by Wren Weston
Patrick still didn’t understand that.
“When did he hand over the money?” Lila asked.
Patrick shifted in his chair at the question. “Sun wanted half up front. We’d pay the rest in installments. I was supposed to send the first after the plane took off.”
“How much did Patrick skim from his mother’s activities?”
Chief Shaw relayed her question with a disapproving grunt.
“I took enough to set me up in Germany, only a few percentage points, a commission. I earned it. I set up everything to ensure that my mother could save the family. What else am I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs in Saxony? Wait until my mother dies before I lose my birthright and get tossed to the poorer classes? Just because I was born a man? What a bunch of crap. I could have been as good as a chairperson as Alex.”
“Who is Zephyr?”
“I have no idea!” Patrick shouted, his cuffs rattling against the wood. “Did you know that Alex is bound to the Randolphs, Chief Shaw? Smug little highborns that they are. Simon, my youngest brother, is busy cleaning up the Masson vineyard, right at this very moment. My mother’s seen to it that my other siblings and cousins are either in the senate or married.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that I couldn’t care less about the rest of them. You and your little boys in the tech department can dig through every computer on the Wilson estate for all I care. Whatever the rest have done, they’ve done. Just like I have.”
“Are you refusing to cooperate?”
“It wouldn’t matter either way. I know what you’re up to. You’re trying to find out about Zephyr so that you can put him in the cell next to me. Mark my words, Zephyr knew the minute your men snatched me at the airport. If he didn’t know then, I’m sure he knew when the money wasn’t transferred into his account. He’s gone, and you’ll never find him.”
Lila couldn’t argue with his logic.
Something tugged at her memory, something Patrick had said earlier in the interrogation. She cocked her head to the side, parsing the man’s words once again. “Ask him when Zephyr broke into BullNet for the first time and what files Patrick asked him to retrieve.”
Shaw’s head shot up, and he frowned at the window as he repeated the question.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But Chief Shaw wouldn’t let it go. He and Dr. Adams circled the question for the next half-hour.
Soon their patience was spent. Shaw finally called for a guard to fetch the truth serum as well as Dr. Booth, a doctor at the Bullstow health clinic who was qualified to administer the drug.
“No, wait,” Patrick shouted, chains rattling. It was common knowledge that the serum had a host of terrible side effects, triggering migraines, nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhea, incontinence, and a whole other host of painful and embarrassing side effects that lasted for a week after the injection, and sometimes longer. The shot itself might be pure bliss, but the aftermath made some beg for death. It was far worse than the sedative used in militia darts, yet it had been ruled as legal. It could only be used in the case of serious crimes, though, and only if Bullstow suspected the prisoner withheld information that could lead to great bodily or financial harm.
No one would argue against the serum’s use on Patrick Wilson, and he knew it. The life of an heir hung in the balance. The wealth of a family teetered on the brink.
“It was one of the first tasks I gave Zephyr,” he started, words flowing like a waterfall. “I asked him to break in and find dirt on the Randolphs. I’d heard a rumor about Jewel Randolph’s time at university. I thought I might be able to blackmail her and ask for Alex back. The elder Randolph daughter has always been good with computers. I figured she might have helped hush it up, whatever it was. It was the only way to save the family. My mother certainly couldn’t do it, and no one would give me a chance to try.”
“What happened?” Shaw asked.
“Nothing happened. Zephyr didn’t find a thing.”
“Did you send Peter Kruger to murder Chief Randolph?”
Patrick opened his mouth. Closed it again. Staring first at Dr. Adams, then Chief Shaw. “I had to, don’t you understand? I heard her speaking with my mother. The bitch knew too much. I told Zephyr to take care of it. He called me back later with a plan.”
“Then you knew what was going to happen to Chief Randolph? You asked Peter Kruger to murder your sister’s best friend?”
Patrick tried to stand, but the cuffs tugged him back down to the stool. “She’s no friend. Haven’t you been listening to me? The bitch had it coming. The Randolphs did this to us. They ruined my sister’s business. They became her jailor. They even bought Simon and sent him away.” The chains clinked and pulled at his wrists as he gestured, cutting red swatches into his skin. “I bet you they even killed Madeline and Lisette. It all ruined my mother. We had to do what we could to survive. It’s their fault, don’t you see? They should be in here, not me. The only one who deserved it more than that stupid bitch is her mother.”
His words echoed in the tiny room.
Lila could say nothing against Patrick’s words. It might have been everything she had ever said to her mother, and everything Tristan had yelled in a moment of anger. It was all mixed together and lobbed at her, lit on fire like a bomb.
She couldn’t even dodge and avoid it.
“What about Simon?” Shaw asked. “Why did you frame him in the Club 137 raid?”
“He got too curious. I didn’t trust him to keep quiet. Do you see what those women made me do? He’s my little brother.”
“That must have been very difficult for you, Patrick,” Dr. Adams agreed. “Tell us more about Peter Kruger and his connection to the AAS terrorist group.”
When Patrick claimed to know nothing about the AAS, Shaw nearly called for the serum, but Lila gently prodded the men to question Chairwoman Wilson first. She had just arrived, for as soon as Patrick had implicated his mother, a team at the Wilson compound had brought the matron in for questioning.
Unlike her son, the chairwoman refused to confess to anything at all, ignoring question after question from her interrogators. After an hour of watching the chairwoman fume, Shaw summoned Dr. Booth. They needed information to find Peter before he came after Lila again, not to mention locating Zephyr. Shaw suspected the chairwoman was a part of the case, a conspirator to treason, and she refused to defend herself against such charges.
Dr. Adams ruled that it was an allowable use of the serum.
Dr. Booth arrived ten minutes later in a pair of burgundy scrubs, the Bullstow rose stitched upon his breast, a black case in his hands. The chairwoman bucked and screamed while Shaw and Dr. Adams held her, all so Dr. Booth could slide a needle underneath her skin and inject the dark red liquid into her veins. As she flopped in the chair, her arms shot back and nearly ripped the seatback away.
“I think something might be interacting with the serum,” Dr. Booth said, gripping the chairwoman’s shoulders. “I checked her medical files, but there might be something missing.”
“Lots is. Had to take stuff for the baby,” the chairwoman slurred. “Shouldn’t be here. Did nothing hardly at all.” Her head flopped forward at last, and several locks of hair slipped loose from her bun.
Dr. Booth gently pulled out the pins in her hair so that she wouldn’t injure herself. This time, she didn’t look like a squirrel. She looked like a ghost tied to the world by gravity and iron chains, tied so she would not drift away.
The doctor slipped a blood-pressure cuff over her frail arm and recorded a few numbers on his palm. “She’s stable for now. I suggest you get his over with quickly, though.”
Dr. Adams nodded. “Tell us your story, madam.”
“Hired a doctor, is all. Patrick’s little friend found him for me.”
“What doctor?”
“What did you give him?”
The matron rubbed at her eyes, kohl smearing. “A third of the family’s capital. Millions. All that money for a miracle, but he just took the money. Closed his office and ran away to Burgundy.”
Lila added it to her list, just something else her family had caused.
The chairwoman rolled her forehead on the table, hiding her face from the blackcoats. “I messed up. I messed up so bad.”
“What did you do?” Dr. Adams patted her hand, then slipped her several tissues from a small packet.
“Had to make up the loss somehow, didn’t I? His little friend found another doctor. German. Too expensive, though. Didn’t have enough left to hire him, so Patrick’s friend found a business opportunity with a Burgundy company. Promised we’d make it all back and more.”
The chairwoman rocked back and forth. “I knew I’d get caught, but I had to try. Family’s counting on me. Five hundred and twenty-eight souls. You don’t know what it’s like. They look at you like the dairy cow that’s come to feed them, always ready for slaughter if you can’t produce. They pick and they pick and they pick. Never grateful, either. Never grateful for anything that you do.”
She smacked herself in the chest. “I won’t be carved up for dinner. I’m the butcher. I make the rules. Me. You better do what I say, and let me out of here, or I’m going to have you both at my next party. In costumes next to Peter. You’ll serve us drinks. The family will think I’m the cow again, a golden cow to be adored.”
She looked around, lost suddenly, and grabbed Dr. Adams’s jacket sleeve. “Can you get me a baby? Please, I need another daughter. I had three once, but now they’re all gone. My poor Madeline and Lisette trapped under the ground and my little Alexandra, always falling behind.”
Lila wrinkled her nose as tears spilled over the chairwoman’s cheeks. She pulled off her headset and turned away from the window.
Patrick and his mother had both been led by Zephyr. If they’d used the hacker for business advice, other highborn might have used him, too. How many had listened to his whispers? How many had spread his false information to their matrons? How many did whatever he suggested? How many had been caught in his traps, bribed, or coerced?
Would she be next?
Her palm vibrated in her pocket.
Zephyr had just broken through Prolix’s last layer. If the hacker had any sense, then he’d just figured out that her identity was a fake. If he didn’t, then he’d figure it out very soon.
The clock had wound down.
Zephyr would be looking for her now.
Chapter 24
Lila handed her last bit of cash to the taxi driver and disembarked from the cab, several blocks away from Tristan’s shop. Since she was supposed to be fighting for her life in Randolph General, she wrapped her scarf around her mouth and nose and threaded through the crowded streets, hands in her pockets, holding her nose against the stench of rotting trash in the dumpsters. Her stomach couldn’t handle the smell with gagging, and her head did not fare much better. It throbbed against her skull in time to her footsteps.
Luckily, no one looked her in the face, not that they could see much of it.
She should have asked the taxi driver to take her home after the interrogation. She should have turned her attention to finding Zephyr. The hacker would be searching for her now, and she had nothing on the snoop except that he was male.
But the last place she wanted to be was at the great house. Alex loved Patrick just as much as she adored Simon.
What was Lila supposed to tell her? That Patrick would be hanged soon? That there would be no appeals, given the evidence and his taped confession?
Lila rounded the corner onto Shippers Lane and slipped on her mesh hood, trying to put her friend out of her mind. Samantha sat outside the shop, purple feather waving as she followed the movements of those walking up and down the street. A loud racket came from the garage, and dust flew from the open shop door. Most pedestrians crossed Shippers Lane to avoid it.
Lila’s head throbbed harder at the noise. Her pain medication was wearing off.
“Hey, Hood,” Samantha said, lifting her chin. “You here to see the boss?”
“I suppose.”
Samantha led her inside. Several figures wearing breathing tanks and thick hoods with plastic cutouts across their faces stood around a truck, sandblasters passing over the metal. This was the source of the dust, the fine layer of sand that clogged the air and choked Lila’s throat. They were so intent on their work that none of them even looked up as she passed through the shop.
They met Dixon on the third-floor staircase. He cocked his head, pointed to Lila and himself, and then waved goodbye to Samantha.
“See you around, Hood,” Samantha said as she trundled downstairs.
Lila watched her go. “You saved my life yesterday.”
Dixon shrugged.
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with that. Saying thanks seems worse somehow than saying nothing. It seems dismissive. Inadequate.”
Dixon put his arms around her, giving her a big squeeze.
Lila hugged him back. “This is all you want?”
He snuck a kiss on her cheek and took up her hand, attempting to tug her downstairs.
Lila didn’t budge. “Dixon, did you know Tristan pinned that flyer on me?”
Dixon nodded sheepishly.
“You shouldn’t have let him do that. It was wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” Dixon mouthed. “Really sorry.”
It was a rare occurrence for him, using his mouth to communicate. He shifted his weight back and forth on the step. When she didn’t say anything more, he tugged at her hand again.
“Where are we going?”
Dixon did not explain. He just pulled at her hand until she trudged after him.
The second-floor landing opened out to a short hallway. A man stood in front of a door in a black t-shirt and cargo pants, Colt holstered at his hip. He nodded to Dixon and stood aside as the pair entered. “Doc and our other guest are having a late lunch in his quarters. They’ll be back soon,” he said, closing the door behind them.
Lila found herself in an apartment, much like Tristan and Dixon’s, except the little kitchen had not been redone with wine barrels. Looking at the cracked countertops and holes in the cabinets, Lila could see why the pair had altered theirs.
She had to wonder how shabby the building had been before Tristan had moved in.
“Who stays here?”
Dixon led her through the living room, opening the door to one of the two bedrooms. It held nothing inside but a bed and table, with a wine barrel stool pulled up next to the bed. A little bedroll lay on the floor beside it. In the middle of the room, a heater chugged, struggling to keep the space warm. The air smelled stuffy somehow, warm and thick and tinged with blood.
An unconscious lump dozed in the bed, curled on its side, head hidden in the blankets. Lila didn’t need to pull them back to know who it was. His breaths came deep, as though he’d been drugged.
Dixon crouched, withdrew a knife from a hidden sheath in his boot, and extended it to Lila. There was a hard cast to his eyes, a harder look than she’d ever seen from him before.
“Does Tristan know you’re offering this to me?”
Dixon shook his head and pushed the handle of the knife into her hand.
Lila pulled up her hood. “I don’t need it, Dixon
. I carry a knife in my boot, too. Did you know that?”
Another no.
“I’ve never wanted to use it before today, but I’m not going to. He’s not even awake. I’d be no better than him.”
Dixon took out his notepad from his pocket. He started it.
“True.”
I’m sorry about yesterday. We shouldn’t have done that. We weren’t thinking. Tristan’s sorry too. He’s been sad since you both spoke at the hospital. His shoulders slumped, and he feathered the corner of his notepad with his thumb.
In that moment, Dixon reminded her of Pax as a child, the look on his face when he’d clumsily tumbled into a briar patch on a hiking trip and taken Lila with him. It hadn’t been the cuts on his face and neck that had made him cry, but Lila’s sprained wrist. He’d never hurt anyone before that, and he’d been miserable and apologetic and scared for her the whole way to Randolph General, watching her wrist swell to twice its normal size.
“I know you’re sorry.”
The pair left Peter before the doctor returned, and climbed the stairs to the top floor. Tristan emerged from his room as Dixon opened the door, shirtless and dressed in black pants. He wiped at his hair with a damp towel. “Dixon, I swear, if you don’t turn down that damn heater, I’m throwing it—”
He broke off, seeing Lila come through the door.
She pulled off her hood.
“You look awful,” he said, his eyes not meeting hers.
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You just look exhausted and pale. You should rest.”
“I’ll rest later.”
Tristan excused himself and returned to his room. He came back a moment later, towel gone, black t-shirt pulled over his head.
He turned down the heater and dropped onto the couch.
“I just came by to tell you what happened this morning,” Lila said, sitting down on the opposite end. She squeezed a pillow in her lap and recounted the arrest of Patrick Wilson and his mother, embarrassed once again that her prediction had been so wrong.