10. FRIEND OF THE FAMILY
The next morning was almost too perfect with scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, shower sex, and a new suit laid out on the bed. Nash claimed he stumbled across it. Thought I would look nice in it. Just happened to be my size. They were lame excuses, and he blushed his way through all of them. I wasn’t about to turn it down, though. Even if I hadn’t accidentally shrunk my old suit in the dryer, it was thoroughly ruined now, torn in the big cat attack, then cut off of me by the Capitol healers.
One thought put a damper on the day, and it came as I was shouldering into my new jacket. I hadn’t been wearing the too-tight coat when Jax launched himself at me. I’d draped it over the chair in the interrogation room and, in the medication-fueled fog of the past two days, I had forgotten it. I wasn’t worried about the garment, but the contents of its pockets had me breaking a sweat as Nash drove me to the Capitol.
The stolen pages from the Blooming Orchid’s guestbook were tucked inside with my name signed below Frederick Sumner’s. Even if I believed the investigators wouldn’t go through my things, Felix’s luck magic could spur an impromptu search, or cause the jacket to turn and dump the papers onto the floor, or a dozen other unlikely scenarios. Imagining the possibilities had me toe-tapping by the time we pulled into the employee parking garage.
Nash’s hand had rested on my thigh for most of the drive, and he gave it a squeeze. “Have a good day. Try not to get mauled.”
Chagrined, I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”
The Woody Wagon had barely stopped at the curb before I bolted from the car. I mentally slammed the door shut behind me, then looked back to see Nash bent in for a kiss I’d inadvertently snubbed.
“Sorry!” I waved but didn’t stop or slow in my rush toward the elevator.
Maybe my old jacket was still in the interrogation room, unbothered and unseen. How often did they use that space, anyway? Just in case, I started prepping my cover story. I grabbed the pages for them, of course. Trying to aid the investigation. Or, if that was too unbelievable, they could blame it on my sticky, criminal fingers.
I stepped into the elevator and waited while twitching with anxious energy. When the door slid open on the upper level, my mask of composure slipped. Vesper stood with her arms crossed and a black leather briefcase hanging off her shoulder .
“Farrow,” she greeted curtly. “Good. You’re here.”
Speechless, I stayed in place until the door began to shut, and the investigator stomped one spike-heeled boot in its track.
Make that a patent leather thigh-high boot, which I stared at as it carried her into the car alongside me. Spinning around, she stabbed her finger on the Close Door button. I watched it shut, then studied the blur of my reflection in the scuffed stainless steel.
Vesper rubbed her palms down the sides of her mini skirt. Her whole outfit was red today, complete with a ruby choker that made it look like her throat was leaking blood.
The elevator began its descent. It must have been summoned by someone below because neither of us had touched the controls. Vesper stepped forward and pressed the Emergency Stop button, and the car stuttered to a halt.
“I’m going to get straight to the point.” She faced me, eye-to-eye with the added inches from her heels. “You have to be the most badass motherfucker I’ve ever met. What I got from you the other day?” She shook her head. “Unreal. I’ve used telekinesis before. That’s not it.”
My attention alternated between her awed expression and the button panel. As much as I didn’t like being trapped, she’d opened with a real ego booster, one I could use after the thrashing Jax gave me the other day.
Still, this was a taboo topic. Our mutual boss had forbidden me from discussing it. Not that she needed to know what happened in a stalled elevator car.
“Have you talked to Holland? Or has she talked to you?” I arched a brow at Vesper.
She propped one hand on her hip, her nails long and glossy black. “I thought it was hype. Exaggerated, at least. Marionette, the puppet master?” She snorted. “Sounds like bullshit.”
So, it was agreed. What Holland didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“But they had you pegged,” Vesper continued. “And the fact that you got away with it? Legend.” She looked genuinely impressed, envious even. It was the glint in her eyes, set like gemstones in the ivory expanse of her face.
“I had a good lawyer,” I said.
“Explain it to me,” she said.
“My lawyer?”
“Your power,” she corrected. “You took some basic mental magic and gave it the devil’s tune-up. How?”
I smiled. How could I resist such eloquent flattery?
“I can move things with my mind,” I said. It was hardly a revelation and, judging by her sudden scowl, Vesper agreed.
“People aren’t things,” she said.
“Why not?”
“They’re organic. Living material. Not objects.”
“Sounds like a technicality to me.”
When my father first taught me about magic, he explained it just as simply. Years of training and practice never changed that basic principle. I wasn’t limited to bending spoons and parlor tricks, but I didn’t apply my abilities to violence until the Bloody Hex forced my hand.
“So, you’re saying any telekinetic could do what you do, they just have to think about it differently?” Vesper asked.
I shrugged.
“What about line of sight?” she asked. “Bones and body parts are under the skin. If you can’t see them, how do you grab them?”
“I know they’re there,” I said. “I may not have finished high school, but I understand basic anatomy.”
She scrutinized me for a long moment. “You’re not lying,” she said at length.
“No.”
“So, you don’t have a cracked power, just a cracked brain?”
“ You used it.” I gestured to her. Besides an occasional tingle, my left arm was back to normal. I did have a few gnarly scars to show for my near-death experience, but the damage they had done to half a sleeve’s worth of tattoos was possibly the worst part of the whole ordeal. “You got me out of a panther’s mouth,” I said. “Do you have a cracked brain?”
Vesper’s red lips curved into a wicked grin. “Maybe.”
She pushed the Emergency Stop button again, and the elevator jolted into motion. As it descended, she crouched and set her briefcase on the floor. Spinning the combination locks, she hinged the lid open and fished inside. The stretch of dark fabric she produced was quickly recognizable.
“You left this in the interrogation room.” She tossed the wadded jacket for me to catch. “I found it after they dragged your bloody ass out.”
The garment hit my chest, and I gathered it up, hoping to keep anything incriminating from falling out.
“I like the new look, though. Very sharp.” Vesper nodded to me as she closed the briefcase and stood.
I glanced down at the suit, gray and white pinstripe that spoke to Nash’s love of pattern. I grinned at the thought. “Thanks, my… friend got it for me.”
Vesper swayed back, laughing. “You have friends who buy you suits? Where can I get one of those?”
Having the missing coat and guestbook pages in my hands put me at ease. The smile lingered on my face as the elevator opened to the parking garage and new passengers boarded. Vesper and I stepped apart to make space for the two women chatting shrilly and paying us no mind.
We rode back up, then went our separate ways. I needed to dig through the suit coat and get the papers before they slipped away from me again. I had a lighter in my pocket and planned to set them ablaze, which required not only a private space, but one without a smoke detector. The bathroom, of course.
Clutching the suit coat to my chest, I scurried through the halls, headed toward the single-stall bathroom near the accounting department.
I was nearly there, rounding the last corner, when an imposing figure stepped into my path. Chief Investigator Briggs, a man I knew better as my father’s old partner, stood before me.
Since our courtroom encounter, I’d only caught glimpses of him in passing. Glances were exchanged at range, and we took turns taking detours in a not-so-subtle game of avoidance. This time, though, I nearly collided with him, and neither of us retreated. Me because I needed to get to that bathroom, the door of which I could see over his shoulder. Him because…
“I catch a chill every time I see you in this place,” Briggs said. “Like a ghost haunting the halls.”
I didn’t know what to say in response, so I held his gaze, studying him at close range for the first time in twelve long years.
He had aged since my childhood—not a given in magical society. Gray hair sprouted from his widow’s peaks, and wrinkles crowded between his eyebrows. The lack of laugh lines felt like a quiet tragedy.
“I’ll admit I’ve been keeping my distance.” When Briggs frowned, the lines carved deeper into his face. “I wasn’t sure how I felt about the… arrangement Maximus made with you.”
“Me neither,” I admitted.
He nodded, and his pale blue eyes darted away. “Well, it seems you’re here to stay. Some kind of miracle.”
Briggs had always been a somber sort, in contrast to my carefree and occasionally mischievous father. They made an odd pair. Any time Briggs came around, my father spent his energy teasing a smile out of the stoic man. Dinners and weekend visits began with Briggs discussing the latest case or Capitol drama and ended with him laughing along to my father’s comedy repertoire.
Occasionally, Briggs broke out a few jokes of his own or took a break from his all-business persona to play games with Donovan and me. He was a pyromancer, one of the flashiest brands of magic and one often given to those with hot tempers and short fuses. Briggs was controlled, though. Almost brutally so. He had the kind of composure that seemed synonymous with Capitol hierarchy. Maximus had the same frigid disposition. Holland, too.
“You understand my trepidation,” Briggs continued. “This isn’t the first time Maximus has enlisted the aid of criminals to further his agenda.”
If I’d wondered where he slotted me in his mind, that made it perfectly clear. Gone was his former partner’s son; I was a criminal now. Time had changed us both.
The meaning of his words took longer to register. Was the consultancy not the “arrangement” he referred to? Did he know about the voter murder plot?
Office workers passed by, and Briggs waited for them to leave earshot before speaking again. “I hope Maximus has learned from his mistakes. You can only hold a tiger by its tail for so long without getting bit.” He looked around as though ensuring no one else would approach, then lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “I only wish Maximus himself had suffered for his misjudgment. Not your family.”
To speak ill of Maximus Lyle in what might as well have been his castle took a kind of moxie I could respect. But why blame Maximus for my parents’ murders? The Bloody Hex killed them. That had never been a question.
“The way I see it, you’re owed this second chance.” Briggs leaned back. “So, I don’t begrudge you the opportunity. Nor do I blame Maximus for attempting to ease the weight of his guilt.” As he looked me over, pain pinched his eyes. “I would do anything to ease mine.”
I continued to stand dumbstruck while clutching the suit coat.
Briggs clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Regardless, it’s good to see you, Fitch.”
He stepped around me and walked away, gone so quickly he couldn’t have heard my delayed response.
“You, too.”
Down the hall, the sight of someone exiting the bathroom reminded me of what I had come to do. I rushed forward and ducked inside, setting the lock on the door before dumping the suit jacket in the sink.
The basin was wet from its last use, speckling the fabric as I rifled through it. Within moments, I found the interior pocket where I had stashed the guestbook pages. Empty.
Swearing, I dug into the other pockets and turned them out one at a time. They came up empty, as well.
The evidence was out there. Brought into this building and practically handed to the investigators by yours truly. My goal of staying out of their crosshairs was not off to a great start.