Page 99

NINETY-NINE

XERO

My most pressing priority is the man Camila found loitering around Mrs. Crowley’s home. I have a hunch that he could be Nocturne.

Having Nocturne might take us a step closer to Father and taking him down. It might even shed light on the conspiracy of who wants to destroy Amethyst.

An hour later, I step into an interrogation room, where Camila has already set him up with a lie detector. We skip the metal sounder up the urethra, as we haven’t caught him doing anything wrong.

He sits shirtless in tuxedo pants and a black cummerbund with electrodes stuck to a scarred chest of prominent ribs. From the looks of him, I’d guess he had a rough time in prison.

A blindfold covers the top half of his face, but I recognize him instantly from Amethyst’s photo of our fathers and her Uncle Clive.

The door swings shut behind me, making him flinch.

“Who’s there?”

“I apologize for the method of our introduction, but you’re a very difficult man to track.”

He breathes hard. “I know what this is about, and I’m innocent. ”

I turn to Camila. “Have you calibrated his vitals?”

She nods. “Clive Bishop, aged forty-eight, born in Chicago, Illinois. Convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and distribution of illegal material. Served fourteen years and seven months in Alderney State Penitentiary.”

So, he really is Nocturne.

“Bishop? I thought the last name was Crowley?”

He sags in his seat. “My last name is Bishop.”

“What’s your relationship with Melonie Crowley?” I ask.

“She was married to my brother, Lyle.” He gulps. “Lyle Bishop.”

“Was?”

He coughs. “Lyle died in a car accident a month before I was arrested. He’d changed his last name after getting into trouble with the wrong crowd.”

My brow furrows. Amethyst and I both believed the road accident was bullshit, but it looks like Melonie was telling at least a partial truth. “Was he in the car alone?”

“He was with my niece,” he rasps. “She survived.”

I blow out a long breath. Amethyst hallucinated her father this entire time? I don’t understand why her mother and psychiatrist didn’t tell her he was no longer alive.

“Can I please know what this is about?” Nocturne asks.

“Are you the man who founded X-Cite Media?” I ask.

He clenches his teeth, his features twisting into a rictus of hatred. “I told you I was innocent! I may have set up the infrastructure, but I didn’t fill it with murderous filth.”

“Then who did?”

“I knew him as Dalton Greaves,” he snarls. “A business associate of my brother’s who used me as a front to broadcast snuff. When I got reported, he vanished, leaving me to get imprisoned.”

Nodding, I glance at the biometric readings and find that he’s being truthful. Nocturne’s story is consistent with the recruiter’s. I’m not even surprised at the confirmation that Father now makes snuff movies.

“Any idea where he might be now?” I ask.

His nostrils flare. “If I knew that, don’t you think I’d have gunned him down? He cost me nearly fifteen years. Because of him, I lost everything.”

“Why would I believe you?”

“That bastard did something to my niece,” he roars.

My jaw drops, and my mind conjures up those polaroids of Amethyst I posted on the wall. Father knew Amethyst?

“Explain,” I demand.

“Something happened when she was ten. Melonie visited me in my first month of prison, begging for information about Dalton. She was half mad, ranting about a car accident. Said her daughter’s safety depended on finding him, but I couldn’t help her.”

I lean forward, my breath quickening. Father got his hands on Amethyst?

Nocturne clenches his fists, his features twisted with pain. “Melonie didn’t visit after that, and I didn’t hear anything about the girl until she walked into the kitchen two weeks ago.”

I continue questioning Nocturne about the past, but his knowledge is restricted to the limited amount of information Melonie shared during that single visit. After his release, he became a hunted man and hid in the Alderney Hill house after vigilantes burned down his residence. Twice. By then, any mention of Amethyst would trigger Melonie into a rage.

“What’s your connection to Dr. Saint?” I ask.

His features relax. “Melonie recommended her services, and she’s been helping me with my depression. It was her idea to restart my nightclub.”

I check the wall clock, hoping Jynxson has finished interrogating Dr. Saint.

“Are you going to kill me?” Nocturne asks, his voice thick with grief.

“Not unless you’re withholding information,” I reply. “I want every scrap of intel you have on Dalton Greaves, including what you think he might have done to your niece.”

We continue along these lines for another hour, with Nocturne delving deeper into his brother’s relationship with Father. Amethyst already told me Lyle Crowley ran an international adoption agency, but hearing it again from Nocturne puts that information into a chilling perspective .

I would bet my left nut that Father used the Happy Hearts Adoption Agency to traffic children into his underground facility.

Nocturne breaks down in tears, and I ease off, leaving Camila to complete the interrogation with orders to release Nocturne somewhere within walking distance of Alderney Hill.

Exiting into the darkened hallway that connects the cells to the catacomb’s upper levels, I grapple with the new insights into Amethyst’s past.

Did Father throw her in that institution to manipulate her mother into a relationship, or am I being too sympathetic to Melonie Crowley? I need to capture that woman. She’s the key to everything.

Footsteps echo toward me, and Jynxson steps out of the shadows.

“What did you find out?” I quicken my steps to close the distance.

He raises his shoulders. “The shrink is clean. Mostly.”

“What does that mean?”

“She doesn’t keep records on Amethyst because Mrs. Crowley wanted no traces of her daughter’s crimes.”

“So, there was more than one.” That isn’t a question. All evidence points toward Amethyst striking a second time at the age of eighteen.

He rubs the back of his neck. “Amethyst attacked two men in a drunken rage. She claims not to know what happened to them, but Mrs. Crowley demanded a stronger prescription to keep her daughter under control.”

I nod, remembering the disappearance of Sparrow and Wilder Reed. Melonie must have brought Amethyst back for a repeat of what she did after the music teacher. “An alternative to being institutionalized.”

“The doctor said Amethyst came to her fourteen years ago, freshly released from an asylum. Dr. Saint couldn’t remember its name but said it was out of state.”

“Shit. And Scroggins?”

He huffs a laugh. “Just a random hookup. What do you want me to do about him? ”

“Toss him out on the street with a warning. If he calls the police, we’ll cut off body parts.”

“And the doctor?”

“She stays until she can remember something useful,” I snarl. “Tomorrow, I’ll get Amethyst to write down a list of questions she’s always wanted to ask her shrink.”

He nods. “And McMurphy?”

My steps falter. I’d almost forgotten about that guard. “Take me to her.”

Jynxson and I walk through a winding passage, our footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Tonight has been one revelation after another. By now, Amethyst will be awake, wondering where the hell I’ve gone.

He stops outside a door. “It’s this one.”

As I move to push it open, Jynxson grabs my arm. “Are you going to kill her?”

“No, but I’ll make her wish I had.”

I walk in, finding her huddled in a corner, with her knees tucked to her chest. She bends her head, obscuring her face with a curtain of dark brown hair.

My lip curls and my mind dredges up every minute of powerlessness she forced me to endure. McMurphy thought she could blackmail me into intimacy by interfering with my relationship.

She didn’t just intercept Amethyst’s letters, but skipped my morning exercise in an attempt to coerce me into accepting her advances. When she failed, she taunted me at my lowest, thinking she would make the last hours of my life miserable.

If my team and I hadn’t worked so diligently to perfect my staged execution, this worthless parasite could have jeopardized its success.

I slam the door, enjoying how it makes her flinch. She dips her neck, her shoulders rising to her ears.

“Tell me about your relationship with X-Cite Media,” I say.

Her head snaps up. “Greaves, is that you?”

“Know my voice, do you?”

“How did you…? But I saw you die.”

“Yes, and you did a great job recording it for that website. What do they pay you for such exclusive content? ”

She shakes her head. “No… That wasn’t me.”

I hiss through my teeth at the transparent lie. Closing the distance between us, I reach down and grab a handful of her hair. “If the next thing you say is a waste of my time, I’ll make sure you never get to spy on another man’s private moments.”

“Xero, please,” she whispers.

Cradling the side of her face, I rub the pad of my thumb over her closed eye.

She shivers.

“Give me something if you want to walk out of this room alive,” I growl, pressing my thumb into her socket.

“Greaves,” she says through panting sobs. “Don’t rip out my heart. I could have done a lot worse.”

I chuckle, the sound low and deep. “If you want to survive the night, then you’ll tell me about X-Cite Media.”

“Okay, okay. One of the prisoners doing life for murder mentioned the site, saying they pay for content. I uploaded the video clips and got a fixed fee. I wasn’t hurting anyone. You were supposed to be dead.”

“Who’s your contact there?”

“A man named Harlan,” she says. “I’ve never met him. It’s all been online. Please. That’s all I know.”

“Anyone else?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“And if we searched through all your burner phones, what would we find?”

She shivers. “There was one more. He never gave his name, but he was from X-Cite Media. He’d ask about you. What you were doing. Who you were speaking to. The names of people you were communicating with on the outside.”

My heart pounds. Who else from that firm would be so invested in my activities but the man whose life I tried to destroy?

“Tell me more.”

She shakes her head. “I never met him. Never knew his name. He sounded cultured. Older. He’s the one who suggested I stop your letters. He wanted you isolated.”

“What else?” I snarl.

She whimpers. “That’s it. ”

“You’re lying,” I yell, making her flinch.

“He asked me to sabotage your conjugal visit,” she cries.

Fury heats my blood, making every fine hair bristle with rage. All those weeks I spent punishing Amethyst for something McMurphy did under Father’s orders. This unworthy bitch drove a wedge between me and the other half of my soul.

“When did you last speak?”

“I called him the night of your execution. He wanted to know if I was sure you were dead.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I watched you get beaten up, then dragged to the infirmary. I was there for the execution and even showed him the photos.”

The pressure of my thumb on her eye intensifies until she screams.

“That’s everything,” she sobs. “I swear, I don’t know anything else.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, frustration pounding through my veins. If she had been working with anybody else, that confession would have earned her a painful death. But she’s just admitted to having contact with Father.

“You know what this means?” I whisper.

She shivers, her breath coming in shallow pants. “I’m going to die?”

“That’s entirely up to you. Will you help me find him?”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Good girl.” I smile as she visibly relaxes. “But first, I need to punish you for being a peeping Tom.”

I poke my thumb into her socket until her screams ring through my ears with the sweet sound of retribution. The eyeball beneath my digit collapses, leaking blood and fluid down her face.

Retracting my thumb, I wipe the liquid on my tuxedo pants and straighten. Tonight has been jam-packed with revelations. Making a mental note to get Jynxson to examine the phone McMurphy used to communicate with Father, I walk to the door.

There’s so much I need to tell Amethyst.