Chapter 8: Ask Him Who Pays You

The car outside the courthouse wasn't Rafferty's.

I found that out in the back of a borrowed taxi, forty minutes later, with the burner pressed to my ear and Odley's warning still ringing in my head.

"It isn't mine," Rafferty said. His voice was flat. "Black sedan, tinted windows, no plates?"

"Plates. I didn't catch them."

"I'll find out. For now, don't go to the apartment. Go to Vaughn's office and stay there."

"I can't." I said.

A pause. "Explain."

I watched the city slide past the window. "The Archive says Graham Pryce meets Evander at Blackwood Global at six. At seven, he shreds a ledger from his own filing cabinet. If I'm not there, whatever's in it disappears."

"Seraphine."

"I know." I said.

"You are nine weeks pregnant, with a bounty on your reputation and an unidentified car on your tail."

"Which is exactly why I need something no one can claim I forged." I swallowed. "Pryce hid three settlement offers from me. If I can make him say so in front of Evander, the Blackwood lawyers will lose their favorite weapon."

The silence on the line was long. I could hear him breathing, slow and measured.

"I'm sending a man," he said finally. "He stays two paces behind you and does not speak. If you say the word, he moves."

"Thank you." I said.

"Don't thank me. Just don't die in a billionaire's office. It would ruin my quarter."

I laughed, and it surprised me. "Noted."

*She's going anyway. Of course she is.* The thought slid through the line, reluctant and strangely proud. *Good.*

***

The card was in my coat pocket.

I'd taken it from the hotel drawer on the way out, and I hadn't admitted that to myself until my thumb found the black ink on the back. There was one number, written in his own hand.

I dialed and he answered on the first ring.

"Seraphine?"

"Is Graham Pryce in your building?" I asked.

A beat. "He's on his way up. How did you—"

"Ask him about the three settlement offers, Evander. Ask him in front of me. I'll be there in twenty minutes." I said sharply.

"Seraphine, you shouldn't be anywhere near—"

"I'm not asking permission. I'm telling you what I need."

Another silence. I pictured him standing by a window with one hand braced against the glass, a man who had never been told what to do and had just been told twice in four days.

"The thirty-fourth floor," he said quietly. "I'll tell security to let you through."

*She called, she actually called me.*

The thought rose through the line, raw and startled, and I shut my eyes against it.

"Mind-reading usage logged," the system said. "Headache probability: rising."

"I know," I whispered.

The Blackwood Global lobby was all marble and glass. A guard in a gray suit nodded as I crossed it, two paces behind me. Rafferty's man, silent as promised, with a face like a locked door.

The elevator opened on the thirty-fourth floor, and there he was.

Evander stood at the end of the corridor in his shirtsleeves, tie gone, jacket over a chair. Behind him, through a wall of glass, a conference table stretched toward a city at dusk. When he saw me, his shoulders dropped half an inch. "You came."

"I said I would." I said.

"You look tired."

"You look worse."

It was true. There were shadows under his eyes, a razor nick along his jaw. He glanced at the stranger behind me, then back at my face, and chose not to ask.

"Pryce is inside," he said. "He thinks this is about the Locke trust."

"Let him."

I walked into the room.

Graham Pryce was sixty-two, silver-haired, and beautifully tailored, with the soft, dignified face of a man who had never once been caught. He rose when I entered, one hand smoothing his tie.

"Mrs. Blackwood. How good to see you well."

"Ms. Locke," I said. "I'm filing the paperwork myself."

His smile didn't flicker. "Of course."

*She shouldn't be here. Constance said the girl would be scared into hiding. Why is she here?*

I took the chair across from him. Evander sat at the head of the table and laid a thin file on the polished wood.

"Graham," he said. "Three settlement offers delivered to my wife's address. Refused, you said."

"Correct."

"She says she never saw them."

Pryce spread his hands. "With the greatest respect, Mr. Blackwood, a wife's memory in a time of domestic strain can be unreliable. The offers were mailed per protocol, signed for by household staff, and returned unopened. Mrs. Blackwood chose not to engage."

*Unopened because she never saw them. Because Constance's courier intercepted them at the gate.*

I let my hand rest on the table, steady, and looked him in the eye.

"Mr. Pryce," I said. "Who signed for them?"

"Staff."

"Which staff?" I asked.

"I'd have to consult the logs."

"Consult them." I said sharply.

"Seraphine," Evander said carefully.

"Ask him, Evander." I didn't look away from Pryce. "Ask him who pays his retainer."

The room went very quiet.

Pryce's smile stayed exactly where it was. Only his pulse moved, a small tick at the corner of his jaw.

"I serve the Blackwood family," he said smoothly. "Of course."

*She knows. How does she know? The Ellison payments run through the Locke Meridian accounts. There's no way.*

Evander's gaze moved from me to Pryce. I saw him do something he had probably never done in his career. He listened to what wasn't being said.

"Graham," he said slowly. "Answer her."

"Mr. Blackwood, I find this line of questioning—"

"Answer her."

"Attorney-client privilege covers my billing structure." He said.

"You're my attorney," Evander said. "I am the client."

"Quite so. And as your attorney, I advise you that the board will take a dim view of an executive suspending counsel on the word of an estranged spouse."

*Harlan Voss will back me. Harlan always backs me.*

Evander's hand curled on the table. I watched him weigh it, the chairman's pride against the husband's guilt, and for the first time I saw which side was winning.

"You're on leave," he said. "Effective now. Until I have answers."

Pryce rose with dignity, buttoning his jacket. "I'm sure you'll reconsider by morning."

"I won't."

"We shall see." He turned to me, and the smile finally thinned. "Ms. Locke. A pleasure, do take care, pregnancy is such a fragile time."

My blood went cold.

*I never told him I was pregnant.*

Evander was on his feet before the door clicked shut.

"He knew," he said, low and sharp. "Seraphine, I haven't told a single person. Not the board, not even Julian."

"I know." I said.

"Then how does he know?"

"Constance Ellison's people. Delphine. Someone fed him the clinic's forgery and he put it together." I pressed my fingers to my temple against the building throb. "That's not the point. He just told you where his loyalty sits."

Evander stared at the closed door. Then he turned to me, and his face was something I couldn't read at all.

"You walked in here with a stranger behind you," he said, "knowing he'd lie to my face. And you still came."

"I needed you to hear it yourself." I said slowly.

"Why?"

"Because you'd never have believed me." I said.

He didn't speak for a long moment. Then he crossed to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed a number from memory.

"Marlowe Quinn," he said. "It's Blackwood. I need a full investigation of Graham Pryce, his billing, his contacts, and the delivery logs for my home address for the past three years, discreetly. Yes, start tonight."

He hung up and looked at me.

"I'm doing this quietly," he said. "If you tell me not to, I'll stop."

I should have said something cool, something that kept the walls where they belonged.

"Do it," I said. "Quietly."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me." I picked up my bag. "You're not doing it for me."

"I think I am." His voice was so low I almost didn't catch it. I didn't answer.

At the door, I stopped. "Evander."

"Yes?"

"His legal floor. Is it one above this?" I asked and he nodded. "Make sure nobody's in there after seven."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Because he's going to burn something."

I walked out before he could ask me how I knew.

In the elevator, my head swam. I sank against the wall and pressed both palms flat to my stomach.

"Status," I whispered.

"Mind-reading overload: mild. Regret Index: twenty-four percent." A pause. "Host, detecting a plot-linked individual on floor thirty-five, active, moving fast."

"Pryce?"

"Negative. Julian Park, Evander Blackwood's assistant. He is carrying a bag of torn paper."

The doors opened in the lobby. A young man in a rumpled suit stood by the revolving door with his chest heaving, hair on end, a clear plastic bag clutched in both hands.

"Ms. Locke?" he gasped. "I'm Julian. Mr. Blackwood told me to guard the legal floor, and Mr. Pryce's office was already shredding..."

He held up the bag. Inside, among the confetti, one torn corner had survived. A column of numbers. And two initials, written in a steady, elegant hand.

*D.L.*

My breath stopped, Delphine Locke.

Beside me, Rafferty's silent guard took one step closer. Across the lobby, someone I couldn't see was watching us through the glass.

I took the bag.