Chapter 7
Ione didn't open the gates.
That was the first thing she said.
I believed her.
Not because she was innocent.
She wasn't.
Because she looked more terrified than I had ever seen her.
“My code was in the old family book.”
I stared at her.
“What book?”
Merritt closed his eyes.
Another secret.
Wonderful.
I looked at him.
“What book?”
“Emergency codes.”
“Where?”
“Your father's study.”
“This study?”
“No.”
He pointed toward the north wing.
“Old one.”
I remembered.
Locked since Lucian died.
Nobody used it.
Except apparently everybody.
“Who has access?”
Ione answered.
“Senior family.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“Names.”
She gave them.
I knew every one.
Two were dead.
Ione.
Merritt.
Graham.
My cousin Stephen.
And one name I hadn't expected.
Elias.
I looked toward the door.
No.
Not yet.
I refused to become stupid because betrayal was fashionable that night.
Trust had to mean something until evidence killed it.
My radio crackled.
Elias again.
“Three vehicles entered.”
“How many men?”
“Unknown.”
“Gate closed?”
“Yes.”
“Lock it.”
“Already done.”
Good.
I looked at Graham.
“You told Silas to come.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
He smiled.
“You still think tonight has one plan.”
That sentence bothered me.
He was right.
Ione's plan.
Drug me.
Bring two Wren couriers.
Force a negotiation.
Graham's plan.
Bring four armed men.
Cut the lights.
Take Nash.
Kill me.
But someone else had just opened the front gate using Ione's code.
A third plan.
I hated third plans.
They usually belonged to people who intended to survive the first two.
“Where is Stephen?” I asked.
One of the capos looked around.
Nobody answered.
My cousin Stephen Halbrook had been at dinner.
Forty-one.
Quiet.
Polite.
Sat six seats from Merritt.
His chair was empty.
I hadn't noticed when he left.
That annoyed me.
“Find him.”
Two bodyguards moved.
Ione whispered:
“Cassian.”
I turned.
“He asked about Nash last week.”
“What?”
“Stephen.”
“Asked what?”
“Whether Nash still slept in the nursery.”
My hand tightened.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I thought he was being kind.”
I stared at her.
“This family is going to kill itself with that sentence.”
Merritt looked away.
Another radio call.
This time from Miles upstairs.
“Boss.”
“Yes.”
“Nash is asking for you.”
“Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay with him.”
“He keeps saying something.”
“What?”
Pause.
“He says Uncle Stephen took his lion.”
I froze.
“What lion?”
“Wooden one. Small.”
I knew it.
Nash's mother had given it to him before she died.
Hand-carved.
Dark walnut.
Nash slept with it for almost a year.
He had stopped carrying it everywhere, but it remained beside his bed.
“What does Stephen want with a child's toy?”
Miles answered:
“I don't know.”
I did.
Not yet.
But something moved in my memory.
My wife, Camille.
Two weeks before she died.
Sitting beside Nash's crib.
Holding that same lion.
She had said something strange.
If anything ever happens to me, don't let your family throw this away.
I had assumed grief made me remember it more dramatically than it happened.
Now I wasn't sure.
I turned toward Ione.
“Did Camille know about Wren?”
Her eyes widened.
There.
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“She found letters your father kept.”
“Letters?”
“From Silas.”
“And?”
Ione swallowed.
“She found out someone inside the Halbrook family had kept contact with him after your father died.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
I stared at her.
“Camille did.”
Ione nodded.
I thought about the wooden lion.
About Stephen taking it.
About my wife dying eighteen months earlier after a sudden illness that none of us understood.
Something cold opened inside me.
“What was inside the lion?”
Ione whispered:
“I don't know.”
Then Nash's voice came through the radio in the background.
Small.
Urgent.
“Daddy!”
I grabbed the radio.
“Nash.”
“Uncle Stephen said Mommy hid bad people's names.”
Every person in the study went still.
I looked at Ione.
Then Merritt.
Then Graham.
My wife had known there was a traitor.
May you like
She had hidden something before she died.
And now my cousin had taken the one object she specifically told me never to lose.
