Sam
Several weeks after Diamond Taylor’s death in her prison cell, when Sam is released at last from questioning, a visitor is waiting for her right outside the police headquarters’ gates.
At first, she thinks it might be another reporter. Edward managed to keep them from her for a long while, but they still clustered daily outside the courthouse with their cameras and mikes and recorders, shouting questions at her in the hopes of a soundbite. What does she know about Grand Central? How does she feel about Diamond Taylor? How many others at the corporation are responsible? Does she believe its holdings need to be split up? Will she speak on the next shareholders call? Where is she going to go now?
But Diamond’s dead now, the trial over before it ever began. The evidence Edward has against the woman was enough to indict her and Will for some of the unsolved murders in the city, for using her company for illegal purposes. Enough to put the mayor behind bars, awaiting his own trial. But the city notably goes light on Lumines for their role in the murders. Doherty, the city’s new mayor, is in Lumines’s back pocket, after all.
I can protect you,Edward had told her in a private interrogation room. She can still recall the glint of his glasses under the fluorescent lights, the way he laced his fingers together against the table dividing them.I can protect you for now, but you have to understand, Sam, what we’re going to ask for in return.
I know,Sam replied.
Everyone is going to be watching you.
She smiled at him.You’ll be surprised how quickly they forget me.
I’m just saying.He leaned back in his chair.Infiltrating an organized group is a dangerous game. Can you do this?
She shrugged.Do you have anyone else who can?
Edward sighed, bowed his head. There was an earnestness about him that softened her heart, and she found herself touched by his genuineconcern over her safety. He earned himself some celebrity at the department for the arrests, suddenly became their wunderkind. But with that came a new target on his back, a new awareness of him from the other syndicates.
I’m just saying,he repeated to her.Be careful out there.
She felt sorry for him then, a little, and hoped he’d be careful too. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, how much he didn’t know.
But aloud, she just said,Is that all?
That’s all.He nodded quietly at her.You’re free to go, Miss Lang.
And she left without looking back, their secret partnership buried in her heart.
Now, as she slows in her steps outside the gates, she takes stock of the person who has come to pick her up.
It’s Sebastian, as well-dressed as ever.
At her surprise, he gives her his unsettling smile. “Mozart,” he says, pulling open the car’s passenger door for her. “You haven’t been sleeping. Sand withdrawal will do that to you.”
“And you’re still alive,” she remarks.
He laughs at her remark and holds out his palm to her. There, she sees two beautiful, shimmering white pills. “Care to join me? You need a ride, and I have a proposition for you.”
Half an hour later, they find themselves on the east side of the city, seated at a private table in one of the Huntington Gardens’ lush courtyards, a display of afternoon tea between them. Aside from a nearby booth occupied by their guards, no one else is here. Sam stares out at the grounds and savors the feeling of sand back in her body, heightening her senses and bringing her the calm and focus that she hasn’t had for weeks. The world feels detached, unreal. Hours earlier, she’d been inside an interrogation room with four concrete walls and a single chair. Now she’s here, on an elegant white terrace, overlooking an expanse of roses that fill the air with the smell of late spring, sitting across from a man who, weeks earlier, had nearly killed her.
“They never found Will’s body, you know,” Sebastian tells her as he helps himself to the array of artful sandwiches and glossy desserts.
Sam just stares down at her wrists, at the wounds that Sebastian hadinflicted there. The synthetic grafts that Demeter had woven to replace her lost skin have healed by now, tattooed over her flesh as twin black bands encircling her wrists. Her heart tugs back and forth between fear and grief at the memory of Will, his stricken eyes turned down at the golden needle she’d stabbed through his heart. So. He is still alive. And how does she feel about it? She’s not sure, and her confusion leaves her uneasy. Her gaze goes up to scan the grounds, as if searching for Will there, wandering among the roses, his eyes perpetually fixed on her.
At last she says, “Maybe they didn’t look hard enough.”
Sebastian’s watching her, gauging her reaction. “Word is that he might have left the country, at least for now. No idea what plans he might have, or if he’s in good health.” He shrugs. “He’s probably heard about his mother’s death. Very sad.”
Sam tries to imagine what Will is thinking right now. He might walk out of the shadows and reclaim his position. He might seek revenge. Or perhaps he will just disappear forever, severed at last from the legacy of his family. Maybe he never wanted to be here.
“I’m not sure this is relevant to me anymore,” she says.
“Well, that depends. What are your plans, now that you’re free?”
I wish I could find Ari.
