37. Lilah
37
LILAH
Matt was very much alive and looking almost happy when I got home from work. They were all freshly showered — Matt too — looking healthy and vibrant after their hours on the river. They were like teenagers, talking excitedly about their adventure, right up until six huge pizzas were delivered.
“Six pizzas?” I stared open-mouthed as Nolan set them on the island. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“We’re hungry!” Jude said, opening one of the boxes while Nolan got a stack of plates from the cupboard.
“I… I can see that.”
We dished the pizza and carried our plates to the living room. I listened as they gave me the highlights of their day on the river and answered questions about my first day on the job.
The doors to the deck were open, the sounds of a summer night a soundtrack to our lively conversation, and a warm glow radiated from my chest. It took me a minute to realize it was because for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a family. I had people to share my day with, people who cared about the things that happened to me over the course of a day.
And I cared about them too. Their happiness made me happy — even Rafe’s. I was still pissed, and he was not getting a pass on that apology — but somewhere over the past couple of months, I’d stopped wanting him to experience slow and painful torture in the fiery pits of hell.
Against all odds, I wanted him to be happy too.
Every now and then, Matt’s phone buzzed and I saw him look at it and furrow his brow. He always turned it upside down on the coffee table, but I didn’t need to see the display to know it was my mom.
So much for giving Matt space.
Finally, after five pieces of pizza and two sodas, Matt picked up his phone with a sigh. “I’ll be back.”
I should have known she wouldn’t just let him be for a few days.
“How was he today?” I asked no one in particular.
“Good,” Nolan said. “I think he had fun.”
“He was a little nervous getting in the water, but he seemed to warm to it pretty fast,” Jude added. “Although you should ask Rafe since Matt was in his kayak.”
I tried not to let my mouth drop open. I’d expected Rafe to be civil but I definitely hadn’t expected him to go out of his way for my brother.
“He rode with you?”
Rafe shrugged, shifting in his favorite chair by the fireplace. Was his face red or was it just the dim lighting in the living room?
“It just worked out that way.”
“No, it didn’t,” Nolan said. “You told him to get in the double and then you got in with him.”
“Thank you,” I said quickly, before Rafe’s ego could ruin the moment. “I’m sure he had an amazing time. I appreciate that you showed him the ropes.”
“He got dunked once,” Rafe said, happy to move on from the apparently embarrassing fact that he was capable of not being a dick when it came to me and my brother. “But he followed my instructions and I got him back in the boat pretty fast.”
It sounded like a fun day. I would have been sorry to miss it except for the idea I’d gotten at work after the call from Jean-Luc Laurent’s annoyed assistant.
“I’m glad you had a good first day at work,” Jude said from across the room.
For once, I wasn’t sprawled out on the sofa with him and Nolan. I’d been scared our friendship facade would drop and I’d end up with Jude rubbing my feet and Nolan holding my hand in front of Matt, so I’d taken a chair, the one opposite Rafe, just to be safe.
“Thanks,” I said. “Actually something interesting happened that got me thinking.”
I hadn’t wanted to mention it in front of Matt. The less he knew about what had landed me on the Bastards’ doorstep the better.
Jude lifted his eyebrows. “Oh no.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.”
I told them about the assistant from France who’d called, about how Jean-Luc Laurent — and probably all the other VIP investors at Cantwell — were trying to get their money back now that the Cantwell resort was defunct.
“That’s interesting, but what does it have to do with us?” Jude asked.
“I mean, if Piers Cantwell was planning to use the hotel as part of a trafficking operation, isn’t it at least possible the VIPs, the ones who bought private villas, were involved somehow?”
“And if Piers Cantwell was involved with Imperium Fratrum and the VIPs were involved in Piers Cantwell’s enterprise, then the VIPs might also be connected to Imperium Fratrum,” Nolan said.
“Exactly.”
Rafe was holding the fireplace poker again, something I realized he did when he was thinking. He held it with the point on the ground and turned it in his hand. “Daisy did say they were rich fucks.”
“Right.” I felt validated, like maybe I wasn’t crazy for seeing a possible connection. “I called her today actually, to see if she remembered the names of the VIPs.”
“And?” Jude prompted.
“She did. There were only ten of them. I have them on my phone.”
“What are you thinking, sweetheart?” Nolan sounded both curious and a little suspicious, like whatever it was couldn’t be good.
“I’m thinking… is there some way to connect the VIPs to Folegandros? Or…” I was still turning everything over, still trying to make it all work. “… to each other?”
“If they’re using yachts, Folegandros probably isn’t the only place they’ve gone,” Nolan said.
“But if they all went to Folegandros at the same time?— ”
“They might have gone somewhere else at the same time too,” Rafe said, finishing my sentence.
I nodded.
Rafe stood and paced the floor, another thing he did when he was thinking.
Why did I know these things?
“If we could get flight plans for their private jets and compare them,” he said, “we could see if they’d all converged on certain cities at the same time.”
“It’s a good idea,” Nolan said. “But that tells us about the past. We need to find out where they’re going next if we want to catch them in the act, find the girls.”
“Shit,” I said.
Rafe nodded. “No, this is good… This is something we can work with.”
“It is?” I wasn’t used to Rafe giving me credit for anything.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s smart. Let’s find out if they’ve all been to Greece at the same time in the last couple of years. If they have, we’ll know we’re on to something.”
“And in the meantime, we can work the problem of where they’re going next,” Nolan said.
I was elated. It wasn’t the smoking gun I wanted, but it was something, another piece of the puzzle we could try to work into place to fill out the picture.
I sighed with relief. “Thank you. Just…” I didn’t know how to tell them that I was still getting used to the idea that they were there, that they were really in this with me when nobody else was. “Thank you.”
Jude flashed me a grin that made me forget all about flight plans and secret destinations. “We told you we got you, boss.”
I was beginning to believe it.