Chapter Twelve
Valli
My follow-up pile is finally at an end, with only one slip left. I hate loose ends, and I have figured out everything so far. Nixie has been the best boss I have ever worked for, and she pays me well. I don’t think I have ever seen my bank balance go up before.
The office is slow, and Nixie is on the mainland until tonight, as she had a meeting with the bank and some new suppliers.
So I take the opportunity to spread the vendor logs across her desk—mine is too small—and do what she taught me.
Cross-reference everything, follow the money, and ask myself one good question instead of multiple irrelevant ones.
The house number on the slip belongs to the vacant lot at the end of the residential area that is being renovated.
It sits beside the Jester’s house. Yet the kitchen has been billing meals to it for weeks.
Three meals a day. I find the start date and my stomach drops.
The deliveries started the day Cipher was shot.
Like Noa said, there are a dozen possible explanations. It could be the overtime crew needing to bill it somewhere, and the kitchen assigned it to the empty lot. I call down to the kitchen and get one of Rue’s runners and ask about the orders.
“Oh, the funny one,” she says. “The clown picks them up himself, says it’s for his crew. It went down to two trays a day, so I guess someone on his crew left.”
I thank her and hang up. Who the hell is the clown? We have a few on the island, yet all of their meals are logged to their houses, though I double-check again to make sure.
Unless she means the Jester . . . he sort of looks like a clown.
I pull my phone out to text Noa, as he seems to know a lot about everything and everyone here on the island.
My thumb is on his name when I stop. I need to figure this one out on my own—something in my gut isn’t sitting right about this case.
Besides, I can’t have my men solve all my problems for me.
While I don’t want to keep anything from them, I also want to show them I can do this job by myself.
The best explanation is that the Jester is up to something. It makes sense, as he lives next door, and he also borrowed Noa’s hearse two days ago.
A sick thought pops into my head. Nobody has told me where my brother is; he simply vanished.
Cave confirmed he is alive, so I thought they let him go.
But if they did, surely I would’ve heard from him by now.
Rowan is the type of guy who doesn’t simply go away.
He would have needed money, and even if they had given him any, he would have blown it by now.
He is an addict and can’t be trusted. But there is no way they would have locked him away here on the island.
That makes no sense, and now I’m being crazy.
I check the rotation board and see that the Jester is on maze duty until six. Then I sign out the maintenance keys for his house and write vendor audit in the reason column. Lying about my motives could get me fired, but this mystery is eating at me, and I can’t let it go.
I try not to draw attention to myself as I walk toward the residential area. No one seems to be down this way—almost everyone will be on shift, and anyone who isn’t must not be outside.
The Jester’s house sits at the end of the row, with its staked tomatoes and herb pots. I stand on his porch and knock twice. The house next door is mid-renovation, so there is no way the actual meals are going there.
When no one answers, I use the key to let myself inside. The house is clean, and not a “man who lives by himself” clean, I mean spotless. No dishes are in the sink, and everything has a place. I feel insane for the thoughts that were running through my brain when I walked in here.
I’m an idiot. Maybe the guy is extra hungry, and who am I to question that? As I walk toward the front door, I freeze at the sound of a muffled cough from beneath me.
I scan the kitchen and notice the pantry door is cracked.
When I step toward it, my hands shake. Could someone be in there?
I’m taken aback when I realize it’s no ordinary pantry; there is a door inside with a slide bolt.
I shift it back and push open the door, which reveals a set of stairs behind it.
My heart thumps in my chest as I flick on the light.
The smell of bleach is strong as I go down the stairs, and when I hit the bottom, my gaze snags on two cell-like cages side by side.
“Valli?”
At the sound of this voice, my heart dies in my chest.
I don’t remember moving, but now I stand at the bars, my hands covering his. My brother is thinner than when I last saw him and pale. Rowan’s eyes flash through a range of emotions—relief, anger, shame—all ones I have seen him wear before, but right now my own anger simmers.
“Thank God it’s you and not him. He wears bells so I can hear him coming.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Is he with you?”
“No. Rowan, look at me. How long have you been down here?”
“Since that night. They brought me back here.”
The room tilts. He’s been down here that long, and I wasn’t told about it.
“Who?” I ask. I already know, but I need him to say it because some part of me is hoping that it’s not true.
“Your scarecrow, and that Jester. The Scarecrow only comes once or twice a week, but the Jester is here every day.”
He tells me about everything that has happened down here.
That he is fed, and no one has touched him yet.
I want to ask what he means by yet, but I don’t.
Betrayal hits me hard. Cave knows better.
I might not want Rowan in my life, but I don’t want him dead either.
He is my brother, one of the last pieces of my father.
We may not share the same mother, but Rowan is still my blood.
I make myself step back from the bars and check the rest of the room.
The cell beside him has a cot, just like his, but it seems emptier.
Rowan has a lamp and books, whereas the other is colder somehow, and the cot has no mattress.
It also has a drain in the center, and the smell of bleach is coming from that direction.
“Who was in there?”
“Steedy,” Rowan answers. “They caught him, too, but the things I had to listen to. And don’t look at the bathtub.” He swallows hard. “A few nights ago, I heard the bells, and he dragged Steedy out of here. I know that I’m next.”
I press the back of my wrist to my mouth and breathe through it as my brother watches me. He has spent his whole life reading me, and his face changes when he sees me processing everything.
“You have to get me out.” His hands pass through the bars, catching mine again.
“Tonight, Valli. Please, I can’t be next.
He told me I was next. Said he was waiting for you to be strong enough to help him do it.
Do you understand what I’m telling you? They want you to kill me.
I told you they were up to something, and you didn’t listen.
They don’t love you, Valli, they’re killers.
What happens if you do something they don’t like? ”
“Stop.”
“Mom would be sick if she knew.”
“Stop!” My tone surprises Rowan, and he realizes my demand is serious.
“Did anyone follow you?” he asks quickly. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
And there he is, the brother I despise, always trying to manipulate me. “I need a second to think.”
“There is no time to think.”
“I have to think.”
I back up toward the stairs as he reaches through the bars.
Rowan’s face morphs into the man I know right in front of me.
I can’t tell anymore which parts are true and what he is putting on.
There is no way my men would do this without a good reason.
I haven’t known them all that long, but they have done nothing but be good to me.
“I’ll come back, I promise.”
“VALLI!” he screams, then his voice drops. “If you leave me down here, you’re one of them.”
I run back up the stairs and into the kitchen, where I gasp for air, grasping the edge of the counter.
Right in front of me there is a bowl with a set of two keys.
I stare at it for a long time, not knowing what to do.
I don’t want my brother to die, but what happens if I let him out?
Will we repeat the same cycle that we have been stuck in since our parents died?
What happens when his actions affect Leni?
She is in a good place right now and happier than she has ever been.
Her life has to mean something—Rowan and I are lost causes, but she has a chance to do better, be more successful.
No, I need time to think, and they haven’t killed him yet. If what he says about the Jester is true, then Rowan is mine to kill, so he won’t die anytime soon. I need time to think and come up with a plan.
So I take a deep breath and lock the house behind me, then walk back the same way I came. The whole way back my mind spins with questions surrounding Cave and the Jester. I thought they barely knew each other. How much do Noa and Cipher know? How many of them have been lying to me?
I return to the office and sign the key back in, then go about the rest of my day.
When I get back to the shed, dinner is ready.
Noa has really embodied the claimed househusband name he has given himself.
Cipher is telling him all about the machine he is rebuilding, and Noa keeps saying the wrong name for the parts, which gives Cipher a twitchy eye.
Cave puts the biggest piece of chicken on my plate and watches me while I eat it.
I have spent weeks falling in love with these men, and it’s hard to believe that they are all lying to me.
Noa switches the conversation to Christmas, as he is already planning everything. He is helping Rue with the menu, and Leni has volunteered to help—apparently she and Noa talk at least once a day.
Cave has been assigned tree duty for the shed, and Noa wants it to be magical. Cipher talks about the lights he plans to rig up around the island in an interactive display.
“You’re quiet,” Noa says, knocking his knee into mine. “Nixie ran you into the ground today?”
“Long day, vendor stuff,” I hear myself say. It’s my first lie to them, and I hate it, but I need time to think.
Cave’s head comes up, and he looks at me across the table. “Tired,” I tell him, and I make myself smile as I reach across the table to squeeze his hand.
Once we finish eating, Cave picks me up and takes me to bed. The other two eventually join us, and I pretend to fall asleep, but I don’t. Instead, I lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling.
I’m sandwiched between them all, Cave’s heavy arm over me, Cipher at my back, and Noa’s foot hooked over mine.
Held on every side, feeling the safest I ever have as I run through everything from that night onward.
Rowan pointed a gun at me, and he was going to kill me.
He did not bat an eyelid over it, and instead he shot Cipher.
My brother was going to sell me out to Steedy to save his own ass.
I struggle with that part a lot, that he would have sold his own sister to pay his debt.
He hit me, plus add in the years of not being grateful that I saved his ass over and over again by working myself to the bone.
I know exactly who my brother is—my internal conflict is not confused about that part.
But on the other hand, he is locked in a cell, and was made to listen to whatever happened to Steedy, which I do not want to think about.
Weeks have passed and not one person has said anything to me.
The lies and secrets make me feel like we are back to square one.
I lived that life before coming here, and I never want to live it again. I thought all of this was over.
What Rowan has done in the past has no bearing on what they are doing to him now. One doesn’t cancel the other; both sides are wrong. Rowan’s harsh words ring through my head: “If you leave me down here, you’re one of them.”