Mav
Back at the hotel, Daisy is quiet and pretty tight-lipped about the meeting with Andy as well as the interview with the cops. She sits on the couch and stares out the large window toward Richmond listlessly. I make her a tea and put it on the table next to her, but it sits untouched. I don’t want to hover around her, because I know she doesn’t like it when she’s deep in thought, which she clearly is. I think about doing some paperwork on the non-opiate to give her some time alone, but with the lab closed to me, really, I’m having trouble remembering the point.
So, instead, I sit on the couch close by in case she needs anything or decides she wants to talk, and I open my laptop to do some classwork. It’s not long before the guys arrive back. They’ve been over to the club and it’s pretty much ready for us. Shade thinks we should move in there as soon as we can, and I agree.
When he mentions it to Daisy, she looks over at us for the first time.
‘When?’ she asks.
‘As soon as you want,’ Blake says.
She sits up straighter. ‘Today?’
The other two look as relieved as I feel. I think we were all a little afraid that she might want to stay here. She loves the hotel, and she enjoys Sauvage’s company. Plus, all the desserts…
‘What about Sauvage?’ she asks.
‘I’ve told him the club is pretty much finished,’ Shade replies. ‘He’s expecting us to leave soon.’
She nods and then goes back to looking out the window.
‘We can’t stay here forever,’ she says almost to herself. ‘And I’m looking forward to going back to the club. Get back to things being a little more normal. It’s sort of been like an in-between place here.’
‘Purgatory,’ Shade grumbles.
She grins. ‘More like limbo.’
She finally grabs the mug of tea and takes a sip. I sit down, sensing she’s ready to tell us what happened today.
‘So. The police station. I met with Detective Anders, and another one from the NYPD,’ she says, right on cue.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
She shrugs. ‘Nothing, really. Richard Burrows went in pretty hard on them, told me not to answer much, so, in the end, all I was allowed to say to them was that I was injured in the club gas leak and then sick with the flu, which is why I wasn’t around for a while, and then when I was feeling better, you guys took me to the UK for an early birthday trip. And that was it. The Novelle house is more interesting as stories go.’
‘Ok,’ Shade says as he and Blake take the other couch. ‘How did that go?’
She gives him an unimpressed look. ‘About as well as expected. He’s such an asshole and he won’t listen to me at all. The cognitive dissonance is real. We had an entire conversation, and he still really does think that I’m…’ She taps the side of her head. ‘But I did get this.’
She picks up the book from the side of the couch that she’s been carrying around since she got here. We all stare at it in a bit of confusion.
‘One of the ones from the office?’ Blake finally asks.
She nods.
‘The Crimean War.’ Blake squints at it. ‘Volume eight.’
He quirks a brow. ‘New hobby?’
She gives him a simpering look. ‘I took it because it looked like it was handled a lot more recently than the others. They were a little bit dusty on the shelf, probablysince Stevens hasn’t been around to make sure everyone’s doing their jobs properly.’
She puts the book in her lap.
‘So, I took it. I haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to wait for us all to be here because I think it might be important.’
Her fingers trace the embossed title, and she opens the cover. We all lean forward a little. She was right. The middle of every page has been cut out to make a rectangular hollow, and there’s a stack of documents inside.
‘Ha!’ she exclaims quietly with no small amount of pride.
