Chapter 32
Rafe
Wyatt pinched the bridge of his nose. “She had the guard in green?”
I nodded grimly as I picked up one of Wyatt’s trinkets from the book case. This one was a highly polished, pale blue, round rock. It was so shiny, I could see my reflection. I raised my eyebrows a few times, then tilted so my nose looked huge in the reflection.
“And get this, Raaz was right there in the bed chamber.” I said.
“No,” Wyatt looked horrified.
“Alright, so not the bed chamber. But right inside the door to her living space. Weird, right?” I pressed my finger into the rock, leaving an oily fingerprint behind.
Wyatt hadn’t seen. “And Hugo was okay with it?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the P. “She was close to hysterics, going on about how the lesser always blames her for everything.”
“Fuck,” Wyatt hissed through his teeth.
“How was your father’s?”
We hadn’t had a chance to chat when I’d brought him back to the academy. He’d been in a shitty mood, barking orders at me to make sure Skye and Aiden’s new room had all the snacks they liked. Wyatt would never appreciate how hard it was for me to find the abhorrent shrimp puff things Skye liked.
I’d been spending my nights in the new dorm instead of his apartment, and while I could tell it annoyed him, he also pretended to hate me staying in the apartment, so he refused to comment on my new accommodations.
Wyatt stared into the sunlight spilling through his window. “Lauren could barely get up the stairs while assisted.”
I froze.
Well. That was certainly a good reason for a shitty mood.
“That’s…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say.
I’d always made fun of Lauren. She was a bit of an airhead, and while we were kids, she was the bad guy keeping Wyatt’s parents from being together. The jokes remained even as we grew up and realized that obviously wasn’t true.
It’d been a while since Wyatt had mentioned her, though. Last I’d heard, Lauren was responding well to some new medication. Now she could barely walk?
“And…” Wyatt shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Dick made a comment. About Willow. It’s…not sitting right with me.”
Nothing Dick did or said sat right with me. The man was the closest thing to a super villain that I’d ever seen, and my family Chain came in contact with a lot of bad people.
“She comes in the office, pissed as all hell–”
“About Lauren?” I asked.
Wyatt sighed deeply, before speaking quietly, hiding his eyes behind his hand.
“My father was telling me to connect with Skye by any means necessary. I was shocked…I just…sat there. I didn’t know what to say.
I was already thrown off over Lauren. Willow stormed in, and then dad looks at her, and…
he says, ‘go change, you look like your mother’. ”
I suddenly felt as if I’d been punched in the gut.
Holy. Fuck.
“She’s not safe there,” I said urgently. “Wyatt, we have to do something.”
“I know,” Wyatt ground out. “But what? Lauren won’t leave him, Willow won’t leave her. Willow is so fucking mad at me.”
“I get it,” I said. And I did. My mother all but hated my father, but there was no getting rid of him. Our biology was fucked up in that way.
Wyatt scrubbed a hand down his face. “I can’t believe you didn’t punch me for not doing anything about it.”
“I still can,” I offered. “But seriously, Wyatt. This is…”
“I know,” Wyatt said quietly. “Willow’s never been mistreated by our father. Not in the way I was.”
“According to the story you just told, that could change. Very quickly, if it hasn’t already.”
Wyatt winced. “I know.”
“And she still doesn’t want my help?” I asked, just to confirm.
I’d never actually personally spoken to Willow about her mother.
She was always in such a happy mood, I found myself trying to avoid ruining it.
Willow already thought I disliked her, probably because she remembered me as her older brother’s asshole friend when we were teenagers, but I did like her.
She was important to me, and not just because she was important to Skye or Wyatt.
She was a sort of younger sister figure for me, too.
“She doesn’t,” Wyatt said softly.
I opened my mouth to ask the next question, and Wyatt pulled an old, leather-bound journal from his desk drawer.
All thoughts about Willow and Lauren and Dick fled my mind as I jumped up and down like a kid begging for candy, catching the book as Wyatt tossed it to me.
I plopped down on the couch, making the wooden frame groan, and Wyatt’s jaw ticked in irritation. I stared down at the gem in my hands, vibrating with excitement.
Richard Craig’s court manifest.
I kicked my feet before ripping it open and speed reading through each page.
Wyatt kicked his feet up on his desk, reclining slightly in his creaky leather chair.
“Does he know?” I asked as my eyes ran over a line about Regina Wilson, reading ‘client appears lucid, understands what she did was wrong, insists she’d do it again’.
“Of course not,” Wyatt scoffed. “He’d have fucking killed me.”
“That’s never happening, Wy.” I hummed as I turned another page, reading another line.
‘Client will not give reasoning for attack, claims she had no choice (sure).’
I grinned, reading on.
Richard detailed everything about Regina, even down to her choices in outfit for court that he made her change several times. He described her as short-tempered, easily excitable, and hard to calm down.
I snorted. That…weirdly sounded like me, minus the short temper part.
God, I would love to annoy a fucking psycho like her.
Which would be easy, apparently. Richard went on to explain how Wilson passed every mental health assessment she underwent, and even the court’s experts agreed she was competent, almost frighteningly so.
I could hear Wyatt speaking in the background of my thoughts, but my attention was caught on several lines.
Client becomes angry when asked why she was at the festival.
Client becomes enraged when asked who she was with.
Client refuses to speak about personal relationships.
Client laughs when asked if the leader of the Pilgrims put her up to the attack.
“What?” I muttered, re-reading the notes over again. She was associated with the Pilgrims, that was well known, but…
“Rafe?” Wyatt’s voice filtered back in.
“Holy shit,” I cried suddenly.
Client refuses to speak about personal relationships.
Client laughs when asked if the leader of the Pilgrims put her up to the attack.
“What?” Wyatt asked, sitting up straighter. “I’ve read the whole thing, what are you–”
“What if the massacre was…” I trailed off, reading so quickly I couldn’t speak at the same time.
Wyatt only stared at me in that way that meant he thought I was losing it.
I stood, re-reading the entire page over.
Client becomes agitated when discussing past relationships.
Client becomes aggressive when discussing the victims.
Client does not get along with Tina or Patty. Swapped in Tim, issue resolved.
“Oh, my God.” I said, pacing back and forth. “What if…Wyatt. You saw her with the Crusader. You’re absolutely fucking sure?”
“Yes,” Wyatt snapped. “It was the man you showed me from the gala. The one who wanted to collect you.”
“Ohhhhhhhhh. My. God.”
I tossed the journal down onto the couch before sinking to my knees, resting my elbows on the sitting cushion.
“Wyatt,” I breathed. “I’m about to say the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever said.”
“Hard to believe,” Wyatt commented. “Shoot.”
“What if the massacre was a…lover’s quarrel?”
Wyatt blinked at me. “You’re losing it.”
“No,” I hissed. “Think about it. The Pilgrims were at the massacre looking for someone, that’s what Shafer told us. Regina wasn’t supposed to cause a lightning strike.”
“But she also wasn’t there with the Pilgrims…” Wyatt said.
“No, but she was with the Crusader just now in the islands. Why wouldn’t she have been then, too? What if…they were together?” I said.
Wyatt stared at me like I was insane, but then his mind caught up.
“Okay. You think– what? They were at a festival to snatch a rare affinate and got into it over whose family they’d be visiting for the holidays? Be realistic.”
Be realistic? Was he serious? That was the most realistic reason for an argument ever.
“No,” I said slowly, because he was an idiot. “They were there for someone, but Shafer was distracted by Skye. We know the Crusader collects rare affinates. They weren’t there for Skye, but what if the Crusader changed his mind after the Sensors felt her? What if–”
“You think he decided to kidnap Skye?” Wyatt said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I agreed, back to my feet and pacing.
I was missing something.
What was I missing?
“He recognized Skye,” Wyatt said. “He thought she was her mom.”
“What if the Crusader had been involved with Skye’s mother? It tracks. His reaction to Skye, his reaction to learning of Iris’ death at the massacre…”
Wyatt stood up so quickly, his chair rolled back into the wall.
“Holy fuck!” he cried.
“They go to the festival to snatch someone. Shafer is distracted, so Crusader goes to check it out. But he becomes distracted by his old flame. Regina, the new crazy flame, loses her shit in a jealous rage, then sets off the lightning bomb. Then they take their original target…the other missing affinate, the one that isn’t Levi. Some kid.”
“Rafe…” Wyatt said slowly. “I…”
“What?” I turned back to face him, feeling like my own face had to be just as pale as his.
“The eyes,” Wyatt whispered, sounding pained. “How did we not realize before?”
The eyes?
My brain grinded to a halt.
The Crusader’s pale blue eyes.
So pale, one might call them…silver.
“He didn’t just run into an old flame,” Wyatt said quietly. “He ran into an old family.”
After nearly an hour of Wyatt and I talking in circles, Wyatt made a strangled sound as we prepared to leave.
I jumped. “What is it?”
“Someone…fucking…look at this!” Wyatt grabbed his stapler, and it didn’t move. He slammed his hand against his desk lamp, then winced when it didn’t move at all. He shook out his hand. “Someone fucking…glued all my shit down?!”
I snorted, then laughed. “What the hell?”
I stood, leaning in to examine the lamp more closely.
It was glued down, alright.
Come to think of it…
At the same moment, Wyatt and I both tried to shove different items off the desk.
Only nothing moved.
Sure enough, everything on top of Wyatt’s desk was glued in place, right down to the hard candies sitting in a glass dish. My mischievous heart was pounding in excitement.
This was hilarious.
A solid prank.
As we investigated, I found an empty carton of superglue inside it’s package in one of the drawers. They’d used his own superglue, which meant they came up with this idea on the fly.
A masterful prankster if I’d ever seen one.
Wyatt did not appreciate the prank.
Even if it’d been done to someone else, he insisted he would not appreciate the prank.
My best friend was a complete and utter buzzkill.
By the end of our desk investigation, he was fuming, spitting mad.
I left him in his office, red in the face, wracking his brain trying to figure out who could have done such a thing.
If he weren’t so angry, he would’ve seen how obvious the answer was. There was only one person we knew who was capable of unlocking any door, no matter how hard the mechanism. And he’d pissed that person off something fierce.
I smiled to myself as I melted into the shadows in the far corner of his office.
Our Key was hilarious.