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Cole led the way to his office and opened the door, gesturing for Thorn to go in first. He followed, shutting it behind them. Thorn sat down at the small round table Cole preferred to use over a desk, looking around idly as Cole sat at his usual spot and opened his laptop, pulling up the email and files Tommy sent him and reading through them.
“According to this, she lives with her mother near the Columbia campus, has a car, and if she’s not in class, she’s either home studying or here. She’s also about to start her internship in the Artificial Intelligence and Research Division…” Cole let out a low whistle as he read she was interning in what the scientists and engineers in that division called The Forge. “She’s going to the prototype and innovation labs?”
A small, proud smile crossed Thorn’s normally stoic face. “Yes, she is studying computer science through Columbia’s Intelligent Systems Track with research credits in Affective Computing and Human-AI Interaction. Last year, she began conceptual work on what she calls Project Helix and now she’s building the prototype. I don’t understand the details of it, but she got the idea from the Iron Man movie.”
Cole grinned as he made the connection. “She’s trying to build JARVIS.”
“I believe so.” Thorn inclined his head. “And Tommy may not have any direct influence on the decision of giving her the internship, but the department heads all knew it was her when they read the proposal and knew Tommy would have rained down hell if they let her go somewhere else. He wants her prototype developed here, under the Sloane Brand.”
“Obviously.” Cole snorted and shook his head. “If she can pull it off, it would be an incredible advancement in AI development that will make her and the company behind it incredibly wealthy.” He ran his hand through his hair and decided to ask the question that had been on his mind.
“What is her relationship with Tommy?” He watched as Thorn’s jaw clenched slightly and realized what it sounded like. “No, I don’t think he’s secretly sleeping with her, but she has to be his cousin, or something fairly closely related to him.”
“Officially, and as far as either of them knows, they’re not related.” Thorn relaxed slightly but rubbed the back of his neck, still looking uncomfortable. “Evie’s mother and Tommy’s mother were best friends, and his parents were Evie’s godparents. However, it is my opinion, and Nissa agrees with me, that Tommy’s father had an affair or a one-night stand with Evie’s mother. Both Tommy and Evie look identical to Henry Sloane. I’d even say Evie looks more like him than Tommy does.”
“And neither one of them has noticed how much they resemble one another?” Cole furrowed his brow, that seemed like something two very intelligent people like Tommy and Evie would have noticed.
“I believe they are too close to the matter to see it or are subconsciously avoiding acknowledging it because they don’t want to accept that their parents did something like that.” Thorn explained with a shrug. “Either way, it’s not our business or place to bring it up.”
“Fair enough.” Cole nodded and returned to his notes. Thorn was right, it was none of his business, but he appreciated the clarification. “Anyway, I’m still wondering when Tommy wants me to watch her. She seems to be with people or in places that make it hard for someone to hurt her. I can be invisible, buteventually campus security will notice someone hanging around and start asking questions.”
Thorn sighed, leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and folded his hands. “When she is in the Tower, she is fine. Tommy has made it very clear: anyone harassing her will be fired immediately. But when she is not here, she is often alone.”
“Her mother is only in her mid-fifties but is fragile and not physically able to stop an intruder. Evie has basic self-defence, but that is not enough against someone determined. She lives in a secure building with an alarm, so she is mostly vulnerable when she is travelling or running errands.”
“Which is why Tommy is giving me access to her schedule and the tracker.” Cole nodded. He would have to be at her building when she left, follow her to the destination, determine if she was safe, then either continue shadowing or break contact until she moved again. “Easy enough.”
Chapter Seventeen: Provocation
A year after his sentencing, Evie and Della each received letters from the Green Haven Correctional Facility’s Offender Rehabilitation Counsellor. Oscar had requested that they be added to his approved visitors list and asked them to complete the attached forms. After some deliberation, curiosity won out, and both women filled them out and returned them. Six weeks later, a formal, almost polite letter arrived from Oscar himself, asking them to visit at their earliest convenience.
Della had been resistant at first, but Evie reminded her that they’d both filled out the forms agreeing to be on his approved visitors list. She wanted to hear what he had to say, wondering what was so important that he reached out after two and a half years of complete silence.
“Nothing he has to say will change anything,” Della said, before storming off.
Evie winced as the bedroom door slammed shut behind her mother, then took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. She needed to go, no matter what Oscar wanted; she needed the closure of facing him one last time and having her final say.
She wanted her mother to come, not only because some small, childish part of her still needed her mother beside her, but because she hoped that seeing Oscar in prison would finally strip away the illusion of him as a demon sent to torment her. He wasn’t a supernatural threat; he was just a broken man who’d lost everything and would never walk free again.
Sitting on the couch, she wondered how she could convince her to come and realized the answer was staring her in the face. Chewing her lip, she pushed down the guilt that stabbed her when she made up her mind to manipulate her mentally fragile mother and walked quietly down the short hall to her mother’s bedroom and knocked lightly on the door before opening it.
“Mom, I know you think nothing good can come from this,” she began quietly, then stopped, her next words dying on her tongue.
The room was almost empty. The queen bed was gone, along with the dresser and the chair by the window. In their place sat a narrow twin bed draped with a coarse gray blanket and a single nightstand with a cupboard.
“What the hell…” she murmured, her eyes widening in shock. Shaking her head, she forced herself back to her current problem. She’d deal with the missing furniture later.One thing at a time.
“But I think it would be good for us to go together and confront him.” She paused as her mother sat on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes, her lips moving wordlessly as she fidgeted with her ever-present rosary beads.
“You said he refused to respond to Father Garrett’s request for his side of the story so you could get the annulment,” Evie said softly. “You could ask him in person.”
She knew instantly she had won. Her mother went still and opened her eyes, staring at the large reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper that hung where her mirror had been. After a long moment, Della nodded once and returned to her rosary.
Evie shut the door, breathed a sigh of relief, and went to her room to call the scheduling department. To her surprise, it was quick and straightforward, like booking a doctor’s appointment, and she was able to schedule them for the following Saturday at 9:30.
She told her mother when they would leave and reached out to Tommy and Thorn to see if either could drive them. She knew they wouldn’t be allowed into the visitation room, but she had a feeling she’d need someone to drive while she sat with her mother on the way home.
