22. Kiera
KIERA
Apparently, fine art had been Viv’s attempt at an isolation hobby before cooking. And holy shit, had she invested.
I almost felt bad taking the supplies she’d offered me that day in the kitchen until she showed me the closet full of paint, sketch pads, pastels and colored pencils covered in a thick layer of dust.
“The art store was having a sale,” she’d explained. “Anyway, I’m just glad to see them put to good use. Lord knows I had no clue what to do with them.”
And while I couldn’t say for certain that I was putting them to good use these last couple of days, they were certainly seeing more use than they had in the closet.
I adjusted in the Adirondack chair, leaning the sketchpad against my knee. A couple yards away, Lady was lazing by the gate of the chicken run. At this point, the hens didn’t faze her in the slightest, even as they wandered past the gate and started grazing in the grass around her.
Dom had been right when we found Lady at the shelter; this dog didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
A terrible guard dog? Maybe. But she’s still the perfect still-life model.
I needed darker brown for her eyes, though. As I reached for the pencil case on the table beside me, my gaze drifted beyond the chicken coop to the garden.
Viv, as always, was elbow-deep in the veggie patch, training the peas’ tendrils up their trellises. And tonight, Dom had joined her, getting her hands dirty tidying the bed as her mother gushed about the ins and outs of raising cool weather crops.
For once, Dom’s phone was nowhere in sight. There was no need for calls, no need to pull connections or make another plan. As of yesterday, she had a lead, and once the Oracle confirmed it, we would be going home. Or back to New York at least.
She still wouldn’t confirm exactly where we were headed, other than to say that it was a last resort. But as nervous as that thought made all of us, I knew that she’d have considered it carefully. She wouldn’t take us somewhere she couldn’t personally guarantee our safety.
At least I trusted her that much.
Off to the left, a bag of soil thudded to the ground, grabbing my attention as well as the chickens’. Lady, on the other hand, barely cracked open one lazy eye as Spencer dropped to the ground for another round of push-ups.
She’d been missing the expensive home gym set-up the crew had assembled back in Valemont. But Viv’s garden had enough heavy shit for her to cobble together a pretty intense workout. And I certainly didn’t mind the view of her all sweaty and dirty.
I flipped the page in my sketchpad, ready to memorialize the glow of those biceps. But as my pencil hovered above the paper, a frustrated exhale drew my eye to the Adirondack chair beside mine.
Leo was leaned back with an ankle crossed over her knee and her laptop propped up in the gap of her legs. One hand clutched her chin while the other worked the computer, scrolling and typing at an unpredictable clip.
Her brows knit, Leo didn’t look up from her screen once — not even as Spencer hoisted the soil bag up with a grunt and jogged to the other side of the yard.
Not until I set down my pencil and reached across the gap between us, resting my hand on her thick forearm. “Hey, what’s up? You seem stressed.”
The crease between her brows lightened just a fraction as she lifted her deep brown eyes to meet my gaze. “Stressed is one way to put it.”
I tilted my head, prompting her to shake her head with a sigh. “I’ve been doing some research on my parents. Still trying to figure out how they could be involved in the Zeus shit. If they are…”
I nodded, peeking at her laptop screen: a gray and white database with the header ‘U.S. Office of Government Ethics.’ The only search term she’d entered was her father’s name, and somehow, there were hundreds of entries from the last seven years.
“What is it?” I nodded to the screen.
“Financial disclosures. After their military service, my parents took up work in the political sphere — my father in particular. Which means that there’s tons of his financial records available to the public.
Maybe if I scrub through enough of them, I’ll be able to find something that links him to Zeus? That’s my current thinking, anyway…”
“Mmm.” I nodded. “Any leads yet?”
“None.” Her fist thudded softly against the arm of her chair.
“And how many more do you have to go through?”
I winced as she flicked her fingers over the mousepad, flying through hundreds more entries.
“Jesus,” I muttered, giving her forearm a squeeze.
The further out we got from our initial conversation on the plane, the more I started to consider Leo’s theory; the Oracle had seemingly brought the rest of us together because of our ties to Zeus, so it would be strange for Leo to be the odd one out.
But as I looked at the endless database of nonsensical form numbers and titles, I feared that this was just an exercise in bashing her head against the wall.
“And this is the only place to find info? There’s no, like… Sparknotes for government corruption?”
“Unfortunately not.” She shook her head with a scoff. “I did find this gem on my mom’s Facebook though.”
She switched tabs, pulling up a grainy old photo of a man and a woman in their fifties. He wore a dark blue mess jacket with gold braided shoulders and a heavily decorated lapel, while the woman wore an evening gown that matched the exact shade of his jacket.
Four stars adorned each sleeve of his coat. A General.
Leo’s parents, I had to assume, though the family resemblance wasn’t clear. It was hard to focus on them for long though without looking at the man who stood between them, an arm looped over either of their shoulders.
“Isaac?” I balked. He looked younger than I had remembered. Although all adults looked old to a little kid, I supposed.
I couldn’t say it ever had before, but right then, the sight of him made me queasy. It would have made sense considering everything I’d learned — what he’d tried to do to me — if the disgust had been personal. And some of it was.
But fresher in my mind was what he had done to my father, to Viv, and to Dom. There was never an excuse for behavior as insipid as his, but usually, men like that had a line. Isaac though… it was clear that he would take and take and exploit anyone for even a single ounce of power.
He was the closest thing to the devil I’d ever seen. And somehow, we planned to crush him in just a few short weeks.
I shuddered as I leaned closer to Leo, peering more closely at the photo. “Where did they even take this?”
“A school fundraiser, I think.”
“Fancy fucking school,” I scoffed, clocking the champagne and caviar in the background. “Did they consider selling off some of the emerald mines to raise funds?”
“But then what would they have forged our class rings from?”
I whipped my head around to take in her deadpan expression, but it quickly broke into a smirk. “I’m kidding, Kiera. But there’s no better way to get a bunch of rich fucks’ guard down than with expensive alcohol. Makes ‘em more generous, or at least easier to rob.”
And I got the distinct sense that she wasn’t joking about that last part.
Her eyes never left the screen as she leaned back, chewing her lip. “Doesn’t look like they’re just casual acquaintances though, does it?”
My eyes drifted from Isaac’s hands squeezing their arms to the caption: “Good old days with the inner circle.”
I tried to search my memory for General Callahan’s face — certainly if they were so close, I would have remembered him hanging around the house those summers. Dom had already confirmed that they came to the parties now and again.
But I couldn’t recall Keith either. And looking at this picture, it was terrifying to realize again just how spotty my memory was.
“They certainly seem cozy…” I frowned.
“This is the most I’ve been able to find, though.” Leo grumbled. “No matter how hard I dig, there’s nothing to see. I’m surprised this picture even survived honestly. Whatever they were up to, they’ve been pretty thorough about covering their trail.”
I could see in her eyes that she was still holding out hope that they weren’t involved. That they weren’t as far gone as Isaac. That they had a line somewhere.
But getting attached to that idea was a risky gamble. And I knew that Leo didn’t like dealing in uncertainty.
“Have you tried reaching out to the Oracle?” My voice wavered as she turned to face me, finally pulling her deep cognac eyes away from the screen. But I continued anyway. “Since they’re the ones who brought us all together, maybe they’ll tell you why if you ask.”
Is that even something we’re allowed to do? Or do they only answer the phone for Dom?
“I’m more likely to get another riddle from the Oracle than a straight answer,” Leo sighed.
“Our little trip to the Summit was a one-off. Plus, we might be running out of favors from them. Whatever they’ve had to do to get us into a safehouse…
I think it’ll be a bit before we can ask them for much more. ”
“I feel like we hardly ask them for anything. What’s the point in being a part of their organization if they can’t scratch our backs every once in a while?”
But even as the words left my mouth, I could hear how silly they were.
Because of the Oracle, we were sitting comfy in Washington instead of chasing Zeus goons off our lawn.
Because of them, we’d gotten answers to questions that had haunted me my entire life, even if they were hidden under layers of riddles.
Because of them, we were on the precipice of ending Zeus’ reign of terror for the first time in decades.
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on them.
Leo seemed to think so, based on the eyebrow she raised in my direction.
But it was hard not to be when Leo looked so down.
“Well maybe…” I swallowed, too late to pull back the suggestion.
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe if you can’t find anything then there’s nothing to find.” I was desperate for some way to comfort her, to make this problem go away. But the reassurance rang hollow. So I shook my head and tried again.
“If there is something, I’m going to do everything I can to help you find it. We’ve gotten our answers,” I gestured to Dom, Spencer, and myself. “Now, it’s time for you to get yours.”