“You can have mine,” Balthazar said, passing his drink over. “Please.”
Odette accepted it without complaint. Charlie poured Balthazar amaretto instead, which he took gratefully.
“You see the news?” he asked Odette.
“About Lionel?” Odette made a disgusted sound. “The funny thing is that I always knew he was a sadist, and a bit of a narcissist. But interesting and, I thought, self-aware. You can know who someone is, and still have no idea of how far they will go. I thought I understood his limits, and now I have to ask myself if it was because I didn’t want the discomfort of realizing he had none.”
Charlie took a sip of her drink and wondered about her own limits.
“Now they’re saying he might be responsible for the death of Fiona’s sweet boy.”
“Edmund Carver,” Balthazar said, enunciating each syllable, his gaze going to Charlie.
“I thought his mother’s name was Kiara,” Charlie said.
Odette nodded. “Yes, I am referring to Salt’s first wife. That’s how he and I met, through Fiona. Poor old thing. First losing her daughter, then her grandson, and now this. All within the span of two years.”
“How is it that you know absolutely everyone?” Balthazar asked.
“Ah, but do I know any of them well?” Odette looked into the mirror, as though studying her own face.
Balthazar sat up straighter. “Well, let me distract us from this increasingly morbid conversation with a bit of news. Do either of you know Murray, of Murray’s Fine Jewelry?”
“Sure,” Charlie said, thinking of the silver inkpot and candlesticks she needed to sell. “Why?”
“He closed the pawnshop,” Balthazar said, raising his eyebrows. “Struck it rich. Retiring to Boca, apparently.”
Odette gave a delicate little snort. “You make it sound as though he dug up a pot of gold in his backyard.”
“Practically,” Balthazar agreed. “Rumor has it that he won it all with one lucky bet at the racetrack.”
“Huh,” Charlie said. “Imagine that.”
* * *
The three-day wait to see Vince was awful. Charlie’s mind kept darting back and forth between scenarios. What if the Cabal lied and hurt him after all. What if they wanted to experiment on him. What if they decided his existence was too big of a risk. What if they wouldn’t let her see him after all. Her mind would careen along one path and then another, making imaginary moves and countermoves, a chess game played against herself to no purpose except indulging her anxiety. A snake eating its own tail and then choking on it.
At least by then she and Posey were back in their house. Winnie from Vince’s work had been the tech hired to get rid of the bloodstains. She’d messaged Charlie to say that she’d done an extra thorough job on account of her friendship with Vince. She’d also given Charlie a whole bunch of information she never wanted about the weirdest places she’d found bits of Adam.
For her part, Posey had spent the last few days with Malhar. She claimed that he was just doing some tests, now that she’d agreed to join his study, but Charlie thought there were too many meals involved for that to be strictly true.
But it did mean Charlie was left with a lot of nervous energy and no one to snap at as she got ready, pulling on black jeggings, boots, and a sweater without any holes in it. The pants were stretchy enough that if she needed to do some quick moves, they could accommodate. And the boots were heavy enough to hurt if someone needed to get kicked in the head.
Charlie’s Corolla was in the shop, but she’d managed to locate Vince’s van two blocks from the East Star Motel. She found keys behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. Shoving two parking tickets into the glove compartment, she’d taken it home.
That’s what she drove over to Bellamy’s stronghold.
True to his mysterious nature, he’d taken over a watchtower in Holyoke. It was accessible only by trail and appeared abandoned from the outside.
The front door was rotted along the bottom, its hinges thick with rust. Charlie knocked, hard.
A few moments later it creaked open, revealing a girl with a shaved head and thick black makeup around her eyes. One magnetic eyelash hung slightly askew. A new piercing on her cheek appeared red and infected. Her shadow swirled around her like a snake ready to strike. Probably some kind of apprentice.
“I’m here to see Vince,” Charlie said.
“Who?” the girl asked.
If Bellamy and the others thought they were going to blow Charlie off, she was going to make every single one of them sorry. “The Blight.”
“Oh,” the girl said. “Right. Come in. They’re expecting you.”
The inside had the appearance of a castle, or a tomb. The girl led her through chambers of bare concrete walls, occasionally marked with graffiti, and up a flight of stairs, to a room hung with brocade curtains. Thin red taper candles burned in silver skull Halloween candelabras. The cold cement floor was piled with cushions.
Lounging on a red velvet beanbag was Bellamy.
Charlie looked around warily. “Where is he?”
“We’re holding him in a room at the top of the tower, like a princess waiting for rescue,” Bellamy said. “Unharmed.”
“He’s leaving today,” Charlie told him. “With me.”
Bellamy took a sip from a delicate cup, thin enough to be translucent. Bone china. “Go and speak with your Blight. Up the stairs. Up, up, up. We’ll talk again after.”
Charlie didn’t like the sound of that, but in her eagerness to see Vince, she let it go. She started back toward the stairs and was stopped by a woman’s voice.
“Ms. Hall,” Adeline Salt said. She sat on a slightly ripped couch in a room full of locked metal cases of books.
She had on dark-wash jeans and an emerald-colored blouse that tied in a bow underneath her throat. Balanced on her thighs was a computer, its case rose gold. She had that strangely burnished look that wealthy people have, hair extra smooth and skin extra glowing.
She couldn’t have looked more out of place.
Charlie leaned against the opening, not quite entering the room.
“You’ve come to see Red, is that right? Oh good, I’m sure he will like that. He was asking for you.” Adeline’s smile was completely disingenuous.
“Vince,” Charlie said.
It was interesting to see Adeline trying to decide whether to argue over his name. It obviously bothered her, not that Charlie called him something else, but Charlie acting as though the name he went by with her was his real one. Well, it was what he called himself.
“I’ve spoken to the Cabal. He’s going to come home with me. I’m going to be his guardian, and he’ll be able to pick up where Edmund’s life ended.” Oddly, there seemed to be a flicker of fear in her eyes.
“How exactly is he going to do that?” Charlie asked.
“I’ve already begun the process of voiding the death certificate.” Adeline smiled again, stiffly. “You understand that’s for the best, don’t you? Red will be very wealthy. And he’ll only be bound to me for a few years.”
The idea that Adeline might be considered a guardian for Vince, when by all rights she should be the one punished, was enraging. The possessive tone in her voice made it worse, and a whole lot creepier. “Maybe that’s not what he wants.”
Adeline tossed back her hair. “You think he’d rather be skulking around with a thief?”
“I think he’d rather do almost anything than live in your father’s house,” Charlie said.
“You didn’t hear?” One perfectly manicured eyebrow arched. “My father died that night, after being left alone with you. Stabbed thirty-three times with a letter opener.”
“Tragic,” Charlie said archly. She had heard.
“What did you do to him in there?” Adeline asked silkily.
“I took his gun away and cut off his shadow,” Charlie told her. “Whatever happened after that, I wasn’t there for it.”
“Convenient.” Adeline sneered.