Child of Fire (22 page)

I drove out there and bought a detective novel, then drove across town and ordered my pad thai. I was tempted to eat in the restaurant window and read my book. We were stirring up the town, trying to see what would float to the top. I should be visible for that, just to see what shook out. But I didn’t like leaving Annalise alone, not if she was dying. I ordered takeout.

I drove back to the motel, and as far as I could tell, no one was following me. No one had staked out the motel either. After checking in on Annalise, I went to my room, ate, read three chapters, then fell asleep.

I dreamed about fire all night.

I awoke to a thumping on my door. It was Cynthia, and she looked terrified.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I’m sorry,” she said, glancing back toward the street nervously. Everything cast long shadows; it was very early, probably no more than an hour past dawn. “But I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

“Er, come in.” I stepped away from the door to let her in. I had fallen asleep wearing my pants, but I didn’t
have a shirt on. I could feel Cynthia watching me as I dug out a clean one.

I retreated to the bathroom to wash my face. I used cold water. I was sure she hadn’t dropped by for a quick roll in the sheets.

When I returned, I gestured for her to sit at the table. I sat at the foot of the bed. After a moment’s hesitation, she lowered herself into the chair. She was wearing a long-sleeved, chocolate-brown dress that just reached her knees, white stockings, and little, flat-soled brown shoes. Simple, but she looked very good.

I made a point of looking at her eyes. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s Cabot,” she said. “Emmett let him out of prison this morning.”

“Ah, shit. Who told you this?”

“Does it matter?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

She looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Hold on,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.” I noticed the tiny coffeemaker on the table beside her. “Hey, do you want a cup of probably terrible coffee?” I stood.

She jumped out of her chair. “I’ll get it. I need something to keep me busy.”

She went into the bathroom to fill the pot, and I went to the window and peered around the edge of the curtain. Cynthia’s silver SUV was parked beside the manager’s office, but everything else looked the same.

She came out of the bathroom with a pot full of water, poured grounds into the filter, and filled the brewer halfway.

“Why don’t you fill it up,” I said. “I’m going to need it.”

“You don’t have enough coffee. Too much water and you get bitter coffee.”

I shrugged and sat on the foot of the bed again. I thought all coffee was bitter. What did I know?

“Where did you get those tattoos?” she asked. “Behind bars?”

There was something in the artificially casual tone of her voice that I didn’t trust. “No. After.”

“So you have been to jail.”

“Yep. Prison, too.”

She looked at me, trying to decide if that was a joke. She was still undecided when she started the coffeemaker.

“Why … what did you …”

I decided to help her out. “What did I do to get sent to prison?”

“Um, yeah.”

“You have an awful lot of questions for me all of a sudden. Or are these the questions you meant to ask me yesterday?”

“Well, I came here to see you, so—”

“You can go if you want. The door’s right there. But don’t think I’m going to answer a lot of questions if you won’t answer mine. Who told you that Emmett released Cabot this morning?”

“Okay. That’s fair.” She set the two cups on the table. The coffeemaker had stopped brewing, but I could see liquid still dripping into the pot. “It was Sugar Dubois.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He didn’t say, but we were in high school together. We knew each other a little, and he was always nice. Deferential, even, like some boys get when they have a crush.”

“He warned you because he had a crush on you in high school? Is there more to it than that?”

“Not to the crush. We never dated or anything. He was too far below me then. Don’t make that face. It was high school. You know what that was like.”

Actually, I didn’t. I never stayed in school for more than a couple of weeks at a time, although I’d gotten my GED in prison. Not that I was going to tell Cynthia that. “High school is over. Is he making a move on you right now?” It made sense, if the Dubois brothers wanted to consolidate power in the town.

“Ugh. I think he knows better.”

Okay. I’ll bet he did. “Do you think Emmett put him up to it?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Questions with questions.” Before she could apologize, I said: “It seems strange to me that he’d go against his own brother because of a schoolyard crush.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple. Sugar loves his brothers, but he’s always wanted to be a cop. Actually, I think he always wanted to be a cop on TV, and I don’t think the setup his brother has here in Hammer Bay is what he had in mind. He has to accept some of what they do—they’re his brothers—but letting Cabot go when he might take another shot at me … I think they went just a little too far this time.”

I didn’t say anything to that. Emmett turned into a wolf and tore people’s throats out, and I suspected his brothers were the same. Setting Cabot free was small potatoes for them.

I wasn’t sure what play Emmett was making by setting Cabot loose. Was he hoping Cabot would take another shot at Cynthia, or was he trying to keep things as chaotic as possible, just as I was?

Cynthia passed me a coffee cup. She’d filled it while I wasn’t paying attention. I took a sip. It wasn’t bitter. How about that? There’s a right way to do things after all.

“That’s what I think, anyway,” Cynthia said. She sipped her coffee and winced. It was obviously below her standards. To me, it was wonderful. “Now, how about you?”

I shrugged. “I went to prison because I was in a fight.”

“That must have been some fight.”

“Actually, it wasn’t much of a fight at all. And it’s not something I’m proud of.”

“I’ll drop it.”

“Thanks. Why were you arguing with Cabot yesterday?”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?”

I sighed. I took a long sip of coffee and savored it. It took a few moments of silence for her to take the hint.

“We were arguing about the family business, if you think that’s important. Charles inherited the timber company from Dad, but he wasn’t interested in it. Uncle Cabot rounded up some capital and bought it. Charles used the money to start the toy company, which everyone thought was nuts, but it’s Cabot who’s going bankrupt and Charles who’s thriving.”

“So … what? Cabot felt cheated?”

“He wanted more financing from Charles to take some of the pressure off. And he wanted Charles to …” She paused, searching for the correct phrase. She had suddenly become very careful with what she said. “Charles has access to some resources that Cabot wanted to use. Advice, really. Cabot wasn’t sure which way to jump.”

That rang a bell. I couldn’t quite remember why, but I’d heard something like that before. “Charles wouldn’t help him.”

“I’m not sure why, but no, he wouldn’t. Charles wouldn’t even meet with him. Uncle Cabot began to get really intense about it. I guess he was in more trouble than anyone realized.”

“And he came to you, because?”

“He wanted me to help him with Charles. I don’t know what he expected. I don’t own any part of Charles’s company, and I barely see him myself anymore.”

“What do you live on?”

“Trust fund,” she said carelessly. “The interest is more than I need, so I invested some instead of blowing it. I’m doing pretty well right now.”

“Does Cabot know that?”

“Hell no, and don’t tell him, either. I’m not throwing my money down his rat hole.”

“So he thinks Charles has all the money. And you don’t have any pull with your brother. Did you explain that to him?”

“Sure, but he didn’t believe me.”

I shrugged. “Neither do I.”

“Excuse me?” She sounded irritated.

“People shoot each other for all kinds of stupid reasons. I mean, really stupid. I bunked with a guy who shot his brother-in-law over who deserved the biggest piece of chicken. But what you’re describing is all wrong. If Cabot was going to shoot anyone, it would be Charles, for refusing to help him. Why would he pop one off at you? Charles is in town, right? I’ll bet Cabot knows where to find him. So, either he knows you have a good-sized nest egg, or there’s something else going on.”

“He must know about the nest egg,” she said, a little too quickly. Her voice sounded shaky, but I didn’t ease up on her.

“I still don’t believe you. Let’s cut the bullshit. Cabot wanted to use you against your brother. He had a plan, and he made an offer to you—I don’t know, more money or control of the toy company or something, right? He wanted you to help him with a hostile takeover.”

“That’s for publicly traded companies. Hammer Bay Toys is privately owned.”

“Fine. I don’t know a thing about high finance. In that case, he wanted you to have your brother declared incompetent.”

Cynthia blinked. Bingo.

“Right. Charles has been having seizures. Has he been to a doctor? I’d guess not. He’s too busy with his company, and he brushes off anyone who asks about them.”

“Who told you about his seizures?”

“Everyone knows. I saw one the night Harlan Semple shot up downtown. What did Cabot promise? You file commitment papers on your brother, and he’d support you? You’d get control of the toy company and he’d get an infusion of cash? Or you’d sell the company and split the proceeds? And Charles would get the medical care he’d need. I’ll bet he told you this was the best thing for Charles.”

She stared at me. The look on her face told me that I wouldn’t be doing the job Annalise had given me anytime soon. “Okay. Yes. That’s the pitch he made, basically.”

I didn’t push that
basically
. I suspected that Cabot knew about Charles’s spell book and that he wanted it for himself.

But did Cynthia know about it? And if so, how much? I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t want to push too hard and shut her down. She’d just been shot at, and I could see the fear in her. Besides, I had more important things to worry about.

“Where’s your brother?”

“What does that have to do with my uncle?”

“Questions with questions,” I said.

“Tough shit,” she snapped. Her anger put some strength back into her voice. “What does it have to do with Uncle Cabot?”

I shrugged and drained the rest of my coffee. It made me hungry. “Nothing. My boss and I want to meet with him.”

“About what?”

Fine. I set the cup down. “Why are you here, telling me about your uncle?”

Suddenly, she wouldn’t look at me. “I’m afraid … I think he might come after me again. I can’t ask Emmett for help. Or Sugar, either. Not now. I want … I need someone to help me.”

Damn. She wanted me to kill him.

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, still not looking at me. She knew very well what she wanted, but she wouldn’t say it.

“Why don’t you leave town? You could be in Sea-Tac in less than three hours. From there, you could go anywhere in the world. I hear New York is nice in the spring.”

“I can’t leave my brother.”

“The brother you never see? Please. Tell this story to Able Katz. He strikes me as a smart guy. He’ll square things with the Dubois brothers. He could help more than I could. But neither one of us is going to commit murder for you.”

The word
murder
didn’t make her flinch. “I have money.”

“So buy a gun. I’ll bet you can afford a nice one.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you.” She stood and turned toward the door.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. Just that I wouldn’t kill him for you. What if I talked to him? Maybe I could make him back off.” And maybe I could get him to tell me where Charles the Third was hiding.

“Would you do that?” she asked.

“Sure.” I couldn’t help smiling. “In exchange, all you have to do is show me how to make a good cup of coffee.”

We went out of the room. The shadows were a bit
shorter and the air noticeably warmer. Cynthia took out her car keys, but I wanted to stop in and tell Annalise where I was going, and also to make sure she didn’t need me.

I knocked. She told me to come in.

She was in the same position she’d been in the night before. She looked a little paler, and her eyes looked watery. Her bedcovers were rumpled, so I knew she’d had some sleep. Or at least had tried.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I opened his files. Understanding them is something else.”

“What do you mean?” I slipped into the room, and she turned the screen toward me.

“Have a look.”

I squinted at the screen. “Is that some kind of code?”

“It’s Polish. Karoly made his notes in his native language. Which I should have expected, but damn. I’m going to ask for English-speaking investigators from now on.”

“Well, it answers one of my questions, at least.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Why didn’t Emmett know about your investigation as soon as we hit town? I’m not sure what was in the note Emmett took—”

“The note isn’t on here. I checked. He must have written it by hand.”

“I thought so. We didn’t find a printer in his stuff.”

“I’m uploading the files to the society. Someone there will translate and prioritize them.”

“That’s cool. Can I see them when they come back?”

She stared at me a moment. “Maybe. It depends on what—”

The door opened. Cynthia stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She stood as close to the door as she
could without being on the other side of it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t feel safe out there alone.”

I turned to Annalise. “Emmett let Cabot out of his cell. I’m going to go have a talk with him. Cabot, I mean.”

She looked me in the eyes. There was something in her look that I didn’t understand, but it seemed to be full of meaning. It unsettled me. It was as if I was becoming something she hadn’t expected.