Chapter 25
When Octavius and Bilal exited their father’s office, Octavius expected to find his sisters in the middle of hand-to-hand combat like when they used to physically fight as kids. But what he walked into was somehow even more disturbing than anything he could have imagined.
Perdita was staring helplessly at Fola, who seemed to be … crying. And not in a way that would indicate that she was furious, but more like tears of shock. Fola looked as lost as Perdita, tears clinging to her cheeks as she fiercely stared the other girl down.
“I’m so sorry, Fola—”
“Why?” Fola interrupted.
“Why what?” Perdita replied, looking nervous.
“Why would he leave you everything? You don’t even live at the Manor anymore; you don’t call or text him.
You hardly ever visit, always off in some other country promoting your art or working on another piece.
Why would he leave you everything when …
” Fola’s voice trailed off, but Octavius knew his sister well enough to know what the words she left unspoken were.
Why would he leave you everything when I was the one who stayed?
It was a good question, and one Octavius, Romeo, and Bilal were also looking to Perdita to answer. Why her? Why everything?
“I—I … I don’t know,” Perdita said. Somehow Octavius could feel the lie in her words, the same lie that broke her voice apart, making her stutter. He was good at that, spotting the lie.
“Bullshit,” Fola said, her eyes narrowed.
“I have no idea why Dad did that,” Perdita continued with more conviction, “and quite frankly I’m too tired for this interrogation, or whatever this is. Dad is the only one who could have told any of us the reasons behind his twisted thoughts and ideas.”
Another lie, Octavius noted. But why?
He watched his sister thoughtfully. She must have had a good reason to not want to disclose the truth. Maybe she knew it was worse than any lie could ever be.
Fola laughed; it was a high-pitched guttural sort of laughter that could only come from the depths of painful memories. More tears involuntarily bled from her eyes. “More bullshit,” she said simply.
“It’s not bullshit, Fola. It’s the truth,” Perdita insisted.
“Liar,” Fola hissed, stepping forward into Perdita’s personal space.
Perdita stepped forward too, giving Fola a dangerous look.
Under different circumstances, it would be a comical sight, since Fola was all of five foot tall and Perdita had at least eight inches on her and could probably squash her sister like a bug.
Luckily, there was no bug squashing, because Romeo was now stepping in, in usual Romeo fashion.
“Why don’t I make us all some chamomile tea? Hmm? Cool off after the intensity of the, umm, reading.”
Octavius smiled fondly at his little brother’s uselessness.
“I don’t want tea. I want my full inheritance,” Fola said
Perdita crossed her arms. “Well, you heard Mr. Fowley in there—you’ve got it.”
“Perdita’s kind of got a point,” Bilal said. “We’ve all inherited at least fifty million dollars. I think we’ll live.”
Fola shot Bilal a death glare, one that didn’t seem to have any effect on the fencer, who was leaning back against the wall unbothered.
“Seriously? Siding with this backstabbing b—” Fola did not get to finish what Octavius was certain would have been very colorful alliteration, because she was stopped by the sudden presence of an intruder.
“I’ve been looking all over for you. Can we talk?” Thorin Philips interrupted, his eyes trained solely on Perdita.
Fola looked furious as Thorin stepped in front of her like she was invisible, not having a care in the world that he had broken up a very intense family debacle.
“Now’s not a good time, Thorin,” Perdita replied. Her voice sounded fragile and strained like she was on the verge of tears too.
Thorin glanced around at them all with his eyebrows knitted together and an analytical look on his face. He seemed to have come to the conclusion, finally, that they were dealing with something personal here.
“Are you guys okay? I’m sorry to hear about—” he started.
“About what? The fact that our father was murdered, and his killer is in this house? Or the fact that you’re here harassing us when you should be downstairs with the other suspects?
” Fola cut in, her voice as sharp as her stare.
“I’m not sure how you even got up here. Someone is meant to be keeping watch in case our father’s murderer decides to off the next Button in line.
Actually, maybe that’s what you’re here to do now,” Fola said, her tone dangerously low.
“Thorin is not like that,” Perdita said, defending the boy as if they knew each other well.
“He’s not like what? An opportunist like his dad? Even if he isn’t a murderer, he’s probably still here to sell our woes to his father’s paper,” Octavius said.
Thorin looked completely taken aback by all the accusations.
“I would never ever do that,” he said, eyes wide.
“I know you have no reason to trust me, and you’re all hurting right now, but I would never do anything to hurt you or Mr. Button.
” He shook his head, as if throwing the thought away into some mental landfill.
“And I’m nothing like my father and would appreciate being treated like my own person. ”
“Whatever, Bilbo,” Octavius replied with an eye roll. The guy looked nothing like a hobbit.
Thorin looked unimpressed. “Wrong character,” he said, and then he turned back to Perdita.
“I’m sorry for interrupting … whatever this was.
I just wanted to let you know that I have to head home now.
My mom needs me to prepare dinner, and since my dad is, uh …
sticking around here, I thought I should head off.
I’ll call you with updates when things are calmer? ”
Octavius looked at Perdita, really looked at her, and then at Bilbo. The intimacy in the way he spoke to her and in the way they held each other’s gazes. It couldn’t be that …
“Home?” Romeo questioned suddenly, disrupting Octavius’s thoughts about the possibility of his youngest sister secretly dating the son of their dead father’s rival.
“I thought everyone had to stay here until the murderer had been arrested? I thought they were trying to keep this all from getting leaked?” Romeo continued.
Thorin grimaced, as if he felt guilty for whatever bad news he was about to deliver. “Well, it did get leaked. They put out a statement to the public about half an hour ago, and Chief Waxler just started letting people go around ten minutes ago. Anyone who is no longer considered a suspect.”
This fact was confirmed when the heirs went back downstairs and found that the crowd that had swarmed the drawing room and surrounding areas had drastically decreased from almost a hundred people to nearly half of that number.
Though the tension in the room hadn’t dissipated—there was still a murderer on the loose, after all.
The siblings split up immediately, storming off into their own worlds. The fallout of the inheritance reading was far from over. Octavius felt relief spread through him. Things were still chaotic down here, but it at least was less so than it had been upstairs.
He stood now on the threshold of the drawing room.
The Manor’s entryway was still enshrouded in police tape, but the glass had been cleaned up and the doors had been temporarily boarded up with wood.
The guests that were allowed to leave the house were most likely having to exit through one of the side doors that the staff used, which had a path that led straight to the staff quarters.
A few paces away from him, there were several pissed-off adult guests having a heated conversation with two of the police officers.
“I want to call my lawyer,” a woman with an auburn updo and rectangular Velma-esque eyeglasses said. “I’m a highly regarded neonatal physician and I do not appreciate being held here and treated like a murder suspect!”
“Me neither! I have a firm to get back to. Clients that are waiting to hear from me before the end of the afternoon!” a suited man with a burly figure and a long beard exclaimed.
“I’m very sorry, Dr. Jassat and Mr. Khan—” the officer began.
“What about my son? He is traumatized!” the father of one of the prodigies declared. “He’s only eleven—you can’t possibly think he had anything to do with this. We thought he had been invited here because of his soccer skills, but now you’re exposing him to all kinds of ideas and people!”
Their angry voices began to mesh together into an unintelligible grumble as Octavius’s gaze shifted to the gardens beyond the French doors of the drawing room.
He wondered if he could sneak away and pay a visit to the stables.
He hadn’t seen the horses since he had left and suddenly missed their company.
They reminded him of a simpler time without the secrets that he felt corrupting his soul.
Perhaps seeing them would allow him to fool himself into believing he was younger again and life wasn’t so complicated.
A flash of red caught his attention briefly.
It was Evie Gray walking past the French doors and settling down on a seat on one of the ottomans in the corner of the drawing room.
Speaking of complicated … , he thought, as he watched her take out a red notebook from her back pocket and scribble something in its pages.
His vision blurred, her bright cardigan and notebook melding into a violent splatter of red.
A scream, a thud, and so much blood …
He was pulled away suddenly from his spiraling thoughts when he felt several pairs of eyes on him. He turned and found a group of prodigies nearby watching him, giggling and whispering. Naturally, he ogled them back.
This made one girl with dark brown olive skin and a pixie cut step forward with an inviting smile. He glanced down at the name tag attached to her breast pocket. Marisol.
“Can I help you, Marisol?” he said, trying to sound neutral, but finding, as always, that his spirits were so easily raised by the trick of a beautiful face and a charming smile.
“Could I … ask a question?” Marisol said.
Octavius’s heart instantly stopped, dread building in his chest. But he kept his own smile in place. “Sure,” he replied, bracing himself for a potential question about his father.
“Is the white natural? We were wondering,” she said, looking up at the mass of tangled curls atop Octavius’s head. He relaxed a little, rubbing at his wrists like he was trying to undo the invisible handcuffs he felt encircling them.
Marisol was still inspecting his white hair like she wanted to reach out and touch it to test its realness.
He nodded. “Forsooth, milady,” he said with a grin. “It is.”
And he wasn’t lying, the white was natural …
Mostly, anyway. At some point in his preadolescence, Octavius’s black hair had begun to turn white.
It got so bad, his father had to call in the family physician, Dr. Benson, who’d examined him thoroughly and then determined that it was all just a side effect of extreme levels of stress.
Marie Antoinette syndrome, it was called.
Dr. Benson pointed out how odd it was because, What could an eight-year-old have to be this stressed about?
Octavius didn’t have the language to describe it then, but he did now.
What could an eight-year-old have to be this stressed about?
Learning a new complicated musical piece each week; performing for thousands of strangers—adults, not peers; practicing his violin so much that blisters formed on all of his little fingers and weren’t able to heal, leaving his skin in a perpetual state of cracking and bleeding; how there was no rest, ever.
He always had to be switched on, ready to please and perform for his audience.
Only a portion of his hair had turned white, but after a while he’d bleached the rest of his hair to match. He still dyed it regularly to maintain the stark color.
The girls were still looking at him with dreamy-eyed expressions as Marisol asked the question he suspected she’d been waiting to ask all along: “We also hear you can play Paganini’s Caprice 24 on the violin,” she said, as a way of asking if it was true.
Octavius flashed them a devilish smile he knew they’d enjoy, and he was right, as this incited more giggling from the small group.
He’d almost forgotten he was in a room of geniuses, meaning a roomful of nerds.
Of course this kind of thing was what got them all hot and bothered.
And as always, he was more than happy to distract and entertain.
“I’m afraid that isn’t true,” he said, and the girls’ faces all dropped, revealing their disappointment.
“I can also play Paganini on the piano and the mandolin,” he added, his grin broadening as he widened his fake smile; his wrists still ached from the phantom pain of invisible metal cuffs. “Want to see?”