109. Thea
Chapter 109
Thea
“ R eally, Finn?” I glare at him as I enter the living room.
“What?”
He knows what . There’s no way he thought bringing Pax here was a good idea . You don’t bring the Joker to the Bat Cave. But since he thinks this is funny, I’ve got a joke for him. “I’m not gonna tell you wha t, but until you figure it out and make it up to me, there will be no shower time for you.”
“Wait. No, fair, Pet. Shower time is a sacred ritual. You can’t go fucking with that.”
“It’s not a ritual. It’s a privilege, and I can choose not to let you participate in it if I want to.”
He narrow his eyes at me. “Are you gonna give it to Deacon? He gets his own shower time at that funky ass gym. He can’t have home, too. That’s an unfair distribution of your body.”
“You have a point. Maybe I’ll break into Holden’s room and use his shower.”
“Holden has never shared bubbles with people,” Finn says, trying to dissuade me.
“Those people weren’t me.” To Holden, I say, “What do you think of me popping your shower cherry?”
He calmly responds, “It sounds like waterboarding you with my cock down your throat. If you can handle that, then so can I.”
I’ve given blow jobs in the shower, but Finn and Wolfe aren’t as forceful about it as Holden would be. Showering with him might be a little too ambitious right now. Noticing my hesitation, he says, “Something to look forward to.”
Pax remains silent, looking slightly uncomfortable. Good. All are not welcome here. Gesturing toward the couch, I say, “I’m assuming there’s a reason the three of you have invaded my home.”
Holden answers, “We don’t need a reason. But yes, we have one for why we’re here today.” He pulls things out of his backpack while Finn sets the television to mirror his laptop. I’m not looking at anything on the screen, my attention fully consumed by the antique jewelry box Holden places on the couch.
I pick it up, hesitating before turning it over, because I know what I’ll find when I do. The scratch on the bottom is there, but it looks a lot smaller than I remember. “How did you get this?” I ask, rubbing my fingers over the nick.
Finn answers while Holden opens his files. “It was in a pawn shop.”
“In town?”
“Fountain Bluff. Why? What’s wrong?”
My hands shake as I answer, “This was my mother’s.” I place the box on the table. Running a hand over the etchings. “I used to ask to see the treasures she kept inside. She lost the key during one of our moves.”
Holden pulls a key from his backpack and says, “We found this taped on the underside of the desk from Finn’s team building challenge.” My heart stalls as he unlocks the box. It’s not his hands I’m seeing. It’s my mother’s, and it’s her voice I hear saying, “We keep our most precious treasures inside.”
Hands pass in front of me, pulling me out of my memory. Pax is asking, “Is this all that was inside?”
“Yes.” Holden says, “More riddles.”
Then the three of them go over the clues again. I can’t engage in the conversation, because I’m still stuck on seeing this box. I hadn’t thought of it in years and assumed it was in storage with mom’s other things. “You said you found it in Fountain Bluff?”
“Yes. It’s a town in Utah.”
The key was in Canyon Falls, but the box was in Utah. Now I’m interested in hearing the thread that led them there. Dragging my eyes away from the box and to the couch, I say, “Walk me through it?”
“Sure.” Holden updated his PowerPoint. “You already know everything up to the point where we found the safe deposit box with the business card.”
I nod in encouragement. Finn takes over the story from there. “Holden figured out the numbers on the card were missing the area code. He kept trying different combinations until he reached the pawn shop.”
Pax asks, “Where was this safe deposit box?”
“I guess it would be helpful to have the locations annotated on the item.” Holden says as he edits his slides. “It was in Hurst Bank. The state took control of it, but the only thing in it was a report card for Imogen C, and land deed under the name S. C. Puff.”
I pick up the baggie with the piece of paper, and as I read the words, a hysterical chuckle tumbles out of me.
Everyone is staring at me like I’ve lost it. Finn finally asks, “You good, Pet?”
I shake my head. No. I am not okay, but I can’t stop laughing. There’s no way I’m handing this clue over to them, so I shove it in my bra. If they try to take it, they won’t make it out of this building in one piece.
“Have you ever seen this before?” I hold the paper from mom’s jewelry box up to the camera, giving Alexz the chance to read it.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Do you think it’s real?” I ask when he’s done.
He sighs. “I don’t know how to answer that.”
“With the truth.”
“Yes, Thea. I think it’s real. Originally, The Triumvirate were the three men who came up with the idea of The League of the Daggered Raven. Over time, the title became a moniker for the offspring of the top donors to the school. Initially, there were four names that met that top donor milestone, and they were called the Quadrumvirate.”
“Sure. I know that part. That’s the fourth bedroom in Vale Tower that everyone is so precious about.”
“It is. Eventually, the trinity group created a fourth position within The League of the Daggered Raven to accommodate their neighbor. That familial line died off, so the legacy heirs of the top three donors became known as the Triumvirate once again. Those names coincide with the names on the wall in The Tomb.”
This history lesson is a waste of time. “Rhodes, Sullivan, and Cox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The old bastards paid for a school, created a secret club, and stayed in control. What I want to know is why my mother would think this was worth hiding.”
“So impatient,” Alexz teases.
“Just not in the mood for a boring ass history lesson.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s all I can offer you. As for what Hailee was doing with it, and why she hid it, I can’t say. I’ve dispatched a team to check out all the places your team building clues led you to, but can you think of anywhere else she might have been?”
“Not at the moment, but we’re going to New York to check out the town where the archives used to be. I’ll let you know if we find anything.”