Chapter 28: Custody

The loading dock was gray and cold and full of men.

They stood in a loose ring around the lift, a dozen of them in dark coats, hands folded in front of them or resting just inside their jackets. Conrad Hart waited at the center with his silver cane and his professor's smile. Julian stood at his shoulder, immaculate in his navy suit, wearing the expression of a man who had just been handed a gift.

Tobias raised his pistol. A dozen barrels lifted to meet it.

"Lower it," Conrad said gently. "I would hate for anyone to be hurt."

"You have an odd way of showing it," Edmund said.

"Hello, Edmund. You look dreadful." Conrad's gaze moved across the group, resting on the gurney, on Priya clutching the drip stand, on Rhys's white face. "This is simpler than I had hoped. Mrs. Hart, a word."

"I am not Mrs. Hart," Elara said.

"The registry would disagree."

She had no answer. Beside her, she could feel Rhys go rigid.

"Here is my proposal," Conrad said, in the tone of a man discussing the weather. "You return home to your husband. You bring the trust paper and the bottle. In exchange, Augustin Calloway finishes his surgery in peace, Rhys walks away, and no one at this dock is harmed." He spread his hands. "It is a generous offer."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I begin with the old man."

The gurney creaked. Augustin's eyes were closed, his face gray.

Elara looked at Julian. He smiled at her, tender and patient, and she felt something cold slide through her chest.

Think, she told herself. Think like Odette. Think like your mother.

She took a slow breath and read the air.

Diesel. Wet concrete. Cedar and pepper. Burnt sugar. A dozen men's sweat, sharp and sour with nerves. And underneath all of it, thin and quick, a scent she had smelled once in a cellar and once in a chapel.

Fear. Not from the men. From Julian.

He was holding his hands very still. A bead of sweat had gathered at his temple. He was not looking at her. He was looking at the bottle in her coat.

He is afraid of what it proves, she thought. He knows.

"You never told him," she said.

Julian's smile flickered. "Ellie?"

"Your father. You never told him what you are." She kept her voice level. "What you did to Vivienne. What you did to those other perfumers. You've been using his name for years."

A muscle jumped in Julian's jaw.

"Enough," Conrad said coolly.

Sirens rose behind the loading dock.

Every head turned. Tires screeched on the street above. Car doors slammed. A crisp, authoritative voice barked orders, and boots rang on the ramp.

Priya's face lit with a wild hope. "The police," she whispered. "Okonkwo must have—"

A tall man in a dark coat strode down the ramp with a badge in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

Elara's stomach fell.

"Detective Brandt," Conrad said warmly. "How punctual."

Brandt did not look at him. His flat, cold eyes swept the dock and fixed on Rhys.

"Rhys Calloway. Edmund Calloway. Tobias Lang." He lifted the clipboard. "You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Augustin Calloway at the Calloway chapel, and for the death of a security officer at St. Aurélie Hospital this afternoon."

"That's absurd," Priya cried. "Edmund didn't—"

"Witnesses place him at the scene with a firearm." Brandt's mouth twitched. "Mr. Hart Senior was kind enough to provide a statement."

Two officers stepped forward with handcuffs. Tobias lowered his pistol with a faint, bitter laugh and let them take him. Edmund held out his wrists without a word.

Rhys did not move.

"I will come," he said quietly. "On one condition."

"You are in no position to—"

"Mrs. Calloway comes to no harm."

Brandt's eyes slid to Elara. A thin smile touched his lips.

"Mrs. Hart," he corrected, "is being released into the custody of her husband. She was found at the scene of an arson at Hart Maison this morning and is believed to be unwell." He glanced at Julian. "He has requested she be allowed to go home."

"No," Elara said.

Julian stepped forward and took her arm.

His grip was gentle. His fingers were cold.

"Ellie," he murmured, "you're exhausted. You have been through so much. Let me take care of you."

"Let go of me."

"Rhys!" She twisted. "Rhys—"

Two officers had hold of him. He did not struggle. He stood very straight, handcuffed, his gray eyes fixed on hers across the cold dock, and he said one word, quietly enough that only she could hear it.

"Iris."

The wire code. The word Priya had given her in the car. If anything goes wrong.

She understood. She stopped fighting.

Julian steered her up the ramp, past the officers, past Conrad's smiling face, toward a long black car idling at the curb. He opened the back door with a courtly flourish and helped her inside, as if she were a guest.

The door shut.

The locks clicked.

Julian slid in beside her. He lifted her chin with one gloved finger and smiled the warm, boyish smile she had once mistaken for love.

"Hello, wife," he said softly. "Now. Shall we talk about where you hid the real formula?"