24. Frank #2
Caz wets his lips as if to speak, then his eyes dart to me—thinking better of answering her right away. He casts his eyes back down to his knife, and the spiraled peel of the potato—keeping his mouth shut.
“That may or may not have been an intentional obfuscation,” I sigh, sidestepping a direct answer.
“God fucking damn it, Frank,” she sighs in exasperation, covering her face with her hands for a moment before slicking her long red hair back from that carved marble face of hers—cinnamon eyes burning into mine.
“You said yourself—you need me to help you access some of these ‘caches’—I can choose to become uncooperative.” She issues her challenge, and though my first instinct is to kick back from the table and snarl some threat to force her compliance—I know from the look on Caz’s face that my control over the Saints isn’t strong enough to endure such cruelty after the deep connection during the heat.
“Does the name ‘STOR-WITH-US’ mean anything to you?” I sneer instead.
Louise blinks, taken aback.
“Like the chain storage unit place?” Her brows pinch and draw downward.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I confirm.
“My parents had a unit at the one by their place that I had to clean out after they…” She trails off a moment before regaining her voice. “Most of the stuff in it was actually from my high school bedroom. They cleaned everything out when I got my first apartment after undergrad.”
“Yeah, well—they’ve got another unit at the same facility that somehow slipped through the cracks, probably because you didn’t know about it—your parents didn’t want you to,” I say unkindly, turning away from the hurt look in Louise’s eyes.
Never had the stomach for this kind of stuff, the softness of people—the way they start to need you. Better she understand now, before the end—I’m not a person she should need.
“We head Northeast, see what’s in the unit.
I had hoped that we’d have been able to use you to access it the legal way, as their surviving child…
but since the Feds have had you declared legally dead, that’s no longer on the menu.
Old Q’s going to have to break out his lock picks again.
It’s been a minute since we’ve had to use his physical security skills.
” I can feel Louise’s eyes on me, Caz’s reproachful glare—still I press on.
“The other cache, well—that’s where you come in.
” I hazard a glance at Louise, a devious smile on my lips.
“Since you love the sound of your own voice so much,” she snipes, a terse smile turning the corners of her mouth upward. “Why don’t you enlighten us, oh fearless leader.”
That’s right. I’m the leader, the alpha. Don’t you forget it Louise Penny. I’ll wipe that smile right off your face—ethereal beauty or no.
“Word on the wire is that your parents sold almost everything before they got bumped off.” I make the shape of a gun with my thumb and forefinger and pantomime firing two shots at her.
Louise’s throat works and her jaw clenches as she bites her tongue—doing her best not to give me the satisfaction of taking my obvious bait. So much control, so much self righteous decorum—maybe that’s why I adore unraveling her so.
“Almost, but not actually everything.” I bounce the turn of phrase off her, her willpower palpable as she breathes in deeply through her nose before speaking.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Frankie, but the only thing they didn’t sell before their death was the house in Lexington.
The one I happened to own before I supposedly ‘died.’ No fucking chance we can get back in there now—the place will be crawling with Feds and local law enforcement.
If you idiots had just approached me with evidence of Lowry’s betrayal in the first place instead of kidnapping me, we wouldn’t be up shit creek now.
” Now Louise is baiting me—with this Frankie stuff and the nasty comments about how things have gone down.
I suppose she’s entitled to bitch and moan about her own abduction and captivity—but really, is she gonna defend the behavior of Compton and Lowry and the Fed who sent her away to ‘get bit and bred,’ lest Louise’s career advancement opportunities suddenly evaporate?
There’s almost a glimmer of pity for Louise that surfaces before I remember my ultimate goal; the truth behind the Zeitnot virus—and retribution for those who took that which was most precious to me. And so, I use my words to cut once more.
“There was a vacation home, very small, very private,” I say softly, sweetly.
“There was a vacation home, but it wasn’t part of their assets after death—I’d know, I was the executor of their estate.” Louise’s eyes darken and she bares her teeth, but there’s a gentle tic-ing in her cheek that lets me know she’s wrestling with her own doubt.
“Just because the property wasn’t included in the estate paperwork that your parents furnished for you doesn’t mean they don’t still own it.
” I snort dismissively, drinking in the fumes of her rage as her scent vaporizes with the heat of anger—savoring the crisp, tartness of the green apple like a fine wine.
“I would know if—” she starts, but stutters, leaving me room to cut in.
“If they still owned it?” I raise a brow.
“It’s an empirical exercise, even if the house is—say, technically owned by a shell company that doesn’t readily lead back to your parents, and that said vacation home is actually just sitting there, exactly as your parents left it—waiting for just such a moment where you, and only you, would know where it was?
How to access it? What secrets it might hold… ”
I watch the fingers on her left hand curl into a fist, undoubtedly fantasizing about serving me a knuckle sandwich at this very moment.
“Just one problem…” Louise pauses before adding as evenly as she can, “I’m not the only person who knows about the cottage.”
“Yeah, your uncle helped your dad build it like forty years ago, but we’re not worried about him.
Plus, he probably thought exactly the same thing you did—wasn’t included in their estate at the time of death, must have sold it—too crazy with grief to follow up on something that seemed to so clearly already be gone. ”
Louise opens her mouth to say something, but either thinks better of it—or can’t find the words to articulate the myriad of feelings coloring her shifting features; worrying brows, chewed then pursed lips, and grinding teeth all lending to the general feeling of unease.
Eventually she shakes herself off, comforted by Caz—a silent watcher in all of this, as he lays a hand over her knee—scooting himself down the bench seat until his hip and thigh press against hers in a gesture of affectionate support.
“Fine, we go to the cottage after we break into the storage unit—if it’s all as you say, I’ll be able to get us there and get us in,” she says with a cold finality.