Duty and the Beast

by Chelsea Field

  Before he could say anything else, I presented the peace offering I’d baked last night. Connor and I had picked it up on the way: a plateful of brown butter pecan cookies. They were distinct enough from the ones I’d made for Etta that he shouldn’t catch on, while being similar enough that they should be right up his alley.

  He didn’t move to take the plate from me, so I set it down in front of him.

  Hunt eyed the cookies skeptically. “Are those for helping someone steal Anand’s intellectual property? Burying me in paperwork as a result of involving a civilian? Or getting me tranked?”

  I hadn’t even known he was mad about the middle one. “Um, all of the above?”

  He grunted.

  I sat down. “Are you going to at least try one, or are you going to throw them in the trash again?”

  He picked up a cookie and bit into it like a sullen toddler being forced to eat their broccoli. But he didn’t spit it out.

  “Right,” he said. “Let’s get on with this then.”

  Uh-oh, here it comes. I steeled myself for the imminent tongue-lashing.

  Hunt’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “After showing Knightley’s attorneys what we have, they’ve advised him to cooperate in the hopes of negotiating better terms for his prison sentence. Which means we’ve got the whole story. At least as they’ve seen fit to tell it.”

  What?

  I was so shocked he’d skipped over yelling at me that I could barely concentrate on his words. Had the trank caused a temporary chemical shift in his brain? Had Etta told him to be nice to me? Or was he waiting until he got me alone?

  I forced myself to focus.

  “We had most of the details correct. Except instead of Anand using his tech invention paired with the Suadere to persuade Richard to take the bait, he was using it as the bait. He told Richard all about the microrobots that could inject people without being noticed and convinced him that Suadere applied to the jury at the right moment in the closing arguments would win the trials for him. He just needed four million dollars to make it happen.”

  Far out. That was one application none of us had thought of.

  “Would that work?” Connor asked.

  I noted optimistically that Hunt took another bite of his cookie. Maybe that was it. Maybe the cookies had managed to sweeten him up?

  “Hard to say. The important thing is Richard believed it’d work and Lyle didn’t. According to Lyle, he tried to talk sense into his son, but Richard was in love with the idea that he could get out of the whole mess scot-free. He didn’t appreciate his father putting a damper on his parade. Meanwhile, Lyle was furious that someone was trying to exploit the Knightleys’ weakness, and worse, that a Knightley would be taken in by it, so he found a person on the dark web who could help. Lyle was told to purchase this specific type of microcomputer, plug it in, and give the dark web contact the access codes. They’d do the rest.”

  “How did Lyle get it into Isaac’s house?”

  “He convinced Richard to plug the microcomputer into one of Anand’s machines by telling him it was just in case Anand took his money and ran or tried anything funny. Lyle said it would allow them to steal all the relevant files and carry out the plan themselves if the need arose. Clearly he had no intention of doing that. Lyle thought those microrobots were pure fiction.”

  I wondered briefly whether the anonymous dark web contact had thought the microrobots were pure fiction too.

  Connor took one of Hunt’s cookies. “So how did it all go wrong?”

  “Like we figured it did. Lyle had limited means of communication with the dark web contact through a forum, so they agreed on a time for the AI code to be changed and the security mode activated, and Lyle arranged for Richard to be with him during that window. When his son didn’t show up, Lyle panicked, hence the half a dozen phone calls we found on his records, but Richard didn’t answer. Lyle left a message via the forum to abort the job, but it didn’t get seen in time.”

  “Do we know why Richard went to Isaac’s that night?”

  “No. We never will since both parties privy to that information are dead, but I’d guess Anand was trying to get the money from him before the trial started.”

  I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable that the person who’d pulled off the hack, knowing it would kill at least one person, was still out there. Somehow I’d been so focused on Lyle that I’d mostly overlooked that until now. “Are you going to be able to catch that dark web contact?”

  “Lyle’s given us all the details he has, but it’s unlikely. Anyone taking on assassination assignments on the dark web knows how to vanish without a trace.”

  Wow. I found it harder to accept than Hunt’s matter-of-fact statement implied. But I was ill-equipped for this style of manhunt. Maybe I could tell Damon Wood what we’d discovered and hope Vigilance would take up the cause…

  Connor rested the hand holding his half-eaten cookie on the desk. “So if Richard hadn’t been such a spoiled brat and blown off his father, Lyle might never have been caught.”

  Hunt nodded. “That’s often the case when you’re dealing with an intelligent criminal. It’s the one detail they didn’t plan for that unravels everything and leads to their downfall.”

  I thought it through and realized they were right. If only Isaac had been killed, no one would’ve so much as looked in the Knightleys’ direction. Lyle wouldn’t have made the last-minute decision to bribe Stanley Cox to come forward and explain the otherwise unexplainable double homicide. And Lyle and then Stanley would never have told us that Isaac was helping clear Richard’s name—which had been the detail that led to Mrs. Anand’s heartbreaking story and in turn swayed Stanley from his original confession. No, if Richard had lived and the police had questioned him about why he’d been to Isaac’s house a couple of times, he could’ve claimed it was for some AI thing for his new horse racing business, and no one would’ve been any the wiser.

  Even when we had managed to piece it all together and convinced Stanley to tell us the real tale, we’d found nothing on Lyle that had a chance of getting him convicted. Only his inability to stay silent before the accusation that he’d murdered his son in cold blood had pushed him to incriminate himself.

  It was disturbing to think how close he’d come to getting away with it.

  Since we’d made it this far into the conversation without Hunt threatening bodily harm or so much as sending a death glare my way, I felt brave enough to ask something that had been bothering me. “Why would Lyle have a tranquilizer gun hidden in his office, loaded with Xyloxium and ready to go?”

  “That, he’s refusing to talk about,” Hunt said.

  Connor must have pondered the same question. “I’m betting he had it there for the precise scenario you presented him with: a business negotiation gone wrong. Rather than kill a person in his office where it’d be near impossible to remove every trace of evidence from, he tranks them instead. Then he pays someone else to make the problem go away for him and never gets his hands dirty.”

  My eyes were wide. “You mean he might’ve done that before?”

  Hunt had finished the cookie a while ago and now wiped crumbs from his mustache. “He might’ve done it before, but he’s not going to do it again.”

  I suppose I’d have to be satisfied with that. “What will happen to Stanley Cox?”

  “He’ll be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. But the judge will take his later cooperation into account when deciding his sentence.”

  Connor asked my next question. “How did Mrs. Anand receive the news?”

  “She was grateful her grandson’s killer had been caught. We told her how Isaac died trying to get Richard Knightley’s victims the money they’d lost, and she said Isaac left her more money in his will than she knows what to do with, that maybe she could donate some of it to be distributed between them. We advised she wait and see whether the class action pans out first since it’s possible the prosecuting firm might find the scam money if they
dig deep enough. But it seems like the victims should be counting themselves fortunate either way.”

  I hoped that would include Stanley. Despite what he’d done, I could summon only sorrow for the man and everything he’d been through.

  “What about Isaac’s microrobotic hostage-rescue system?” Connor asked. “Did you manage to recover any of his files?”

  I studied my hands.

  “Switching the computer off saved a bunch of them from being deleted, although we believe all of them were stolen before that happened. We brought in a robotics consultant who estimates we lost at least half of everything that was there, but she believed a team of experts could cobble it back together from what’s left in six to twelve months. The simulation was still accessible, so we showed that to Mrs. Anand as well. She said she’d ensure it ended up in good hands.”

  The news was better than I’d dared to wish for. But that raised another problem. “Doesn’t Tony Callahan own the intellectual property to the files that were salvaged?”

  Hunt smiled. “No. Well, it’ll need to be officially decided by a probate lawyer, but Anand did it all in his own time with his own money rather than putting it through the business. In an attempt to keep it secret, I suppose. The end result of which means it’s a personal asset, and he willed everything he had to his grandma except for a little to that neighbor of his.”

  Thank goodness for that. But it had other implications too. “Could Callahan have learned that information after buying the stocks and so organized to steal the breakthrough?”

  Hunt turned grouchy again. “That’s a possibility we’ll be investigating. Just one of the many ways having a clueless civilian on this case has added to my workload.”

  Even with that verbal jab, I felt like I’d gotten off exceedingly lightly. Who knew baking—or befriending your elderly neighbors—was such a useful life skill? We exchanged a few last questions, said our goodbyes, and were walking toward the exit when Hunt called out my name.

  “Avery.”

  I halted midstride and turned. “Yes?”

  “If you’re ever responsible for a firearm so much as discharging in my vicinity again, I’ll find an excuse to toss your ass in jail for another night.”

  I gulped. That had rated up there in the top three worst nights of my life.

  “And by the way”—Hunt looked me square in the eye, picked up the plate of cookies, and dropped them in the trash can—“Etta’s are better.”

  26

  I managed to contain my giggles until we exited the police station and then burst into laughter. Which meant I had to explain to Connor why it was so funny that Hunt thought Etta’s cookies were better than mine.

  Even he snorted in amusement.

  Then, since we were already out and about, we figured we might as well return to my apartment and get announcing that we were back together over with. Mae had been hanging out at Etta’s, and Oliver had been watching a movie in bed when I’d run upstairs to grab the cookies, so now was as good a time as any.

  We mounted the stairs hand in hand, a simple act that made my stomach do a little flip-flop of pleasure. But when I peeked in Etta’s window, her open-plan living area was empty. Darn it. Hopefully Oliver would still be home at least.

  It turned out that Etta, Mae, and Oliver were in my apartment. They were sitting on the couches with cups of tea in hand, but the television was quiet. Switched off.

  What had the three of them been talking about? Etta and Oliver hung out sometimes, but Mae was a new addition to the group, and generally when I came home to find Etta over, she and Oliver were arguing about the TV channel rather than deep in conversation.

  All three of them started when we came in, another sure sign that things weren’t as innocent as they might appear.

  Then they saw my and Connor’s clasped hands, and grins spread across each of their faces.

  Etta was the first to speak. “I take it you two have finally seen reason and made up rather than had an accident involving superglue?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  Mae and Etta high-fived.

  Huh?

  “About time,” Etta said, looking awfully pleased with herself. “You can thank us later.”

  I expressed my confusion aloud this time. “Huh?”

  “Did Adeline have anything to do with you getting back together?”

  “No? She wasn’t exactly… the counseling type.”

  Etta flapped her hand in dismissal. “Of course not. I mean did she have anything to do with helping Connor see the error of his ways?”

  “Um—”

  “Oh sit down already, and let us tell you the whole story.”

  With an inkling that we might indeed want to be seated for this, I pulled Connor over to the sole remaining armchair and took Etta’s advice. And here I had been thinking we were the ones with the storytelling to do.

  Oliver had gone from grinning to looking like he’d sucked on a lemon. What kind of tea was he drinking?

  Etta ignored him. “You should tell the first part, Mae.”

  Mae appeared a little less enthusiastic about enlightening us. But since her choice was putting it in her own words or letting Etta do the talking, she settled her gaze on Connor.

  “You know I’ve been deeply concerned you were allowing your decisions to be ruled by the fear of loss. After Emmett died, I worked hard to avoid modeling that to you and Harper. But his death hit you harder than it did your sister, and then you”—she glanced at Oliver and chose her next words carefully—“experienced your own personal tragic loss, and it took a lot to pull you back from that.”

  I peeked at Connor and saw he had his mask on, then found that Mae’s eyes had landed on me. “You were the first good personal thing to happen to Connor in a long while. His business was doing swimmingly, needless to say, but there’s more to life than business. And I was worried he was going to throw that away out of fear.”

  She addressed Connor again. “But where would that have left you, hon? It’s like I tried to talk to you about—if you rejected Izzy because she’s good-hearted and selfless, what kind of person would you end up with?”

  Mae sat back and smiled. “Anyway, I’m preaching to the converted here, but at the time, I was really worried that you’d wind up regretting your decision. A weak or self-centered partner would never suit you, and ending up alone would mean business would be all there was to your life. You don’t particularly excel at letting your hair down and having fun.”

  I smirked. That was an understatement.

  Mae dropped eye contact and rolled her mug between her hands. “So I spoke with Etta, and we figured that if talking wasn’t going to work, maybe pushing you together with a woman lacking Izzy’s traits would force you to consider the implications and consequences.”

  Ohhh, no way.

  “Unfortunately, neither Etta nor I knew of an appropriate person to illustrate this, but how hard could it be to find a wannabe actress in LA? Etta asked Oliver if he knew someone who could help.”

  My eyes snapped to Oliver. He’d been in on this too?

  His lemon-sucking expression had only intensified.

  Etta jumped in, eager to tell her part of the story. “And wouldn’t you know it, Oliver knew just the right person for the job!”

  “Oh sure,” he grumbled, sharing none of Etta’s enthusiasm, “as soon as you said self-centered narcissist, just one person sprang to mind.”

  Etta reached across their armrests to slap him on the shoulder. “I don’t know, it seems like she was more than willing to help you out. Strange after all the complaining you do about her using you.”

  Realization dawned on me. “Wait. Adeline is Adele? You asked Adele for help for my sake?”

  This was the woman he’d moved to Los Angeles for, the woman who’d broken his heart.

  Oliver blushed. “Well yeah, there aren’t many people I’d do it for, but for you, old girl, I’ll endure a great deal of unpleasantness.”
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br />   I went over and hugged him. Which made him pat me awkwardly on the back and blush some more.

  Then I hugged Mae and Etta too.

  “Thanks, guys, I can’t believe you’d go to so much trouble—or unpleasantness—for me. For us.”

  Connor was still sitting on the couch with his arms crossed. “But for the record, we would’ve been fine without your meddling.”

  Etta looked at me. “See, dear, this is exactly why he needs you.”

  “Time for cookies!” I announced. I had some leftovers of the ones I’d baked for Hunt, which brought up another question. “Wait, did Hunt know the real reason Adeline—I mean Adele—was accompanying us when he agreed to that?”

  Etta smiled smugly. “Some secrets are made to be taken to the grave.”

  Mind whirring over the recent revelations, I went to the kitchen, filled up the kettle, and found that someone had already eaten all the excess Hunt cookies. Lucky I’d learned from past occasions and now kept a secret stash just for this purpose. Making sure no one was in view to see where I kept it, I extracted the container from the bottom crisper of the fridge, under a pile of vegetables. Oliver never raided the vegetable crisper.

  I almost dropped the loot when I turned around and found Mae standing in the kitchen.

  “Let me help you with all these mugs,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  She pulled me into a sideways hug. “My pleasure, hon. I’m just so glad that Connor has managed to overcome his greatest fear for you.”

  Wow. I hadn’t phrased it that way to myself before and had to swipe my eyes.

  Mae smiled.

  Then Connor joined us. “Hey, Mom, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind looking after Petal while I’m in Australia. She might like a holiday with you and Agatha while I’m on mine.”

  “A holiday?” Mae repeated. “That sounds as if you’ll be taking her back?”

  I stared at him in silent hope, and he winked, actually winked, at me!

  “Well, it turns out she likes classical music after all.”