by Sara Reinke
***
“I was hoping you could give Augustus a ride to the airport later on today,” Eleanor said from behind Naima as she stepped back from the office door. She’d long considered Eleanor to be a friend, one of few confidantes she’d ever had in her life, never mind on the Morin compound. She hadn’t told Eleanor much about Aaron, but still felt hurt and betrayed to know that Eleanor had shared even this precious little with Augustus.
“Is he going somewhere?” she asked drily, turning to face the other woman. Eleanor nodded. The news of Michel’s death had apparently taken a devastating toll on her as well. She was a slim woman by birth, and had come to the compound to receive treatments Michel had engineered to combat a potentially lethal blood disorder. The disease had left her frail, but she somehow seemed even more so now. She wore a white tunic that swallowed her in its voluminous folds; above its scooped neckline, Naima could clearly see the bony prominences in Eleanor’s collar and sternum.
“He’s going to Florida,” Eleanor said. “Brandon’s there. He texted Augustus a short time ago. It must have been urgent, because Augustus would never leave otherwise. Not after Michel…” Her voice faded, growing momentarily choked. “Something has happened, but Augustus won’t tell me what,” she finished at length.
“Yes, well, Augustus has always been good with secrets,” Naima remarked. “That makes one of you, anyway.”
Eleanor blinked at her, her dark eyes round and wounded. “I had to tell him, Naima. Michel is dead.”
“Aaron didn’t kill him.”
“How do you know that?” Eleanor asked.
“I…I just do,” Naima said, catching herself before she admitted too much too readily.
Eleanor studied her for a long moment. The Davenants have severed their ties to the clans, she said at length, her voice quiet in Naima’s mind. Auguste’s brother Benoît told him this only days ago. It was a revelation that troubled Auguste deeply—and your grandfather as well.
Puzzled by the unexpected turn in conversation, Naima frowned. What do you mean? she asked.
Lamar is no longer operating under the oversight of the Elders or Council, Eleanor said. Augustus underestimated his continued influence—his control over his clan. He always believed Lamar’s son, Allistair, to be his biggest adversary among the Davenant clan. But he was wrong. He’s only now beginning to realize the true breadth of his error.
But Lamar needs the Brethren clans, Naima said. That’s where his money comes from, isn’t it? Without the clans, he has nothing.
That’s the way it should be, yes, Eleanor said. Grim-faced, she stepped closer to Naima and reached out, brushing the cuff of her hand lightly against Naima’s cheek. But I overheard Augustus and your grandfather speaking. They had reason to suspect that Lamar has plenty wealth of his own, resources neither of them could have imagined possible.
“What do you mean?” Naima whispered aloud.
When Tessa ran away from the Davenants, she brought a ledger she’d taken from her husband, Martin, Eleanor said. It detailed countless transactions made over the course of more than ten years—payments in excess of three million dollars, all made payable to a company called Broughman and Associates. When Allistair Davenant seized dominance over the clans, he brought Augustus before the Council and used this same ledger to claim Augustus had embezzled the money instead, that there was no Broughman and Associates.
You think Allistair stole the money instead? Naima asked.
Augustus did, yes. Eleanor nodded. At first, anyway. But now he thinks Lamar made Allistair, Allistair’s son Martin, and several other close kin—those he most trusted—to act in his stead, to steal for him the money he’d need to seed his own enterprises, his own financial gain.
Like what? Naima asked.
Eleanor shook her head. I don’t know. Michel and Auguste were looking into it together, even before Tristan was attacked last night. I’ve heard them talking about it for weeks now. I overheard Michel say he’d traced that name, Broughman, to some kind of government security contractor called Diadem Global.
There was something familiar about that name, Broughman, but Naima couldn’t remember what. At least not until Eleanor reached into the hip pocket of her jeans and pulled something out she then pressed surreptitiously into Naima’s hand; a business card. “I found this on the floor this morning,” she whispered. “It must have fallen out of Augustus’ pocket, maybe his wallet…”
Naima looked at the name that had been printed on the card. Aaron Broughman, it read. Chief Networking Officer and Senior Vice President of Social Capital Development for Diadem Global.
Now Naima remembered. “Aaron Broughman—I saw that name on Aaron’s driver’s license. I found his wallet in his car. There was a rental agreement under that name in the glove box, too.”
Then there’s your starting point, I think, Eleanor said.
Naima looked at her for a long moment, torn between being grateful to her for this unexpected help, and still pissed at her for blabbing to Augustus. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because you’re angry with me,” Eleanor replied, with a soft, tired smile. “And perhaps rightly so. I did what I felt I needed to. But I’m sorry that it compromised your trust.”
Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around Naima, giving her a hug. She felt so slight and thin when Naima returned the embrace, her fragile body little more than bones beneath her clothing.
“I know you loved him once, and that you likely love him still,” Eleanor breathed in her ear, giving her a quick kiss. “Just be careful. I’m begging you. Augustus says he’s dangerous. Even if he didn’t kill Michel…”
“He didn’t,” Naima insisted.
“…then he would have if he’d been given half the chance,” Eleanor finished. “He’s not the boy you knew. He disappeared off the clan registries for a reason—Augustus said Lamar Davenant needs him for something. And whatever that may be, he would never have trusted Aaron to it if he didn’t feel he could implicitly.”
As she drew away, Eleanor cradled Naima’s face briefly between her hands, her eyes glossy with tears. They’ll kill him when they find him, she said telepathically, her voice gentle and pointed in Naima’s mind. You know that, don’t you? Maybe if Michel was here, he might have found some mercy, made them see reason, but now…? Her brows lifted sorrowfully. You can’t protect him much longer.
“That’s why I was thinking you could give Augustus a ride to the airport in Carson City later on,” she said aloud, her voice strangely loud and bright, given the quiet undertones and telepathic exchanges they’d had to that moment.
And then Naima got it—Eleanor was dropping her a hint. I can get Aaron off the compound. I can bring him someplace safe where he can recuperate. No one will be suspicious if Augustus is in the car with me. And maybe I’ll buy a little bit of time, so I can find out who really killed Michel before Phillip and the others find Aaron.
“I think that’s an excellent idea, Eleanor,” she said.
“I thought you’d might,” Eleanor remarked with a smile.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Memory was a fragile thing. Aaron had learned this the hard way. Because of his accident, the first thing he really remembered about his life was opening his eyes and looking up to see someone he would later come to know as his older brother, Julien. At the time, his face had summoned no pangs of familiarity; had in essence, meant nothing to him—as had the word brother, in fact, or any other word for that matter.
Two hundred years later and shortly after he’d received the anonymous package on his doorstep, the one with the St. Christopher’s medal enclosed, he’d undergone a CT scan without letting either Julien or his father know.
“You can see punctate foci evident in this slide, along left bilateral infero-medial frontal lobe,” his doctor, a human neurologist named Andrea Coleman, had told him, showing him a black and white film from his procedure, a cross-section of his cranium. “They indicate areas of past capil
lary hemorrhage.” She walked over to the examination table where he sat, and lifted his chart in hand. Flipping through it, she glanced at him and asked, “Have you ever sustained any kind of head injury?”
“I fell off a horse when I was a kid,” he’d offered, and when her brows had risen in an “a-ha” sort of way, he added, “Sometimes I have trouble with things, faces and names, that sort of stuff from my past.”
This was the closest he would come to admitting why he’d wanted the CT scan in the first place. He didn’t mention that he had no memory whatsoever of the first thirty years of his life, or that the fifteen years immediately following had gone by in a sort of mental blur, as well.
“Retrograde amnesia of the sort you’re describing is very common among head injury patients,” she remarked with a nod.
“In other words, I’m brain damaged,” he said, making her laugh.
“No, in other words you may think you’ve lost memories, but you haven’t. Your brain just can’t get to them the way it would normally.” Returning to the examination table, Dr. Coleman reached out, drawing her fingertips lightly through his hair just above his ear. “The frontal lobe processes memories, but they aren’t stored there. That’s the job of your temporal lobe, here.. Every time your brain creates a memory, it’s because of chemical activity causing cells called neurons to interact with one another. It binds them together so they all work like an electrical circuit. The trigger for recalling the memory is here…”
She tapped her fingertip against his forehead. “…in your frontal lobe. But the memory itself is here…”
Another tap, this time on his temple. “…in the temporal part of your brain. If the circuit between the frontal and temporal lobes gets disrupted or broken somehow, such as in the case of an injury to your brain, it doesn’t mean the storehouse of memories is gone. It means the old triggers don’t work anymore because the circuit has been broken. So you have to try and rewire them.”
“You mean I could still get them back? My memories?” he asked, surprised, and with a smile, she nodded.
“It’s possible. Sometimes patients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries in the same region of the left frontal lobe have been able to regain lost memories by establishing new triggers. They’re all still there.” With another smile, Dr. Coleman tapped his temple with her forefinger again. “Right where you left them. It’s just that your head injury messed up the neural wiring, so to speak.”
***
The demands of Aaron’s accelerated healing left precious little, if any energy reserves, and despite being cramped and uncomfortable in Naima’s bathtub, he also found himself completed exhausted. He tried to stay awake—telling himself the last thing he needed was for one of the Morin clan to come tromping through Naima’s house and find him passed out in the tub—but his poor battered, aching body had other plans.
He slept so hard, when he awoke again, for a long moment, he had no idea where he was, or what had happened to him. He wasn’t even sure what had roused him at first; not until he heard the soft patter of light footsteps and a softer voice—a woman’s—calling for him did her remember.
Naima.
He flexed his mind experimentally, extending his telepathy with caution. To his pleased surprise, it no longer felt taxing to do this, and he was easily able to sweep his immediate surroundings. He sensed Naima even as she hurried into the bathroom; her mind was cluttered with fast-moving, overlapping thoughts, as if she was excited or anxious.
“Aaron?” She yanked open the shower curtain framing the tub and looked down at him, visibly surprised. “Why are you still in here?”
“I fell asleep,” he mumbled. As he sat up, he felt a nasty crick seize in his neck and with a frown, he rubbed at the knotted muscles bridging to his shoulder with his hand. Already he could tell his body had recuperated more as he’d. Even though moving caused his broken ribs to ache, the stabbing pain he’d felt only hours earlier was gone, and he was once again able to draw in a full, deep breath without grimacing or gasping. His eyes no longer felt swollen from where Mason had pummeled him; neither did his lips, and when he touched his nose tentatively, it no longer felt like he was handling a grotesquely swollen, lopsided, overripe tomato.
“We have to go.” Naima stepped back from the tub, a clear but unspoken indication she meant for him to climb out. “Come on.”
“Where?” he asked, bracing himself with one hand against the tub rim, and the nearest wall with the other while he unfurled the rusted hinges of his knees and stumbled to his feet.
“Carson City. I’m driving Augustus Noble to the airport. It’s the only way I can smuggle you off the compound.”
“Augustus?” He raised his brow as he stepped out over the side of the tub. “Is he aware of this arrangement?”
She shot him a withering glare. It occurred to him that her eyes looked puffy, her corneas glassy and reddened, as if she’d been crying. And then he remembered why she had to go in the first place.
“If you try to leave here on your own, you’re as good as dead,” she told him. “You want to take your chances with that—against the entire Morin clan, all armed and pissed at you with a fucking vengeance—you go right ahead. I can’t block you against all of them. I don’t even know if I can block you from Augustus, not for long anyway. But I’d rather take my chances with him than against my whole family.” She stepped to the side, leaving his path to the doorway clear and unobstructed. “The choice is yours, Aaron.”
He didn’t move, save to lift his hands, palms facing in her, in concession. His body had healed somewhat and had strengthened, as had his mind and telepathy. He had every confidence he could handle himself against Augustus Noble—at least long enough to get away—or any other member of the Morin family, at least one on one. Possibly two or three at a time. But more than that? Unarmed and operating at half his normal, healthy capacity?
Dead on arrival, he thought. Me, that is.
When she realized he’d agreed with her, if only wordlessly, she nodded once, seemingly satisfied, then turned and left the bathroom. “Your shoes are upstairs,” he heard her say. “Your jacket, too.”
“Thanks,” he murmured as he followed her toward the living room. Taking the steps two at a time on the spiral staircase, he returned to the loft bedroom where he’d first come to. As she’d said, he found his mountain-climbing sneakers in a corner by the bed, his black hoodie draped over the back of a nearby chair. As he shrugged the jacket on, he tugged his T-shirt down in the back, his fingers grazing against the rough-hewn scars Naima had taken notice of earlier.
He did that to you, didn’t he? she’d said. Lamar, I mean…your father.
The truth was, most of the scars had been self-inflicted, though at Lamar’s command. Because Lamar was unable to experience any kind of sexual arousal or release, he used sadism as a means of achieving personal gratification. Flagellation, or “mortification of the flesh,” as Lamar called it, was a favorite past-time that he’d forced upon Aaron over the centuries. Most often, Aaron would strip to the waist and kneel within his father’s line of sight. He’d then jerk a knot into his belt and use it to beat himself, with the buckle being on the striking end for maximum brutal impact. On more than one occasion, he’d beaten himself to the point where he’d passed out, with Lamar squealing all the while inside his head: More, goddammit! More, more, more!
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave him seeing little pinpoints of dazzling light dancing in his line of sight, snapping himself from the past to the present. Sometimes he felt certain it wasn’t such a bad thing, his amnesia. Sometimes memories were more trouble—and more unpleasant—than they were worth.
Zipping up the jacket, he hurried back downstairs andfound Naima sitting on her sofa, cradling a framed photograph between her hands. She didn’t even seem to notice him until he came to stand behind her. As she glanced over her shoulder at him, he saw the photo was of her and Michel.
“I’m sorry abo
ut your grandfather,” he said quietly, clumsily, because that was what you said when someone lost a loved one. He tried not to think about the fact that he’d shot the man less than twelve hours earlier. Even though he hadn’t been the one to kill Michel, he damn well could have been.
“He helped you once,” she said softly. “The first time I ever met you. Your father had beaten you. I found you hiding in our barn, and Michel brought you back to your father’s house. But first, he cleaned up your wounds, stitched the whip marks on your back. He knew you were a Davenant, but he helped you anyway.”
Her voice grew choked, and he saw tears glistening in her eyes before she turned her head quickly away. “I know you don’t remember that,” she said hoarsely. “That you don’t give a shit, but it matters to me. Michel’s a good man. He…he…”
The hardened fury faded as tears suddenly flooded her eyes. He watched her struggle proudly not to let them fall, her lips drawing together in a defiant, quivering line. When one slipped past the line of her lashes, she uttered a soft, hurting sound and drew her hand to her mouth.
“Hey,” he said gently, moving to stand in front of her. When she shook his head and wouldn’t look at him, her arms folded tightly across her chest, he squatted, resting his weight on his toes. “I’m sorry.”
She glared at him, as if appalled by his audacity, that he’d dare to try and empathize with her pain when he’d come to South Lake Tahoe with pretty much the same goal of death and pain to her family in mind.
He reached for her, brushing his fingertips against her cheek to wipe away the tear. Something about it troubled him deeply; seeing her cry left his heart feeling suddenly scraped hollow and raw. She’d put a white blouse on over her black tank top, but hadn’t buttoned it closed. The buttons were small and spherical, made of an opaque plastic designed to look like pearls. Aaron stared at these for a long moment before his hand strayed from her face so he could touch one, pinching it lightly between his fingertips and watching the play of light against its surface.
