Ryder was on his feet before I could process what was happening, storming toward the interrogation room and slamming the door open. Cole and I followed instinctively,drawn in by the chaos unfolding. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with tension and distress. Hannah was a complete mess, her carefully cultivated image of Archive House perfection utterly shattered. Mascara streaked down her cheeks, her nose red and running, her entire body shaking as she gasped out words between sobs.
"He made me do it," she was saying, her voice high and hysterical. "He said if I didn't, he would tell everyone about, about what I did. He said he would ruin me. Ruin all of us. He said he would make sure that I suffered worse than what she did."
"Who?" Ryder demanded, his voice harsh with urgency. "Who made you do what, Hannah?" Hannah flinched at his tone, shrinking back in her chair. Lynch shot Ryder a warning look but didn't intervene.
"I didn't know," Hannah continued, addressing Harrison and Andrew rather than Ryder. "I didn't know what he was planning to do to her. I swear. I just thought he wanted to scare her, to make her leave. I didn't know he was going to- to take her."
"Who?" I asked, my voice rough with emotion and exhaustion. "What does any of this have to do with us?"
Harrison looked up at me, his expression a mixture of betrayal and dawning horror. He held up the papers in his hand, what looked like printouts of text messages and emails.
"These are communications between Hannah and someone using an encrypted channel," he explained, his voice hollow. "Messages instructing her to send fake texts to Cade's grandparents, to plant those threatening notes in Cade's bag." He swallowed hard, visibly struggling. "I recognise the encryption key signature. It's one we've used in the past, within Archive House."
A cold feeling spread through my stomach.
"What are you saying?" Harrison's eyes met mine, filled with the same horrified realisation I'd felt when I discovered Cade was innocent of the betrayal we'd punished her for.
"It's David," he said quietly. The name landed like a bomb in the centre of the room. David Marshall, Archive House's missing Regent. He'd left university abruptly just before the end of last term, citing a family emergency. No one had questioned it; Regents occasionally had to deal with outside obligations, especially those tied to powerful families like the Marshalls.
"That's not possible," Andrew said, though his voice lacked conviction. "David wouldn't, he couldn't-"
"He did," Hannah whispered, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. "It was David. He's been planning this for months. He made me help him. He made me-" she broke off, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Made you what?" Cole asked, his voice gentler than Ryder's or mine. Hannah looked away, shame colouring her tear-stained face.
"Sleep with other men. Men he chose. He said it was to gather information, to learn their weaknesses. But I think he just liked controlling me, making me do things that would break my contract." She looked desperately at Harrison. "I didn't want to. You have to believe me. He threatened to tell everyone about what happened, about-"
"Enough," Harrison cut her off, his voice sharp with pain. "We'll deal with that later."
“About what?” I demanded. Andrew shook his head, clearly not wanting to divulge the information.
“About her breaking the contract,” Harrison whispered. “We found out a couple of months ago, but it appears that David knew before we did.”
“Shut the fuck up Harrison,” Andrew snapped. “This is house business,” Ryder growled, and I grabbed him before he lungedat Andrew. But it was Lynch who sprang into action. He grabbed Andrew by the back of his head and slammed his face down on the table, causing Hannah to scream.
“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” he hissed as he lifted Andrew by his hair, with blood streaming down his face, “A young woman, someone I care about, is fucking missing. So your fucking house business is now my fucking business. Do you understand me?” I glanced over at Cole. This was new information. Lynch cared about Cadence? When did he even meet her?
Andrew nodded quickly, clearly beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation. Harrison was obviously more forthcoming with the information.
“It was the Halloween event, when Miss Turner mentioned that Hannah was late a lot, that I figured out that our Consort was not being true to her contract. I had no idea, though that David was already aware of it,” he said, the bitter sound of betrayal clear in his voice.
“It was him who suggested we keep it in-house. Now I wonder what else he kept from us.”
“It was him,” Hannah blurted out. We all looked at her as she began crying again. “He told me to message him when Cadence went into the haunted house. I had no idea he was going to try to kill her.” My eyes widened in shock.
“What the fuck?” Cole exclaimed. It was David Marshall. The bastard had been one of the ones helping us search for the men who attacked Cadence. And he was the man we had been looking for. Hannah was nodding her head quickly.
“Yeah, he said if I told anyone, I would be the one on the end of his knife.”
“Motherfucker,” Ryder snarled. I turned towards Harrison, who seemed to be the most forthcoming of the three of them.
“So the next question is, where the fuck is your other Regent?”
The London streets blurred past the windows of the SUV, a smear of city lights against the winter darkness. I sat rigidly in the backseat beside Ryder, who hadn't stopped fidgeting since we left Regents. His leg bounced in an erratic rhythm, fingers drumming against his thigh, eyes darting between his phone and the road ahead. The manic energy radiating from him wasalmost tangible.
"How much longer?" he asked for the third time in twenty minutes. Killingham's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
"Fifteen minutes, traffic permitting." I checked my watch: 10:43 PM. David Marshall, the missing Archive House Regent, was spending his Christmas holiday at his family's Kensington townhouse, blissfully unaware that his world was about to implode. For the first time in weeks, we had a solid lead on Cade's disappearance. The knowledge both energised and terrified me.
