He smiled and didn’t answer. Which was answer enough.
‘Could you though?’ I persisted. ‘With your bare hands?’
‘You’ve seen my muscles, Inspector. What do you think?’
I reckoned he could tear Pritchard in half like a magician pulling off a cheap trick.
‘Sometimes, my love, you’re a scary man.’
He shrugged. ‘He made the right choice. Rarely do I have to follow through with my threats.’
‘Rarely,’ I huffed. That was little consolation.
Out of an abundance of caution, we gave Pritchard a full two minutes.
‘Ready?’ Robbie murmured, his hand soft on my back.
I nodded, but I really fucking wasn’t. I braced myself as best I could and pasted on the most neutral expression I could manage.
Robbie made a sharp clicking sound with his mouth, and Ivan and Maktel flanked us at the door. They might not be coming in for questioning, but they were ready to storm in should shit hit the fan. Bastion and Hanlon lounged in the waiting room chairs, but despite their languid body language, I didn’t doubt for one second they were just as ready as Ivan and Maktel.
I took a deep, steadying breath and opened the metal door wide. It took an almighty strength of will to force myself to walk through the doorway.
Vance Broadlake sat at a metal table, secured by chains looped through its centre.
He looked older, wearier, and with longer hair and a beard, but I’d recognise those eyes anywhere. They’d haunted my nightmares for a decade and a half.
Cold, hard terror washed through me, freezing me for a beat.
He looked up at me. Recognition sparked in his eyes and he shoved back from the table into the chair. If not for his cuffed wrists being secured to the table, he would have toppled backward. As it was, all of his weight strainedon his wrists as he looked at me with pure, undisguised horror.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whimpered. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. It was my hands, but it wasn’t me.’ He was almost hysterical. Then his eyes flicked to the hulking ogre next to me, and his shoulders dropped. His voice became eerily calm. ‘You’ve come to kill me, and I don’t blame you. It’ll be a welcome relief, truth be told. I thought your father was going to kill me – he said he was going to – but he didn’t. I told him the truth, told him all of it, and I thought he believed me, but he didn’t come back like he promised. Didn’t come back. Left me here to rot. I don’t blame him. I might not have believed me either.’
The words spewed from him, voice hoarse – from screaming or disuse, I wasn’t sure.
He didn’t sound the same. Somehow that helped. Back then, his voice had been a smooth drawl that I could still hear, but now, he didn’t sound like my nightmares. It was enough to unstick my feet from the floor. I walked to the sole seat positioned opposite him. Loki’s claws dug into my shoulder, and that helped too.
I sat.
Robbie stood behind me, a sentinel. A threat. Then he began to hum, the sound soft and barely audible.
He was piping Broadlake, but was he making him talk or making him tell the truth? Questions for when we were alone.
Broadlake swallowed hard. ‘An ogre like you could kill me with his bare hands.’ His tongue flicked out to lick dry lips.
‘Not just that, he could tear you intwowith his bare hands,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘But he won’t. Not today, anyway. I am Inspector Wise of the Connection.’
The creases around his eyes softened. ‘You followed in your father’s footsteps, Stacy. He must be very proud of you.’
‘He’s dead,’ I said. ‘I presume that’s why he never returned to meet with you again. I need you to tell me everything you told him.’
‘Dead?’ His mouth hung open in shock. ‘Maybe he did believe me after all. All this time … I thought … but perhaps … when did he die?’
‘Three years after you kidnapped me,’ I said brittlely. ‘I was seventeen when he died.’
Broadlake rocked back and forth in the chair. ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. My hands but not me, my hands but not me, my—’
‘We get it,’ I snapped. ‘If not you, then who?’
