Took frowned as though he didn’t believe that, but before he could say anything, a fist hammered at the door.
“We’re ready to go,” the pilot yelled through the door. “If you want to leave tonight, we need to go now.”
Chapter Nineteen
QUICK LOOKEDunconvinced.
“You’ve built a whole lot of castle on, what, some offhand thing a crazy, survivalist wolf said?” he said as he paused the game on his phone and set it down on the desk. “Are you sure it’s not going to just fall down?”
Took weighed that for a second. “No,” he admitted. “But it’s true. I always take point. The only reason I didn’t in Appleberg is because I thought Gatlin had wasted my time. Besides, if I am wrong, then you’ll be the only one who knows.”
Light flicked off the lens of Quick’s glasses as he sat up. He didn’t need them to see anymore, and he’d replaced his old Coke-bottle lenses with plain glass ones. It was just habit to have them on, something to straighten or peer off. Or, when he wanted to buy some time, to take off and polish.
“Shouldn’t you be in there with Waring?” he asked. “Pretty sure Madoc wouldn’t want SSA Crane in there on his own with our witness.”
“Waring sat through the best that VINE had to offer,” Took pointed out as he pulled a chair out and flopped down. He felt more alive than he had since he died, Madoc’s blood like an infusion of coffee into Took’s veins. The scars on his wrists were still there, bulky under the long sleeves of his T-shirt, but they didn’t itch or ache when he turned his hands. The door creaked open behind him and he glanced around. Lawrence hesitated in the doorway, and despite Took’s best intentions, he felt himself bristle. He squashed the resentment and gestured for her to come the rest of the way in as he went on. “West couldn’t interrogate a man who already confessed. They’ll be fine for an hour.”
Lawrence carefully closed the door behind her and leaned back on it. “I thought you and SSA Crane were friends,” she said.
“We were,” Took said, then caught himself. This case might not have the fallout that West had wanted, but that didn’t mean they’d be at odds, any more than their relationship’s failure in the wake of Took’s kidnapping had made them enemies. It was just life. Sometimes things didn’t work out, but it was West who supported Took when he thought Madoc had been the one who turned him. That meant that Took owed him something. He corrected himself. “Are. It doesn’t make him a good interrogator.”
Quick kicked the chair next to Took out for Lawrence and reached for his keyboard. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to take an hour to get this done either,” he said. “I lifted everything the local Proverbial church had on their servers, while being preached at for a cup of underwhelming soup, but you have to give me some parameters to look for. I don’t suppose anyone has just dropped a confession in there.”
Lawrence glanced from one to the other. “I missed the start of this,” she said. “Is this to do with the werewolves that you met? Madoc says he believes that one of them really was Gabriel, the head of the Hounds.”
“He didn’t introduce himself to me,” Took said dryly as he shied away from the topic. He didn’t think Lawrence was as good as him, but she wasn’t stupid either. It was her job to catch liars and people with secrets, and Took was both. “And sort of. I think that the missionaries didn’t just take the scriptures over to the poor, benighted humans of Europe. I think they brought something back.”
“Probably clap,” Quick interjected. He raised his fingers in the air and wriggled them expectantly. “Parameters, Took.”
Took hesitated as he rubbed his hand over his jaw. He could hear the chatter of the VINE offices behind him, the carefully pitched murmur of office small talk, the clatter of keys, and the stutter-hum of the printer. None of the agents in there had any idea how bad he was about to make their lives.
Ifhe was right.
“How many missions were the Arons involved in?” Took asked after a moment’s thought.
There was a pause as Quick darted his fingers over the keyboard. “Many,” he said lightly after a moment. “They led one every two years as a couple when they were first married. Then, once they had kids, one of them would go every other year. That’s only our late and lamented Arons. Before that, their father was deeply involved in the Proverbial Church as well. In fact, he was the Deacon of a church we know and love in Appleberg, before he moved to Charleston.”
“How many of the children on those missions died?”
“None,”
“What?” Lawrence blurted out the interruption.
“Check that again,” Took said. Any death on a Mission would be recorded by the Church. It was a way to show respect for the dead, to remember their sacrifice. The Franklin boy who’d died should be marked down there and, morbid as it was, if he was the only martyr on the Arons’ missions, they’d have been considered failures. “You must have missed something.”
Quick snorted his opinion of that but tapped at the keys. His smug expression hung around for a minute and then faded as he scanned the screen.
“Now that doesn’t make sense,” he muttered. “If you look at the official documents, flight registers, carnets, and the rest, the same amount of people left the country as came back. But when you go into the different family registers, they lost three or four people each trip.”
Lawrence leaned forward. “Even for a Proverbial mission, that’s a lot of dead children. Sacrifice is one thing, slaughter is another.”
“At least one of them was just left behind,” Took pointed out. “Maybe to make room.”
“For whom?” Lawrence asked with a frown. “Do you think they smuggled dissidents out of the Empire?”
“When it started, maybe,” Took said. He made himself admit that it wasn’t a bad theory. Jealous as he was to see Lawrence take his place, she wasn’t bad at it. “How many of the families who lost children had ties of some sort to Appleberg?”
Quick raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to share your theory?” he asked. “Or wait for the rest of us to catch up?”
