Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
“We should’ve had the information by now,” Thomas said, pacing around his office.
His body felt tense as a tripwire. Finding the names of the signatories had been the tipping point.
Now, one of Yagi’s investigators claimed to have actually found the first signatory.
Said the man was local. He was sending over all the information they’d gathered to date via courier—with Cyril’s spies running around, they didn’t want to tip their hand.
Now, I’m up on deck.
Thomas knew he’d have to kill eventually.
Thirteen people, to be precise. He knew he’d only get out of his contract if he killed Cyril; he knew that he couldn’t get to Cyril unless he killed the twelve who had signed on to protect his sorry ass.
Thomas had trained, physically and metaphysically, for the past eight years.
But I’ve never actually killed anyone.
But today…today, he would.
“If I get the fucking address,” he muttered to himself, ignoring his nerves by pacing.
“You haven’t been meditating.” Yagi was standing, cool as Frank Sinatra, leaning against the obsidian wall.
“No, I haven’t been meditating,” Thomas said, realizing that his drawl was even more pronounced.
Did you know you sound more Southern when you’re upset?
Thomas shook off Kate’s offhand observation. “Your investigator said that he had the address. Why hasn’t he sent it?”
Yagi glanced at his watch, his motions graceful and smooth, like a magician. “I’ll give him another call.”
Thomas thought he’d pace a groove into the lacquered floor. Yagi was frowning when he shut his phone down.
“He said he sent it over,” Yagi said, irritation shading his words. “There wasn’t a lot of information—more is coming—but he had the address, at least, as well as some background. He said that he gave it to your assistant.”
Thomas’s stomach fell. “Aw, hell. Kate didn’t get it, did she?”
“Worse,” Yagi replied. “Ginny.”
“Shit.” Thomas quick-stepped to the elevator, Yagi right at his side. This was way too important for Ginny to fuck around with. Especially when she was still feeling pissy about his decision to hire Kate.
“Why did you have to use a private investigator, anyway?” Thomas asked Yagi. “Couldn’t you…you know?” He wiggled his fingers.
“Couldn’t I do jazz hands?” Yagi asked, deadpan.
Thomas glared at him.
“It doesn’t work that way. I need to be in physical proximity, or have some piece of physical evidence, to use a tracking spell. The soul contracts prevent exactly that sort of magic, or else I would have used his signature to track him.”
Fortunately, Yagi’s supernatural tracking abilities helped them manage to find Ginny’s office on the first try. “Where is it?” he said to Ginny, without preamble.
She put down the phone she’d been fiddling with, frowning at him. “Maybe if you let me know what you’re talking about, instead of just stomping in here and yelling at me—”
“The investigator said he’d given you the file on Victor Klauss. The first signatory.” Thomas glared at her. “Don’t play with this one, Ginny. This one is for Elizabeth.”
“I’m not playing with anything,” she shot back. “Why don’t you ask your new secretary?”
“Damn it, don’t get sidetracked with Kate nonsense. Where’s the file?”
“I told you! I gave it to Kate!”
“You what?” Thomas roared. “Why the hell would you give something like that to her? Was it open?”
Ginny pouted. “I don’t need to answer these questions. You don’t want me around, you don’t think I’m—”
“I don’t have time for this. Was it opened? Could she read it?”
Ginny had a snap second of guile before she smoothed her face into her pageant smile. She’d been Miss Cape Fear…or almost, he remembered. Something about sleeping with a judge had gotten her disqualified. But still, she knew how to act for judges.
She wasn’t convincing him.
“Yes, it was open. But Thomas, it’s like you said. This is about Elizabeth,” she said, her voice subdued. “I had to open it. I had to know.”
Even though he didn’t mean to, Thomas felt his heart wrench a little. “Victor Klauss is not the man responsible for Elizabeth’s death.”
“He’s helping the man who is, right?” She sent him a soulful stare, wringing her hands.
“Yeah. Now, I’ve got to take care of this,” Thomas said. He turned to Yagi. “Have them email the file over.”
Yagi frowned. “It’s not secure. Cyril could—”
“I don’t care. Maybe if we move quickly enough, Cyril won’t have time to stop it until it’s too late.”
“We don’t even know what sort of signatory we’re dealing with,” Yagi said, as close to angry as Thomas had ever seen him.
“Oh, it should be easy,” Ginny piped up, and both men stared at her.
“I told you, I read the file. The guy’s ancient, like ninety years old, and he looks like a stiff wind could blow him over.
” She smirked. “If you can’t find her, your little go-getter new hire might be out trying to bag him right now. ”
Thomas felt his sympathy evaporate. “Jesus, Ginny. Tell me…please tell me you didn’t mention anything about this to Kate.”
Ginny shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? I thought you were the one who said she was better equipped to handle your duties.
If she’s too stupid to figure out what you’ve got going on, I can’t imagine why you’d hire her.
” She smiled viciously. “Unless, of course, you hired her for other, non-administrative reasons—”
“Getting back at me is one thing. Fucking up my chance at getting my soul back is another,” he roared. “Damn it, do you really think that I would’ve told her about this? That I’d tell anyone about this? Are you actually that ridiculously petty?”
She finally started to look a little scared, but he didn’t care. Suddenly, he thought of Kate, in his office, not two hours earlier.
I’m not going to do anything I don’t feel is right.
Kate, the idealist. The hippie-at-heart. The rescuer, with no concern for danger. The avenger of underdogs.
The assistant with impulse control issues.
If she’d just found a name of some old man, slated for murder, what would she do?
“She might go to the police,” he muttered, looking at Yagi. “Her brother, her father…”
“I’d have heard.” Yagi checked his phone. “I’ve got sources in the precincts. Given her history, I also doubt she’d go to her family without solid evidence, and other than hearsay”—he glowered at Ginny—“she has no proof.”
“Right. So, she can’t go to the police or family without more to go on, but she’s not going to just let something bad happen to a little old man,” Thomas said. He rubbed at his temples. This would be just like her high school days, all over again. “So what would she… Ah, fuck.”
He knew what she’d do.
She’d warn the old guy herself.
“Yagi—” he started, striding out the door without a backward glance at Ginny.
“There will be a car waiting,” Yagi said, anticipating him. “We’ll just hope to head her off.”
They got into the elevator to the parking garage. Fear and anger burned like acid in Thomas’s chest.
Yagi cleared his throat. “Not to say I told you so, but…”
“I know,” Thomas said, rushing toward the parking garage. “You said Kate would make all hell break loose.”
Yagi waited. Then murmured, “And it took…”
“I know,” Thomas ground out. “Not even a goddamned week.”