The Lost of New Bristol (Lila Randolph Book 2)

by Wren Weston

  “I have too much work to take a vacation. Part of that work is locating Natalie. Could you do it?”

  Max shook his head and played with the stem of his glass. “Ask me to do something else, Lila. Anything else.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Max rarely refused to take a job from her.

  “You don’t want to find Natalie. You want to find Oskar. I’m not an idiot, Lila. Unfortunately for you, the boy destabilizes the playing field too much. A looming war? Families in a tizzy? It only helps my bottom line if the boy remains missing. Surely you understand.”

  “I know you like chaos, sometimes you even create it, but I don’t care about your hobbies tonight. That boy could die if he’s not found soon.”

  “You want to rescue him, is that it? What will you do when you find him? Give him back to the Holguíns? No, you want him for something else, and I don’t like where that will lead. Not for my bottom line and certainly not for your future. Stay out of politics. The world gets messier the farther away you get from New Bristol. Riskier, too.”

  Lila hopped off the stool, annoyed at how much Max sounded like her whenever she spoke to Tristan. “Don’t tell me what to do, Max.”

  “Fine, but I’m not going to help you find Oskar. Ask me to do anything but that.” When she turned to leave, he grabbed her arm. “Let me help. I want to help.”

  Lila eyed her friend. He’d never betrayed her trust in all the time she’d known him, but she still didn’t trust him. Not completely.

  Perhaps she didn’t have the luxury of focusing on herself. Missing kids needed her attention, attention she could not give them if she spent her hours searching for a ghost.

  Something in her eyes made him frown. He pulled her close and put his arms around her, resting his chin against her forehead. His stubble grazed her skin, and his embrace tightened around her so hard that she couldn’t help but melt into him.

  Kissing her hair, he rubbed a calming hand over her back. “I’m not your brother. Not even close. Let’s get that straight right now.”

  Lila snorted and broke away.

  He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, a satisfied smile on his face. “Let me help, Lila. You look like you need it, even if you refuse to admit it. You have my full discretion. You know that.”

  Lila recalled the messages from Reaper’s partner, something Max could handle just as quickly as she could, perhaps faster. She could strip the text, but Max could easily find them in the logs. Would find them, eventually.

  But he’d never betrayed her.

  “Your discretion is what I would need. I want to trace a few messages back to their source, but I haven’t the time to do so.”

  “Is it about Oskar?”

  She waved his concerns away. “It’s nothing to do with Natalie and Oskar. Just me, but other things take priority. It’s not a favor. It’s a job. I’ll pay at my usual rate.”

  “As you wish.”

  “I’ll send you the details tonight. Find the sender, Max, as quickly as possible.”

  He nodded, curiosity evident in every line in his face. To his credit, he didn’t ask any questions, but Lila couldn’t help but feel that getting Max involved was a mistake.

  What other choice did she have, though?

  She thumbed off her jammer as she left the glass house. Opening the door to her roadster, she whipped out her palm computer and checked for bugs. Max’s minions often went behind their boss’s back and planted one.

  Finding nothing amiss, she sped down Max’s driveway, thinking about taking a detour to Tristan’s shop. She always stashed servant’s clothes in the trunk in case she needed sudden anonymity. Unfortunately, the oracle’s warning still unnerved her, melting the small ache in her chest that had tightened throughout the day, an ache she’d begun to feel more and more acutely over the last week whenever she left Tristan’s side.

  She hated the feeling. It didn’t befit a highborn to moon after a lover. Lovers should be enjoyed and cast aside when whim or family politics necessitated it. Having one you couldn’t cast aside meant marriage, and she’d never let that bind her.

  They weren’t even lovers yet. Somehow that made her feelings worse, to feel so altered when they’d barely touched.

  As she cruised through an orange light, her thoughts lost to Tristan, a motorcycle ran the red behind her. The cheap, beaten-up Barracuda looked as though it’d been ditched and rolled on the streets of New Bristol.

  Often.

  She could have sworn she’d seen same bike recently, perhaps coming home from the oracle or on the way to her council meeting.

  Had Max put a tail on her?

  Frowning, she turned on LaSalle, annoyed to find the bike still following. After a few more turns, it was obvious the rider didn’t belong to Max. The spy lord would never take on someone so clumsy.

  Lila stopped near a convenience store, parking her roadster at the mouth of an alley. As she dug through piles of candy inside, she watched the front window out of the corner of her eye. The bike zoomed by and parked a few stores up in plain view. The rider didn’t remove his helmet, though. He locked his gaze on the register and the door, waiting for her to emerge.

  Lila memorized the license plate. While the woman at the register rang up another patron, Lila put back the candy and snuck through the store’s side exit, emerging back in the alley.

  The stench of piss and vomit nearly choked her. She held her breath until she returned to her car. Then she popped the parking brake, shifted into neutral, and let the heavy car roll to the end of the alley before slipping the key into the ignition. After starting her car, she hung a left at the corner. She had little desire and even less time to chase someone down. She had too many other things to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, she slipped into her bedroom and removed her Colt and sword, placing them on her desk before sitting in front of her computer. She traced the rider’s plate in the militia database, letting it search while slipped off her gloves and boots.

  It didn’t take long to get a hit.

  Finn Nottingham, 2404 East Third Street.

  A familiar stare and familiar scar appeared onscreen. They belonged to the same workborn who’d rowed her to the oracle’s temple that afternoon.

  Mr. Nottingham should have known better than to follow a blackcoat, and the oracle shouldn’t have ordered it in the first place. Perhaps this was how she made her predictions.

  After all, lies worked best when surrounded by truths.

  That didn’t make much sense, though. The oracle had known about Tristan, at least enough to offer a vague description. But Lila had always careful when she visited him, far more careful than she needed to be. She’d always made sure her GPS was disabled and that she had no bugs attached to her car. She always took many twists and turns to get to his part of town, dodging every security camera as she walked to his shop, and employing her jammer when she could not. If Max had never been able to follow her, if her mother had never been able to track her, then the bumbling Mr. Nottingham could never have managed it.

  She would have to find out more.

  Later.

  He might have bumbled his pursuit for a reason.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Nottingham would have to wait. Lila had other matters to attend to.

  Chapter 11

  Lila woke to a staccato knock at the door. She groaned and curled deeper under her crimson blankets and sheets, covering her head with her pillow as Isabel entered. Fresh linens filled her arms, and the newly risen sun peeked through the drapes.

  “Sorry, madam,” Isabel squeaked as she took in the bed and the person still sleeping in it. She darted from the room and nearly slammed the door.

  Lila peeked out from under the pillow, far too late to catch a peek of red hair.

  Alex wouldn’t have retreated. She would have come in, shaking
Lila awake and telling her to get out of bed like a grown woman, asking her why she’d slept in.

  She would have wanted gossip.

  She would have demanded it.

  Unfortunately, Alex would never speak to her again, not after last night. If someone forced the slave to do so, she’d become a bitter, angry version of Maria, only saying yes, no, sorry, and thank you. She’d keep her hands busy, eyes burning, throat choking on the words.

  Lila patted the bed, searching for her palm. Eight o’clock had come far too early. She should have left for the security office half an hour before, but she’d been researching until half past three.

  Barely awake, Lila crawled from between the sheets, checking her messages as she stumbled into the bathroom. Instead of looking at her new messages, she opened the ones she’d already memorized. The ones from Tristan. The first asked her what she wanted for dinner, the second asked when she’d be coming over, the third asked if she’d come over at all.

  The last, sent at one in the morning, said that he’d missed her.

  It was a lot coming from him.

  It was too much, coming from someone who wouldn’t even have sex with her. He was playing some sort of game, and the game was growing old.

  Lila hadn’t responded to the messages, especially the last one. At first because she feared she might drive to Shippers Lane as soon as he asked, and then later because the last message had confounded her and twisted her stomach all at the same time. Part of her had grinned when she read it, and wanted to return the sentiment. The other part, the highborn part, had been annoyed with the entire thing. She needed to take another lover, or she’d get too attached. Perhaps she already was. After all, the first thing she’d done when she woke up was grab her palm to see if he’d sent her anything else.

  That wasn’t her, and it wasn’t highborn behavior.

  Not only that, but the oracle’s words had unnerved her.

  Sighing, she cycled through the rest of her messages. Nothing of value had come in from her spies, but Reaper’s partner had not been silent. Prolix, I waited all day for you to reply. Perhaps you aren’t taking me seriously because I haven’t asked for anything? I could, you know. I could ask, and you’d have to dance.

  Lila dropped her palm onto her bed and threw on a militia tank, workout pants, and stretchy gloves, wincing at the blotches of purple on her shin and arms. Then she trudged downstairs.

  She left her palm behind.

  Isabel bowed at the entryway. “Chief Randolph, I apologize for—”

  “It happens, Isabel. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Thank you, madam.” She smoothed her hair behind her ear, blush fading. “The chairwoman has requested your presence at breakfast.”

  “Damn it to…” Lila rubbed her sleep-filled eyes, too tired to finish her rant. “Why? When? And who’s suffering with me?”

  “The prime minister is in residence this morning. I believe Pax will be joining you as well. Your matron wishes the family to breakfast together in one hour.”

  “Where’s Jewel?”

  “President Randolph had prior plans with Senator Dubois.”

  “Prior plans, my—” Lila bit off yet another curse, hoping rumors of Alex’s confinement had not yet reached her mother’s ears. “Fine. If I can’t think of decent excuse to get out of it, I’ll be back for breakfast. Has Chef bailed Alex out of Bullstow yet?”

  Isabel shook her head. “She said she had to make breakfast first. She said it would serve Ms. Wilson right if she stayed in a holding cell all month.”

  “She can’t stay in there. She’s our responsibility. Ask Chef to call Mr. Norris and send him to Bullstow, will you? He usually handles these matters.”

  Isabel nodded, watching as Lila stalked from the great house.

  Since she wouldn’t have much time for a workout, Lila jogged to the security office as a warmup in the muggy heat, hating her mother’s careless demand that she accommodate her whim and change her morning schedule. Chairwomen. All that power tended to go to their heads. Maybe her mother didn’t notice when she did such things. Perhaps she did and didn’t care.

  Lila entered the security office, giving curt nods to her militia as she jogged downstairs to the basement, hoping she wouldn’t fall on her ass so much. That hope dwindled as she fell on her first jump across a platform and many times after. Her arms stung as she slapped the mats to spread out her weight, the stitches pulling on her gloved fingers.

  After fifteen minutes, she gave up and ran the flat track instead.

  She’d been about as successful in her workout as she had in her research the night before. Since Natalie needed a bank account and, in theory, a net ID to trade Oskar, Lila had focused on finding them first. She’d prodded into Natalie’s financial data but discovered that every bank account had been frozen, including her Burgundy account at the Liberté. Not only were Natalie’s accounts frozen, but she hadn’t used her net ID since the day she disappeared.

  It was odd that Natalie hadn’t used the net, but she was in hiding.

  Lila turned her attention to Natalie’s fake ID after that, the one that had started her troubles, the one Bullstow knew about because it had been included in her list of official charges, released earlier in the week. Natalie hadn’t used it either, probably fearing that Bullstow had been keeping tabs on it.

  Which they most certainly were.

  Once she’d gotten the obvious out of the way, Lila had fine-tuned some of her snoop programs to ferret out other IDs for Natalie, finally locating a badly faked ID that had once belonged to her. It was likely Natalie’s first attempt at faking a net login. It wasn’t hard to track the illegal activity attributed to it, but Lila hadn’t found anything recent. The account hadn’t been used in months, most likely abandoned when Natalie made a better fake that hadn’t turned out much better after all.

  With no other ideas, Lila had reviewed Natalie’s bank account data from the previous case with her father. She opened the transaction history from the Liberté and pored over the data, as well as the data from three other bank accounts in Saxony. Natalie was staying somewhere, and Lila would use the data she had to find her hideout. She didn’t waste time focusing on properties Natalie had been renting, though she dutifully jotted down the addresses. Natalie wouldn’t stay anywhere with her name on the lease, even a fake one. Instead, Lila followed the people Natalie associated with, the people she gave money to, and the people who gave money to her.

  Unsurprisingly, Natalie associated with a lot of unsavory people. Too many for Lila to get through in one night. She’d finally abandoned the task, promising herself that she’d pick it back up after a few hours of sleep.

  Before she called it a night, she’d run Finn Nottingham’s name through the militia database. Her stalker had been suspected in two kidnappings in the last five years, but Lila was far outside his preferred age group. Mr. Nottingham liked little girls. Chief Quinn, Shaw’s counterpart in Bordeaux, had suspected him of kidnapping a five-year-old and a nine-year-old.

  The five-year-old’s aunt was an oracle.

  Why would the New Bristol oracle let someone like Mr. Nottingham near her and her family? Didn’t they do background checks on the rowers? Perhaps the woman believed her own hype, thinking she’d get a vision if Mr. Nottingham decided to act against her, her family, or her visitors. Or perhaps she wanted him nearby so that she’d get a bead on where the missing girls might be, assuming the kids might still be alive.

  That was a dangerous game to play.

  None of that explained why Mr. Nottingham had followed Lila. She wasn’t just some random woman who had visited the oracle; she was a childless militia chief with the most secure compound in all of Saxony. She’d even been wearing her militia uniform, so there would have been no confusion as to her identity. Was he an idiot or did he have a purpose?

  Or was he not w
orking for the oracle at all? Perhaps he was connected to Reaper’s partner instead.

  Lila didn’t have the time or the manpower to launch a surveillance operation against Mr. Nottingham and find the answers. Her spies were busy digging up what they could about Natalie and Oskar, and she’d have to send a few more to check out the properties that Natalie had rented under own name and her fake IDs, just to cross them off her list.

  And Max? Not only was he busy digging into Reaper’s partner, but he’d be offended if she asked him to check out the bumbling Mr. Nottingham, just as he’d been offended that members of the Randolph family had used his minions to buy wine.

  Regardless, Mr. Nottingham needed to be checked out.

  Lila jogged to the great house, the air even warmer and muggier. Before she hopped into the shower, she sent Tristan a message. He replied as she dried herself off. Of course I’ll help. When have I ever said no? He’d added a smiley face at the end.

  That smiley face made her feel like an ass.

  Yet again, she realized that Tristan had always been there for her. He might have been a jerk or a grouch at times, but whenever she needed help, he’d always come through. Even now, when she’d ignored every message he’d sent the night before.

  Why had she let a con woman she barely knew alter the way she thought about Tristan? The oracle had never even met him.

  Lila had let the woman mess with her mind.

  She vowed never to see the oracle again.

  Lila scrolled to the next message on her palm. It was an update from Chef, saying that Mr. Norris had brought Alex back to the compound. They’d confined her to her room for the time being, not willing to give her the chance to assault Lila again.

  Luckily, Reaper’s partner had not sent another message. Stalling seemed to be the best strategy for now, at least until she knew more.

  Lila sent a quick message to Sutton, asking her to take the commanders’ meeting, as she’d be out all morning. Then she dried her hair, put a thick layer of concealer over her jaw, slipped on a formal militia uniform, and hurried downstairs.