Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Kit
PARKING MY CAR, I STARED AT the massive ostentatious mansion I’d been directed to.
It would have been nice if Ted had given me the address, but instead I’d had to telephone around until a contact finally gave it to me.
It showed a lack of foresight on Whitman’s part and I hoped that was something I could exploit.
I’d left a note with the hotel to deliver to Agnes after I was already gone, warning them to flee Halifax.
If—when—I went missing, Marion and Agnes would come looking and unless I stopped them, they’d share my fate.
It didn’t matter how brave and strong and clever they were.
Whitman was fae. They couldn’t stop him any more than I could.
Agnes would always protect Marion. She’d get them to safety.
What I wanted to know now was how the hell Whitman had found out where Ted and Mary-Alice were. Then again, what did it really matter? The end was the same. Inside this mansion I would find my brother and sister-in-law, and God help Whitman if he’d harmed them.
Calm slowly settled over me, stilling my shaky hands as I gathered myself. Ted and Mary-Alice were walking out of here, one way or another. I took solace in that and used it to firm my resolve.
The rough looking man who opened the door at my knock seemed out of place in this neighbourhood.
He certainly wasn’t a butler. He led me into a study, where two large men in ill-fitting suits, each with a pistol in his hand, stood on either side of Ted and Mary-Alice.
The man who’d brought me to the room took up position beside Whitman’s desk, where the man himself sat perusing a notebook.
Across the room, before the large, unlit fireplace, Mary-Alice and Ted were tied to heavy wooden chairs with cloth gags in their mouths. They didn’t look injured, but anger ignited in the pit of my stomach when their frightened gazes met mine.
Whitman finally looked up, disdainfully, from his reading.
“Mr. Daring,” he said, tone full of smug superiority. I wanted to wipe the floor with him. “How are you this evening?”
“I’ve been better,” I admitted, dryly. “But are we really going to act like you’re not holding my family hostage? Or can we move onto the reason we’re all here?”
His grin was shark-like, malicious to the core. “Let’s. Did you bring the documents?”
“No.” Short and to the point, and I enjoyed the flash of rage that seeped into his features. It might not end well for me, but it was satisfying.
Whitman stood, coming around his desk with his hands curled into fists at his side. “No? That’s rather unfortunate. I don’t like to be toyed with.”
“I’m sure my brother and his wife don’t like to be kidnapped and tied up.
I’m not handing anything over until they’re safe and sound.
You let them go, then I’ll take you to the documents.
” My voice rang with truth. I wasn’t taking chances with a lie, but I meant the stack of letters I’d left sitting on the bedside table in my room, already addressed and stamped with a note and monetary reward for housekeeping to mail them if I didn’t come back.
“Otherwise, they’re set to be mailed to editors at the Chronicle and the Winnipeg Press.
I penned an accounting of the whole sordid story.
You might have your fingers in a lot of pies, but I can tell you now Harry and Jack can’t be bought, and they both owe me. It’ll go to press.”
Whitman’s face had grown sour, then stormy, then blotchy red. In a flash so quick I almost thought I was imagining it, streams of black spread from his pupils like ink, bleeding into the whites of his eyes. When he blinked, they were normal again. My mouth went dry.
“How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain once your family is free?” Whitman asked, his tone scathing.
“You’ll still have me, won’t you? What would be the point of holding onto them? We’d all have been happier never knowing about any of this. So they’ll take my car and leave town tonight. You won’t hear from them again.”
Ted shouted something but it was muffled by the gag, and I shot him a pointed look, telling him to shut up without words. Mary-Alice stared at him with the same message in her eyes, but Ted was clearly begging me not to do this.
Whitman frowned. I could see him weighing the options.
“If a single word of this is breathed anywhere, I’ll know, and it’s curtains for them.
Nowhere will be far enough to escape my reach, you understand?
As for you, if you don’t deliver on the documents tonight…
use your imagination. I guarantee my men here will make it ten times worse for you than they did for your father.
Then I’ll be the one to freeze you slowly from the inside out.
You’ll make almost as pretty an ice sculpture as your mother. ”
Cold rage coursed through my veins, but I hid it with an irreverent smile. “You’ve got my word, I’ll take you to the documents as soon as Ted and Mary-Alice are clear. After you’ve got them, I’ll disappear too. It’ll be like none of this ever happened.”
Whitman and his goon exchanged a glance that confirmed for me that even if I had documents to hand over, there was no way they’d let me live.
Ted and Mary-Alice were one thing; they’d never find a soul to believe the story.
Me? I was a whole other creature. One with credentials and history to back me up.
More everyday people in Canada would believe me than wouldn’t.
After all, they’d trusted me for six years to tell them the truth about what their loved ones were facing.
Why would I lie about my own parents’ murder?
Taking it one step further, what if I revealed Whitman was fae?
The public already knew magic was real and mages lived among them.
What was one more fairytale in their midst?
Even if not everyone believed me, the tide of public opinion concerning him would turn under the scrutiny, and ruining his reputation was as good as stealing his magic.
He was never going to take that risk. Not when he’d already lost it once in Faerie.
“Of course, turn them over to me, and you’ll be free to join your family,” Whitman said, gaze steady, and he was a damn good liar.
If we were anyone else, I’d have believed that soothing tone of voice, hook, line, and sinker.
Or maybe he did intend to let me go... just long enough to follow me to them.
“Alderson, untie Mr. and Mrs. Lovely and escort them to the door. Mason and Wilkes, wait outside the office. I’d like a word alone with Mr. Daring. ”
As soon as the gag was out of his mouth, Ted pleaded, “Kit,” his voice raw and emotional. He knew I didn’t have any documents. He knew what was going to happen, but I couldn’t let him ruin his chance to get away.
“Ted, you need to get Mary-Alice out of here. She’s the most important thing right now.
Take my keys, my car is parked out front, and you get good and gone all right?
I left money for you under the seat. It’s enough to last a while.
Take it and go to the place Mom always wanted to visit. I’ll find you there, promise.”
I’d told him the story so many times, curled up in our room when he asked in his little boy voice for me to tell him all about her, missing her. He had to remember.
Ted’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. He didn’t take the keys for a long moment, so I grabbed his hand and made him. “Kit…”
“I never should’ve left you behind, Teddy. Think of this as making it up to you.” He shook his head, denying it, but he had to let me go. He had to. “Mary-Alice needs you, doesn’t she?”
“Ted,” she said, voice sweet, nowhere near as scared as she ought to sound. Had she been through a high-stakes stand-off before? “We’ve got to go. Kit’s right, I need you to come with me.”
Ted tore his gaze from mine to look at Mary-Alice. Something in her expression made his shoulders straighten as he pulled himself together. Relief flooded me, and I locked my knees to keep from crumbling.
“You better come find us,” Ted muttered, sounding exactly like when he was eight and I promised to buy him candy if he kept quiet when Dad was drunk and mean. “I’ll never forgive you if you make me wait forever.”
“I’ll do my best.” It wasn’t a lie if I meant it. I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Even a hopeless one.
When they left, and it was only me and Whitman, he sat on the edge of his desk.
“I’m not the bad guy here, Mr. Daring, no matter what you think.
Anyone would have reacted the way I did.
Your father had already stolen your mother and ruined my life, I was a laughingstock in Faerie.
My intended stolen by a human without even a smidge of magic?
Do you know what that did to me? I was an advisor to the king.
I lost everything.” He paused. “And worse than losing power, I loved her more than anyone in the realms. And she left me.”
Disgust curdled in my stomach. “If you loved her so much why kill her? You could’ve had a fresh start here. You didn’t have to take her life and destroy ours.”
Fury curled Whitman’s lip, and his eyes did that thing again.
“We were betrothed from infancy. Do you understand how long that is for fae? Think millennia. I had plans in motion to take power. I would have been king. And she took it all away for your worthless, spineless, human father. She expected me to understand as her best friend. Yet even though I hated it, I didn’t stop her.
I let her go. I thought she’d come back once he died. ”
This part hadn’t been in her song. “Only she didn’t. She kept him alive, she kept him sane, and you lost everything you ever wanted.”