She couldn’t lie to Gran, so she remained silent.
“I think about those paints that Gramps bought you. How much you put into the murals in your room.”
Quinn’s stomach somersaulted. Gran had never cared about that stuff. Or noticed.
“You should get back to it, is all I’m saying.”
Her charcoal portraits of Noah and baby Charlotte remained half-finished on her dresser. She hadn’t drawn or painted a thing since Noah died. She hadn’t wanted to. It was like something inside her had shriveled and died. Even now, after everything, she wasn’t sure how to get it back.
She finished watering the row and moved to the last one. The watering can was nearly empty. “There are more important things to do.”
“Important is relative. Other things matter, too.” Gran’s mouth worked, her wrinkled brow furrowed like she wanted to say something more but couldn’t get the words out.
Gran hesitated.
Quinn waited.
She squinted at Quinn beneath her wide brim hat, watery blue eyes as sharp and perceptive as ever.
“The world still needs beautiful things,” she said gruffly, like talking about anything that even hinted of sentimentality gave her hives. “For every thousand people who kill and destroy, there’s one gifted enough to create, to make something out of nothing.”
Quinn stared at her, too taken aback to say anything.
The old woman stripped off her gloves, rubbed her hands on her thighs, then sighed. “Think about it. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay, Gran,” Quinn said. What she wanted to say was, I love you, don’t leave me. “I’ll think about it.”
27
The General
Day One Hundred and Nine
The General paced the wide expanse of the hotel suite.
Outside his windows, Lake Michigan gleamed a picturesque sapphire blue as the sun set in a fiery explosion of taffy pink, tangerine, and scarlet.
He barely noticed.
Anger radiated through him as he waited for the sat phone to connect.
In one hand, he swirled the Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac in his crystal snifter. He swished the high-quality brandy in his mouth, relishing the rich, opulent flavors and the faint citrus zest.
Baxter had come through after all. The General didn’t know where he’d procured it; he didn’t care. He only cared that it was his.
The sat phone connected.
The General halted in his pacing, facing the floor-to-ceiling window. The orange glow of the sunset reflected off the glass. Ribbons of vibrant color streaked the clouds. The water rippled like liquid gold.
There was a moment of silence. It was intentional. The man on the other end enjoyed keeping people waiting.
The General didn’t have the patience for mind games. He preferred to orchestrate them himself and loathed when others attempted the ploy. “Don’t waste my time. What the hell are you doing?”
“Be more specific.” The voice was deep and resonant. Persuasive. Though he was essentially no better than a mafia don, the man’s English was perfect—clipped, impatient, implying a smooth, manipulative intelligence.
“Don’t play mind games with me, Poe.”
Alexander Poe gave a humorless chuckle. “At any one time, I’m planning a dozen moves on a dozen different boards.”
“I’ve received multiple reports that you’ve overrun South Bend and Mishawaka and are amassing your men at the Indiana border. Do not think that you can cross into my territory without dire consequences.”
Silence on the other end. “I do not appreciate being threatened.”
“Well, consider this a threat!” the General said.
He hadn’t expected the Syndicate to grow so strong, so quickly. Northern Indiana had been swiftly overrun. He had expected more resistance.
Perhaps he had underestimated the devastating effects of winter upon a weak and helpless population. Disease, hypothermia, and starvation had ravaged the ranks of those who might have fought back.
The General took a long swallow of cognac. It didn’t calm him in the slightest. “Remember who’s in charge here.”
“I remember who my benefactor is. I do not forget. Not for one single second.” Poe spoke evenly, without inflection, and yet the General heard the subtext—a savage resentment behind those few simple words.
The General drained his crystal glass and closed his eyes for a moment, thinking.
He had met Poe once at a fancy fundraiser dinner for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. A mob kingpin, but he was no tracksuit-wearing thug. He was educated and intelligent, poised and graceful as a leopard.
Poe wore expensive name brand suits and drank fine wines. He finagled underhanded financial deals and cut-throat business propositions in elegant restaurants, on high-brow golf courses, and during elite dinner cruises with lobbyists, politicians, and high-ranking city officials.
He smiled and laughed like other men, but unlike other men, his eyes were empty. He was utterly ruthless, with no family, friends, or loyalties. Ambitious and greedy.
Not unlike the General himself.
They both desired the whole world on a platter.
Poe had had the manpower—his Syndicate formed a wide network of thugs, gangsters, and criminals he’d built over two decades ruling the underbelly of crime in Chicago.
But he couldn’t do real damage without upgrading his weaponry.
He needed the keys to the kingdom.
Keys which the General had generously provided him.
For it was the General himself who’d supplied Alexander Poe with the resources he needed to gain control of Chicago. And from there, most of Illinois.
The locations of local armories. Access to certain clandestine storage facilities. Covert military shipments authorized to undisclosed classified recipients.
The Syndicate thugs carried long guns—mostly military-issued M4s—and wore BDUs, the name tapes and patches removed from their uniforms. They looked like soldiers, intentionally preying upon a civilian’s natural inclination to respect and obey American armed forces.
That, too, had been the General’s idea.