16. A Poison Tree #2
A tremor of unease worked down Tennyson’s spine. “Blake?”
“I called her,” Lindsey said.
Tennyson’s hand passed over a gap in the stone, and he paused to examine it. “You called her,” he echoed flatly. “When?”
“After my arrest,” he said. “I thought it was strange that the embassy didn’t step in, that we were given over into Romanian custody, especially since I told my CO that I arrived on scene after the diplomat was already dead.
I thought maybe there was a reason I wasn’t being listened to, so when they gave me my phone call, I needed it to be to someone I knew I could trust.”
That made sense. Blake was a lawyer, after all, and had been working with JAG for several years now. “I knew it might be dangerous,” Lindsey rushed on. “At least, I had a feeling it might be. I shouldn’t have called her.”
“What did she say?” Tennyson asked. His voice came out sounding raspy, and he resisted the urge to clear his throat.
“She said she’d help me,” Lindsey said, an apology heavy in his voice. “She’s on her way.”
Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Tennyson jammed his fingers into the gap, testing the wall for weaknesses as his thoughts clawed over themselves.
Blake was coming. His youngest sister, the one who’d clung to him the night he’d told them all he was leaving, begging him not to go.
The one who’d stood beside him at their father’s funeral, holding his hand when he’d wanted to run.
The one who’d kept calling after he deployed, even when Tennyson never picked up.
Blake couldn’t be coming, not after he’d worked so hard to keep her out of things.
But if Lindsey had asked for help, then Blake would do whatever she could to be there.
He’d been a better brother to her than Tennyson ever had, and there was no way she would turn her back on him now.
“We looked up your case information,” Louna said carefully, sensing the tension. “We did not see Blake’s name.”
“She’s working with a senior officer,” Lindsey said. “That’s probably who’s listed. It’d be her partner’s case, officially.”
Louna hummed. “When you said she had an English degree, I imagined she was a professor.”
“She double majored,” Lindsey said proudly. “Bachelor’s in English Lit for her mom, and a degree with the Naval Justice School to follow Tenny and me into the military.”
The muscle in Tennyson's jaw tightened, keeping his words in his mouth. She’d called Lindsey with the news that she’d been accepted into NJS, and Tennyson had taken the phone and told her to stay home.
It was the only real coversation they’d had since he left, though he could hardly call it a conversation. He’d talked, she’d ignored him.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do now,” she spat finally, when he tried for the third time to convince her to change her mind. “If you wanted me to listen to you, you shouldn’t have run away.”
He had no answer to that, so he threw the phone back at Lindsey and stalked away, proving her right again.
It was the last thing she’d said to him.
Louna spoke into the silence where Tennyson’s reaction should have been, her voice gentle but insistent. “When will she arrive?”
“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “She said it would be a few days before she could leave, but she was going to try to come as soon as she could. She may have gotten an earlier flight, I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed another call.”
“Okay,” Tennyson said, his voice stiff. His fingers pried the stone apart when it gave slightly under his touch, and he leaned his empty ear against it to listen. “With any luck, we’ll have you out before she gets here.”
“Tenny,” Lindsey said, but Tennyson cut him off with a shush.
“There’s another door in the passage,” he said. “I can hear people talking.”
The others quieted, and Tennyson concentrated on the voices on the other side of the wall. “Someone’s giving orders,” he reported after a few moments. “Cristian, I’m guessing. It sounds like a bigger space with a lot of people. Maybe the hall.”
“That may be useful,” Louna said.
Tennyson stayed there a moment longer, but Cristian wasn’t saying anything important. “Not right now,” he said. “Louna, we’ll need a distraction during the party. Something to bring the guards out of the dungeon so I can get in.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, a hint of mischief brightening her voice.
Tennyson continued down the corridor. “And?”
“I think it may be time to involve the Black Swan.”
“The what?” Lindsey asked.
“How will the Black Swan make an appearance if you’re running the party?” Tennyson said.
“You’re not the only one who can slip away,” Louna said. “It will only take a moment. I’ll step out, find a lovely little trinket to liberate, and be back before anyone notices.”
“Hang on,” Lindsey said, serious again. “That Black Swan? The art thief?”
“You have heard of her?” Louna asked.
“I work at an embassy,” Lindsey said. “They tend to keep us updated on international criminals.”
Louna let out a delighted squeal. “Did you hear that, mon loup? Even the US military fears the Black Swan.”
With good reason, he thought ruefully, as Lindsey groaned. “Dammit Tennyson, how am I supposed to keep that a secret? Do you know what kind of trouble I’d get in if anyone found out?”
“How would they find out?” Louna asked. “There is nothing to tell. This is all hypothetical, of course. If the Black Swan made a coincidental appearance, would that not create enough of a distraction for you?”
“It would,” Tennyson said.
Louna’s voice was light. “Then let us hope that, whoever and wherever she is, the Black Swan is available on Saturday night.”
The passage turned a corner, and Tennyson followed it to an abrupt stop. “There’s another door,” he said, feeling for and finding another crack in the stone. “I don’t hear anyone. I’m going to open it.”
When nobody answered, he lowered his good shoulder and pushed until a section of the wall swung open with surprising smoothness.
A rush of cold air swirled around him, and Tennyson found himself looking into a small, empty courtyard.
He could hear a murmur of distant voices nearby, but they seemed to be centered mostly to the north, beyond an arched wall with a wooden terrace.
“I’m outside,” he said. “On the eastern side of the keep. The parking lot is just below me.”
“Do you see anyone?” Lindsey asked.
Tennyson eased the door closed and examined the way the stones looked once they were back in place and nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. “No,” he said. “But I’m going to go down to the lot before I come back to the castle.”
“Why?” Louna asked.
Tennyson drew the pocket knife he kept beside his lock picks. “Just covering our bases,” he said.
“Tires?” Lindsey guessed.
“Yep.”
“Tires,” Louna echoed. “What do tires have to do with—?”
She broke off, then spoke again as Tennyson approached the first parked car.
“You’re keeping the witnesses in the castle,” Louna said.
Tennyson stabbed the nearest tire and moved on to the next car as the air hissed free.
“Yep.”