Page 21 of Capitol Matters (Marionette #2)

I had less than an hour left with Vinton’s spell by the time Preston and Holland said their goodbyes. Holland took her time leaving while Preston hurried to the car, leaving me to walk the investigator out.

She might have thought my actions were chivalrous but, in reality, I wanted to check on the Bronco and its contents.

We stood on the porch, awash in the afternoon sun and a sweet-smelling breeze. Hearing nothing from Donovan’s car, I breathed a little easier. I just had to see the investigator off, show Maximus Sleeping Beauty, then get out of here.

Preston steered a powder blue Volvo around the corner of the house and sat in it, idling. Through the driver’s side window, I watched him flip down the visor and check his reflection in the mirror.

“Do you really like that guy?” I nodded toward him. “Enough to help him procreate?”

Holland’s attempt to wave me off didn’t stop me from saying, “He’s a douchebag. You think the world needs more of that?”

“I think it’s none of your business.” The investigator spoke over her shoulder as she began a swift descent of the steps. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go. I prefer to only deal with you when it’s necessary.”

I recoiled, more surprised than I should have been by the remark. She’d barely made it to ground level before I called after her.

“It’s political, isn’t it? You’re being married off to create peace between the kingdoms like a medieval princess.”

Her shoulders rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh.

“Blink twice if you need rescue,” I continued to her back. “I’m sure there’s a willing knight around here somewhere.”

Holland spun in time to see me put a hand to my brow and swing side to side in a mocking survey of the area.

“Why did you come here, anyway?” she asked. “I didn’t think you and my dad were that chummy.”

I shook my head. “Oh, we’re not. I was just…” Words ran out, leaving me with only a cliché for response. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Don’t lie,” Holland snapped. “You aren’t good at it.” Judging by the scornful slant of her lips, that observation wasn’t limited to today.

Walking down the steps, I closed the gap to her. Preston remained in the car, having moved on from admiring himself to finessing his hair with a comb he’d pulled out of God knew where.

“What do you want from me, Investigator?” I asked her. “Spell it out, please, because I don’t understand. People keep telling me you’re in my corner, but all I get from you is disappointment. You hide me away from everyone like you’re ashamed. Didn’t even tell me about the gala. Why? You afraid I’ll embarrass you?”

Magic crackled down my arms, a temper flare in need of snuffing out. I’d endured her boyfriend’s heckling through lunch, and now the fire in my belly was too well-fed to fizzle out.

“If you don’t want me around,” I continued, “say the word, and I’m gone.”

It was a truth we’d danced around for weeks. She’d confessed to not having enough time or work, but maybe it was not enough interest. We had yet to make a move against the Bloody Hex despite Avery throwing everything he had at us.

“What about Donovan?” Holland countered. “You need my help to get him out of the city.”

I huffed a laugh. “You aren’t the only game in town for securing my brother’s safety, Holly.” I sneered at the nickname. “I don’t need you. Maybe you don’t need me, either.”

Her lips stayed apart, waiting for words that took a long time to come. In the silence, anger came and went in a flash, replaced by an almost sorrowful disdain.

“Did you know you used to be my favorite person?” she asked. “Things with my dad were always so structured. Strained.”

A faint smile shaped the investigator’s mouth as she gazed into the distance. “You were vibrant. You made me laugh. When you went away, all of that went with you. It was just me and Dad for a long time.”

The memory seemed to pain her enough that it spilled over onto me. It siphoned out my rage like poison being drawn from a snake bite.

“I never met anyone else like you,” Holland said, her voice suddenly thick. “I missed you so damn much. I miss you still.” She swiped a finger under her sunglasses, drying tears I never saw. “And it’s hard because you look like that guy I used to know. Sometimes you even sound like him. But you’re not him.”

The past she so fondly recalled felt distant to me. Untouchable, because I buried it. Fourteen-year-old Fitch Farrow never grew up. He suffocated under Grimm’s expectations, was overshadowed by the infamy of Marionette, and lost the fight for his life by agreeing to take life from others.

I must have looked confused while I watched her choke up. She missed me? Most days I missed me, too.

When it was clear she had nothing more to add, I spoke softly. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Holland shook her head, unsettling white tresses. “There’s nothing you can say. It’s not your fault. I’m sure you’ve suffered,” her face twisted, “unspeakable things. And I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it. They ruined something beautiful. Something I loved.”

If I hadn’t already been speechless, that would have done it.

“I shouldn’t complain,” she said after a pause. “I lost a friend, but you lost everything. ”

The Volvo’s horn honked, making us both jump. Preston leaned out the window to pound on the door. Holland swiveled and held up one finger to him. Not the finger I would have used, though.

Facing me once more, she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Fitch. And of course, you’re welcome at the gala. I’ll save you a seat.”

I watched her walk down the path to the driveway, where she dropped into Preston’s car. The ambassador gave a parting wave before steering the Volvo down the tree-lined drive. The taillights glowed dimly as they faded into the distance, well out of sight by the time I heard the home’s front door close behind me.

Maximus stood on the porch, sharing my silence until he said, “I wondered what you were getting out of all this.”

Had he been listening? Lurking within earshot of everything Holland and I had said?

Trying to keep from appearing guilty was easier than stopping myself from feeling it. I raced through a mental recap of the conversation, unsure of what prompted Maximus’s statement until he clarified.

“Your brother’s alive. That’s wonderful news.”

“Shit.”

Did I say that out loud?

A laugh swelled the older man’s chest. “I’m surprised Grimm let him live. He must have hoped he’d end up with another like you. That would have been quite formidable, wouldn’t it?”

Instead, he got something downright ordinary.

Maximus walked down the steps to join me. “Well, I wish Donovan the best. And, if securing his future is the price for your service to the Capitol, I think it’s a fair one.”

His knowledge of my brother’s survival may not have been as damaging as it would have been while I was known to be working with the Bloody Hex. And so far, Donovan retained his apparent innocence. His only murder went unsolved, swept away by the plague crisis that followed immediately after.

“Good,” I said, then added, “I can still use the money, though.”

A rumbling chuckle preceded Maximus clapping his hand against my back. “Now, what was so urgent that it brought you to my door on a Sunday afternoon?”

“I’ve got a body in the car.”

His eyes shuttered. He appeared to be waiting for the punchline to my joke, but I had nothing more to say.

After a few seconds, a smile cracked his placid facade. “Discreet you are not, Mister Farrow. Very well. Show me.”

I’d had less than an hour when I first walked outside. How much of that time had I wasted? Minutes remained between Maximus finding an apparent corpse in the back of the Bronco, or a very confused woman missing her stolen lobster roll.

I hurried to the car, rushing to put a few feet between Maximus and me as I let the tailgate down and peered into the cargo area. Motionless and silent, Sleeping Beauty snoozed away. Better than sleep, this deathlike state stilled even the scarcest breath and had me doubting Vinton’s assurance that he hadn’t killed her, after all.

I was so focused on the search for signs of life that Maximus’s approach gave me a start. I gulped a breath as he leaned past me to scrutinize the presumed corpse.

“Such a shame,” he clucked his tongue. “How did you do it? I don’t see any wounds.”

“I… uh… stopped her heart.”

I’d done it before. Threaded magic between a man’s ribs to bind up his organs and wring the juices out.

Maximus glanced at me, and surprise lit his face. “Remarkably talented,” he said, harkening back to his claims to Preston.

“That’s me,” I muttered.

I hoped stepping back would encourage the older man to do the same, but Maximus shifted closer instead. Worry chilled me as I fought quickening breaths. Could the empath sense my concern? Was that why he felt the need to study Sleeping Beauty so intently?

“If I may ask,” he began, “what have you been doing with the bodies?”

He turned toward me, so he missed the sudden rise of Sleeping Beauty’s barreled chest. I felt the blood leave my face, adding to the cold that consumed me.

I gripped the tailgate, ready to shove it closed. “I have… contacts.”

Maximus placed a hand on the lowered gate and leaned heavily against it. “Do you?” he asked. “Still?”

No.

Yes?

Sweat dampened my brow, and I used the hem of my shirt to wipe it away .

“A few,” I replied.

Sleeping Beauty’s arm began to twitch. Minor at first, then a full-blown shift that dragged it from where it had been draped across her belly on a slide toward the floor of the Bronco’s hatch.

I caught her wrist with a mental tether and pinned it in place, then bound up the rest of her body like a mummy for burial.

Meanwhile, Maximus stroked his stubbled chin and gazed into the distance.

“Well, I am impressed with what you’ve accomplished thus far,” he said. “Do you think you’ll be able to make the deadline? Time is short.”

Time was up. For Sleeping Beauty, for me, for this cockamamie plan that had started off bad and only gotten worse.

“No problem,” I replied. “But I do have a question for you.”

And an excuse to keep his attention on me and away from the woman trying to rise from the dead scant feet away.

“By all means,” Maximus said.

“Eight people disappearing is bound to raise suspicion. Influential people, at that. The investigators will get involved—”

“You fear those suspicions may be turned on you?”

“I’m a pretty easy target.”

Any one of Holland’s underlings would jump at the chance to slap a pair of handcuffs on me and drag me back to Thorngate or straight to the guillotine to save time .

Maximus nodded. “Mister Farrow, I’m not sure how your former employer handled such things, but I do for those who do for me. As long as you are operating under my orders, you are also under my protection.”

It sounded good. Better than the Bloody Hex’s cover-your-ass mantra. Still, I would have had more faith in him if his first and only use for me hadn’t been a washed, rinsed, and repeated version of Grimm’s endless murder plot. Maximus clearly thought himself superior to my “former employer” and gang leader, but the differences I’d seen so far were minute.

I’d successfully distracted the older man and myself by proxy. I’d also put too much faith in the grip I retained on Sleeping Beauty. A glance into the Bronco’s back end found the woman staring at me. False lashes ringed her wide eyes. She strained against my control, which was already failing to compete with emotional neutrality and coherent conversation.

She drew a breath that pulled at my telekinetic restraints. It was a deep, lung-swelling gasp that would set off a siren scream. I wanted to shake my head at her or issue some kind of warning. If she only knew I was trying to spare her life.

Maximus moved his hand enough for me to grip the tailgate once more.

But the sight of me closing the door stoked Sleeping Beauty’s panic. She raised her head, her hair pressed flat on one side from lying prone for so long. And, with her belly full of air, even her sealed lips couldn’t silence the beginning of a desperate shriek.

I slammed the gate shut at the same moment I snapped her neck.

Her body fell limp. I didn’t need to see to know what it looked like. I set my jaw and turned away from the car and its contents, swallowing curse words and the sickness that surged up from my gut. Seafood was disgusting the second time around.

Maximus faced away from me, so he didn’t see me squeezing my eyes shut, clinging to scraps of composure to not betray my feelings.

I pulled the glass hatch down and latched it manually because I didn’t have the mental bandwidth for anything else.

“It appears I was right to put my faith in you,” Maximus said at length.

I gazed wearily at him.

“I’ll leave you to it from here on out,” he continued. “No need to bring any more… surprises to my doorstep.” With a rumbling laugh, he slapped my back again.

Leaving me to it apparently meant leaving me immediately. Maximus made a hasty retreat up the path to the porch then disappeared into the stately house. The double doors closed and latched, audible even from where I stood.

I waited several seconds without moving, but I couldn’t stand on Maximus Lyle’s front lawn forever. Donovan would be wanting his car back, and I needed to empty it first.

Did I have contacts? Ones who would help me deal with this? Not Ripley. He would run crying to Grimm, and I could imagine the earful Grimm would have for me about my inability to pull off what should have been a simple job.

I did know an alchemist with access to acid and the knowledge of how to dissolve a body. Failing that, Nash also lived on the edge of a bluff, where a corpse could be weighted then dropped into the depths of the ocean.

I climbed into the car, then adjusted the rearview for a glimpse of Sleeping Beauty’s legitimately lifeless form. Ruined was the word Holland used. An apt description of my plans. My life. Me. It should have hurt, but instead it made me feel hollow. Maybe that was the point.