tucker trailing along behind her.
“How did I not know this?” I glanced at Finn. “Why didn’t you tell me that Mosley owned the estate?”
“Because I thought you knew. It’s pretty common knowledge.” Finn shook his head. “Then again, you pay exactly zero attention to anything that doesn’t involve you killing people.”
He didn’t know how ironic his words were. Because this had involved me killing someone—Alanna’s mother. Which, in turn, had led to Alanna harboring a deep-seated grudge against Mosley for taking control of the Eaton Estate. Her mother had died, and she’d lost her family’s home. I would have despised him for that too. Those were certainly two of the reasons I hated Tucker, his boss, Mason, and the rest of the Circle. I’d lost the exact same things Alanna had lost, and I was just as angry about them as she still was, even all these years later.
But in this case, Alanna’s anger was misplaced, since I was the one who’d killed her mother.
That had been the first domino to fall in this long chain of events, and now here we all were. I wondered if Alanna realized that I was the one responsible for her mother’s death. Thanks to my disguise back then, I didn’t look anything like I had the night I killed Amelia. So far, Alanna hadn’t paid much attention to me, but that could just be an act to get me to lower my guard so she could strike out at me later. No way to know for sure.
Given Alanna’s obvious disdain for Mosley, there was no doubt in my mind that she was the one who’d sent those two muggers after him. And I was betting that she’d been the person driving the car that had almost mowed down Mosley and me after the muggers died.
But why? Alanna had had years to get her revenge on Mosley. So why target him now? What had changed in her world?
The obvious answer was Hugh Tucker.
He never did anything by accident, and he’d come here for a reason, even if I couldn’t see exactly what it was. But it must be something big, something important, something to do with Circle business, for him to show his face at a party that my friends and I were attending. So what was he using Alanna for? Or was she using him? All the questions made my head pound.
“I need a drink,” I muttered.
“You’re not the only one,” Bria said.
We kept watching Alanna, Phelps, and Tucker. Alanna was talking with someone, not paying the slightest bit of attention to us, while Phelps took her empty champagne glass and trotted off to get a fresh one. But Tucker looked over his shoulder at me.
After a few seconds of silent scrutiny, he grinned, held his hand up to his head, and snapped off a salute to me. The arrogant, mocking motion increased my worry that much more. Finn was right. Hugh Tucker out in the open like this only meant one thing.
Trouble—and lots of it.
* * *
A series of bells chimed, signaling the end of the cocktail hour and ice-skating extravaganza and the beginning of the auction. Owen offered me his arm again, and we followed our friends across the terrace, through some open doors, and into the mansion.
If the outside of the Eaton mansion resembled a grand chateau, then the inside was an impressive museum. All the antique furniture was polished to a high gloss, as were the stained-glass and other windows. Paintings of the mansion, grounds, lake, and surrounding forest adorned the walls, all of them housed in gleaming gold frames that featured vines and other scrollwork. Still more vines, flowers, and animals were carved into the gray stone walls next to the paintings, making it seem as though the flora and fauna were admiring the picturesque landscapes.
Owen and I kept walking until we reached the grand ballroom in the center of the mansion. The ballroom was just as beautiful as everything else, and sparks of opalescent white shimmered through the gray marble floor, making it seem as though we were standing on a bed of diamonds. The sparkling marble continued up the walls before spreading out across the ceiling, which soared a hundred feet overhead. An enormous chandelier hung in the middle, with its sprays of crystals tapering down to a sharp point, as though it were an oversize arrow that was about to break loose from the ceiling, drop down, and skewer a target on the floor below.
A table was set up by the ballroom entrance, and everyone had to get in line to receive a numbered placard in order to bid on the auction items. Up ahead, I spotted Alanna, still on Tucker’s arm, letting him squire her around, with Phelps trailing along behind them.
Owen tracked my gaze. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“Nothing good. Come on. Let’s check on Mosley. I want to make sure he’s protected, just in case Alanna decides to sic Tucker on him.”
Owen and I got our placards, then headed over to our friends, who had already gone through the line. Mosley and Mallory were shaking hands and thankin
g everyone for coming, but they weren’t alone. Two giants I recognized as security guards from First Trust bank hovered nearby. Looked like Mosley had taken steps to keep Mallory and himself safe. So Owen and I walked over to Finn, Bria, and Lorelei, who were sipping champagne and staring at Alanna and her two companions.
“So that’s the big, bad Hugh Tucker in the flesh,” Lorelei murmured. “Hello, honey. He’s handsome, for an older guy. I can see why your mama would have been attracted to him.”
Bria and I both shot her angry looks, and Lorelei held up her hands in mock surrender.
“I’m just saying,” she said.
I started to look over at Tucker again, but Bria stepped in front of me, blocking my view.
“Forget about him,” she said. “He knows that I can’t shoot him and you can’t go after him with your knives in front of all these people. He’s probably just here to try to rattle you. Don’t give him the satisfaction of getting under your skin.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Says the woman who just bitch-slapped him in public.”
A guilty blush stained Bria’s cheeks, and her hand crept up to the silverstone pendant around her neck—a primrose, the symbol for beauty. She fiddled with the necklace for a few moments before letting it drop back down into place.
“I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just… I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me. About him being in love with Mom but not doing enough to try to save her from Mab and the Circle. Seeing him here and realizing that he’s alive and Mom isn’t, and that Annabella is dead too… I just…lost it.”
The pain shimmering in her eyes punched me in the gut. Sometimes I forgot that Bria had suffered just as much as I had and that she still felt the loss of our mother and sister as deeply as I did. I reached out and hugged her tight.
“Believe me, I know the feeling,” I whispered in her ear before letting go.
Even now, the spider rune scars in my palms itched and burned, and I wanted nothing more than to grab the knife out of my purse, storm across the ballroom, and bury the blade in Tucker’s black, black heart. But I couldn’t do that.
Besides, I had Mosley to think about too. Whatever Alanna wanted, whether it was revenge against him for taking control of her family’s estate or something else, she’d enlisted Tucker to help her get it. I needed to figure out what she was up to—and how it tied into the Circle—before Mosley or anyone else got hurt.
“Oh, you two need to quit being party poopers,” Finn said. “Alanna and Tucker aren’t stupid. They aren’t going to do anything to Mosley, us, or anyone else here. This is just their opening salvo, shooting across the bow of our boat, so to speak, and letting everyone know that they’re coming for us. So until something actually happens, we might as well relax and have a good time. We can’t let them sink our battleship that easily.”
Cheesy metaphors aside, Bria and Finn were both right. If nothing else, Tucker wanted to rattle my cage, and I wasn’t going to let him realize how much it bothered me that he was here. So I forced myself to nod at Finn.
“Excellent!” he chirped. “Let’s mosey around and see if anything in the auction strikes my fancy.”
Lorelei snorted. “I don’t think Mab had any paintings of dogs playing poker.”
Finn sniffed. “Please. My tastes are much more refined than that. For instance, I’m particularly fond of cats playing poker.”
Lorelei laughed and promised to catch up with us later, then went over to check on Mallory. Finn and Bria set off around the ballroom, and Owen and I fell in step behind them.
Two sections of chairs took up the center of the floor, arranged in front of a wooden podium topped with a microphone. After the viewing hour was over, everyone would be seated, and the auction would begin.
We moved over to the red velvet ropes that had been strung up around the perimeter to separate the crowd from the auction items lining the walls. Most of the smaller objects were housed in glass display cases, including rings, necklaces, and other baubles that Mab had worn, along with statues, carvings, vases, and other objects d’art. Far more of Mab’s things had survived than I’d expected, given the destruction that Clementine Barker and her giants had caused at the Briartop museum.
Mosley had also arranged to add the contents of Mab’s mansion to the auction, and large sections of the ballroom were devoted to chairs, lamps, desks, and other furniture. Each item was adorned with a large white identification tag that also featured the minimum starting bid.
Owen let out a low whistle. “Fifteen thousand dollars for an end table? Seriously? That thing is so tiny and flimsy-looking that I’d be afraid to put so much as a book on it.”
Finn stared at the table with a dreamy expression. “That would look fantastic in my apartment.”
Bria nudged him with her elbow. “Well, then, you should totally buy it.”
Finn ignored her sarcasm. “I totally should. After all, it’s for a good cause, right?”
I snorted. “Please. The snob in you just wants to be able to say that you have Mab Monroe’s fifteen-thousand-dollar table in your apartment.”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
We strolled on to the far side of the ballroom, which narrowed to a long corridor with several rooms branching off it. Finn stopped to talk to one of his bank clients, and Bria stayed with him, while Owen went to get a drink. I wanted to see the rest of Mab’s things, so I walked down the hallway, going from one room to the next until I reached the main library at the end.
The library was beautiful, with picture windows, mahogany furniture, and rugs with black-and-white paisley patterns. Two large overstuffed armchairs and a low table crouched in front of a fireplace that was flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I eyed the small Es carved into the stone above the mantel. Mallory was right. That photo of Mosley and Amelia had definitely been taken in here.
Lorelei was in the library, staring at a freestanding bookcase that was positioned behind the red velvet rope. Tears gleamed in her eyes, and she dabbed them away with her fingertips to keep from ruining her makeup. I glanced around, wondering if someone might have said something to upset her, but no one else was in here.
“Lorelei?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
She pointed a shaking finger at the case. Books lined the shelves, along with crystal paperweights and other knickknacks. At first, I didn’t see what she was gesturing at, but then I noticed a photo in a silver frame that was propped up on a book with a pretty royal-blue cover and shiny silver-foil-trimmed pages.
I expected to see Mab in the picture, but it showed another girl, one with the same black hair and blue eyes as Lorelei. The girl was wearing a white frilly dress and lace gloves and smiling shyly at the camera, as if she was surprised that someone wanted to take her picture. I’d seen photos of her before, so I recognized her.
“That’s my mama,” Lorelei whispered. “This photo must have been taken at one of those cotillion balls that she and Mab both went to when they were young.”
Lily Rose was Lorelei’s mother and Mallory’s beloved great-granddaughter. She’d been beaten to death by her abusive husband years ago, despite Fletcher’s best efforts to save her, and I knew that Lorelei loved and missed her mother as much as Bria and I did ours.
I didn’t want to intrude on her grief, so while she wiped away the rest of her tears, I read the white identification card propped up on one of the shelves. A collection of books and photos from the estate of Mab Monroe. Minimum starting bid: $10,000.
“That photo is mine,” Lorelei said in a fierce voice, regaining her composure. “I don’t care how much it costs me.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand, telling her that I understood.
“There’s something in here you should see too, Gin.”
Lorelei led me over to a bookcase standing on the opposite side of the library. This case was a twin to the first one, right down to a framed photo also propped up on a royal-blue book with silver-foil-trimmed pages. And just like
with Lily Rose, I recognized the three people in the photo instantly.
Mab Monroe with her coppery hair and dark eyes stood on one side. Mab stared into the camera with a bored expression, but the two people beside her looked stiff and tense, as if they didn’t want to be anywhere near the Fire elemental, much less have their picture taken with her.
One of them was a beautiful woman with sleek blond hair and blue eyes, while the other was a handsome man with dark brown hair and gray eyes.
Eira Snow and her husband, Tristan.
My parents.
Chapter Twelve
For the second time tonight, cold shock flooded my body, drowning out everything else.
I’d never expected Mab to have a photo of my parents, or for that photo to be displayed here. After a moment, my body jerked forward, and my feet moved of their own accord. I stepped right up next to the red velvet rope and leaned forward, staring at the picture, my gaze flicking back and forth over it, trying to see every last little detail at once.
Mallory had given me some photos of my mother a few months ago, all of them taken at cotillion balls that Eira had attended with Lily Rose, Mab, and other society girls. I had grown used to seeing my mother’s face again, but Mallory hadn’t had any photos of my father, and I hadn’t seen any pictures of him since Mab destroyed my family’s home and everything in it.
Tristan, my father, had died when I was about five years old, shortly after Bria was born, so my memories of him were few, faint, and dim. But I still recognized his dark brown hair and especially his gray eyes, since they were the same ones that I saw every time I looked in the mirror.
“You have your father’s coloring,” Lorelei said, looking from me to the photo and back again. “And your mama’s features.”
I nodded, still too stunned to say anything. My gaze dropped to the identification card on one of the shelves, but it was the same as the card on the other bookcase. A collection of books and photos from the estate of Mab Monroe. Minimum starting bid: $10,000.
And the collection was going to be mine. Just like Lorelei, I didn’t care how much I had to pay for it. I wanted that photo of my father, not just for myself but for Bria too. It would mean even more to her, since she’d never known him at all.
Venom in the Veins_An Elemental Assassin Book Page 11