“I meant what I said back there. I can help you find out who killed your father.” Bravery has overtaken him once more. He sits up in the chair, chin lifting.
“As I said, it was a heart attack.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says obstinately.
“And I don’t need help,” I counter.
“Then why am I still alive?”
Why, indeed? I let a sweet face distract me. I’m no better than my father. “Tell me what it is you think you know, little teddy bear, and I might let you live a while longer.”
“It’s not what I know. It’s what I can find out. I get all sorts of tips onCute Crims. After your father d-died—”
“Was murdered,” I allow with a shrug, and he swallows.
“—was murdered, my members crowd-sourced ideas about who it might have been. We came up with a lot of viable suspects—”
I laugh now. I can’t help it. Perhaps he’s green, this plant, but he should have come up with something better than that. “Enough.” I’m tired of our games, and I’m in no mood for the long, tiresome process of extracting information. Not tonight.
It’s time to put him away.
“Get up.” When he stays seated, I cross to him and yank him out of the chair by his arm, ignoring the frightened cry.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks, as I drag him out of the room, toward my father’s study.
Mystudy, now, though I still don’t think of it as mine. I’ve kept hold of my penthouse apartment, my sanctuary away from the center of action here at Redwood Manor. I stay here only when I’m forced to—like now.
My father always wanted me to come home, to live here like Julian did, be a more dutiful elder son.How else will you learn our business?When I refused, he kept me out of the inner circle. But I had all the education I needed when I was in Italy, under my mother’s tutelage.
“Is this where it happened?” Teddy’s voice breaks into my thoughts, and I pause near the desk. He’s staring at the stained wood, eyes wide. Wilson did his best, but the mark is still obvious.
“This is where it happened, Sherlock Holmes.”
“Who found the body?”
“You’re about to meet them.” Wasting no more time, I pull him through the hidden door at the other end of the study, through the corridors, and into the cells below. Teddy seems fascinated by the whole journey until the heavy door to the dungeon slides open, and the stench hits him.
“Oh myGod,” he chokes, trying to take a step back. “It smells like—”
“Death.”
Predictably, he begins to panic, struggling against my grip, fear making him strong. “Listen to me—” I begin, but the prehistoric part of his brain has taken over, the part that values survival over all things. In the end, I press him up against the wall and flatten my body against his, taking his face in my hand as I force him to pay attention to me. “Listen!”
He’s panting and teary, but I see sense come back into his eyes.
I start with the most important thing. “I am not going to kill you.” Not tonight, anyway. But there’s no point adding that; he’ll only panic again. “But I cannot let you go. While I decide what to do with you, I am going to keep you here, locked up. Just for the night, you understand?”
Because tomorrow, I am certain, Iwillhave to kill him. Once I’ve extracted all useful information from him.
But my honeyed lies have the desired effect. Teddy has gone limp between the wall and me, his eyes a little less terrified. “Please don’t—pleasedon’t put me in there. I don’t want to stay alone in some dark hole.”
“You won’t be alone, little mouse. You’ll have company.” I stand back, and he sways forward, lets me escort him once more to the open doorway.
I have killed many men during my life. I have done terrible, awful things in the service of honor, and blood, and Family. But for the first time ever, I find myself hesitating.
Fool, I tell myself. I’ve been thinking of this blond boy as a mouse, but whoever sent him thought the same aboutme. Teddy is the bait in the mousetrap, and when it snaps shut…
I need to find out who sent him. One night in the cells should do it.
