Still, if she could give me answers, it would be worth being a little late.
I paid attention to street names so I could navigate my way back. She was another block ahead of me, waiting next to a car. I looked around for guns or other signs of ambush. Didn’t see any.
Every fiber of my body was tense. This was probably a trap. But I had a gun in my duffel and it wasn’t there for decoration. I stopped a few yards away from her.
“You know where my brother is?” I asked. “Prove it.”
She gave me a look, one that said she didn’t like it when I asked questions.
Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out Quinten’s pocket watch. I knew it was his, just like it had been Dad’s and Granddad’s and Great-Grandad’s, all the way back to the early twentieth century. Quinten always carried it and wouldn’t have given it up easily.
My heart sank and then started pounding its way back up into my throat.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Get in.” She pointed at the open car door. “I’ll take you to him.”
Bad idea,I thought. But that didn’t stop me. I got in the backseat, expecting the car to be crowded with muscle and threats. But it was clean and empty.
Helen got in the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Sit back. Relax,” she said, pushing the hood away from her face now that she was safely hidden behind the darkened windows. “Have a drink if you like—there’s a small selection of spirits in the center section of the seat.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s not far.”
House Silver. Abraham told me House Gray had contracted Quinten to work for House Silver. Oscar talked to Reeves Silver about it. Maybe Quinten was still there.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s alive.”
Relief hit me so hard, I almost went light-headed. “Are you holding him prisoner?”
Helen laughed, and it was the sort of low, sexy sound that makes men cut off their wedding rings.
“That’s a question for Reeves to answer.”
“Is that where you’re taking me?”
Her black-lined eyes shifted to look at me in the rearview mirror. “Yes. To meet the Saint of Sin.”
28
The Wings of Mercury device still exists, filled with the pulse of a long-dead comet.—2196
—from the journal of L.U.C.
Helen navigated the streets to a downward ramp and then drove through a series of tunnels lit with alternating yellow and red lights. We emerged into daylight and eventually turned down another street, and climbed up that to a huge mansion on top of a hill that overlooked the entire town.
She parked the car beneath an awning, turned off the engine, and paused before opening the door. “I’ll take you in. You can keep the gun in your duffel, but my advice? Leave it stashed, sugar. You don’t want to play hardball here.” She checked her lipstick in the mirror, then put on a smile and got out of the car.
She opened my door.
“I want my brother’s pocket watch,” I said.
She shrugged and handed it to me. I tucked it immediately into my duffel.
