Even now she could remember the way her knees had ached, and how fatigue had made tears form in her eyes as she had sat there for hours, failing time and time again. But the struggle made it all the more worth it once she heard the lock click and she was finally able to twist the knob and collapse onto the floor in relief.
That familiar anxiety wormed its way through her as she started on this lock that was far more complex than the simple one that had been on her bedroom door all those years ago, but she didn’t let it deter her.
Instead, she embraced the fear that she might fail.
She used it to make sure her hands held steady, and her focus didn’t waver as she started the delicate process of picking the lock.
A benefit to this sort of neighborhood was that it was quiet, with only a lone vehicle passing through every few minutes. She went virtually unnoticed as she kneeled on the stoop and worked.
Her heart beat steady in her chest as she carefully turned the wrench, a breath of relief leaving her once she heard the lock click. A smile almost curled the edges of her lips as she quickly hurried inside and closed the door behind her, already scanning the entryway for the alarm system.
But when she found it and looked it over, expecting to need a password, it was unarmed.
Uilleam’s doing, she imagined.
Standing in the middle of the floor, she pulled off her glove long enough to grab her phone and turn on the flashlight before pulling the glove back on and starting forward.
The brownstone was impeccably clean, though there was a lingering soft scent that said someone had been here recently.
Karina started in the living room since it was closest, checking the bookshelves and display pictures. She looked for anything out of place or a hidden safe but came up empty. Five minutes later, she found that the entire ground level was empty of anything she thought might be of interest.
Slowly, she made her way upstairs, pausing when she spotted the line of photographs hung up on the white walls.
Though it wasn’t much of a surprise, she still paused over the portrait of Paxton and his wife, their smiles stiff, a glass of champagne in both of their hands.
It was easy enough to believe that Paxton had other properties besides the ones she or the police knew about, but she was surprised that Orion hadn’t been able to find this one either.
Also Uilleam’s doing?
He was very good at making things disappear, she was learning, but it was even more impressive that he could also hide things from other people who did what he did.
Karina headed for the master bedroom next once she reached the second landing, the wood groaning softly as she crossed the floor.
The bed was undone, a pair of men’s pajamas left abandoned on the floor on the left side of it.
She thought she would have heard if Paxton had left the city, but with Uilleam monopolizing her attention for the past couple of weeks, she couldn’t be so sure.
There was probably a lot she had missed, a thought that suddenly made her uncomfortable.
You’ll find what you’re looking for at the address I send you.
Those words played over and over in the back of her mind as she ventured around, careful not to touch anything as she moved from room to room, searching for anything that could be used to convict Paxton.
She didn’t doubt that whatever it was would be obscure enough to mean nothing to someone else, but everything to Paxton. It was the only thing that made sense. Not only had she done her research on Paxton, but she had done the very same for Miranda, even going to her childhood home to learn more about her.
No doubt Uilleam knew about that.
He trusted that she could find whatever was left behind.
But just as she was sure whatever clue was here she was completely missing, she ventured back downstairs to the kitchen and found an office off to the side of it.
She pushed the door open with one hand and flipped the light switch up with the other.
And to her surprise, wrapped around a lamp sitting on the large desk was a gold necklace.
One with a very distinctive charm.
A necklace that had been around Miranda’s neck the night she died. Something that Karina had only learned about later after a late night phone call with Nicole.
“She never takes it off,” Nicole had said between tears. “But it’s missing and no one can find it.”
And now, here it was.
Would it have Paxton’s prints on it?
Would it matter since it was found here, in his place?
Would he—
“Freeze and put your hands where I can see them.”
Karina didn’t immediately mean to follow the command, but at the sound of the voice behind her, she stopped where she stood, keeping her hands visible at her sides. The back door loomed just ahead of her, practically taunting her with escape.
And with the adrenaline rushing through her, she was almost positive that she would be able to reach it and get the door open within a few seconds.
But she fought that instinct and slowly turned to look over her shoulder.
A uniformed officer stood across the room, his gun firmly trained on her, his gaze unblinking, but even at her distance, she could still see the bead of sweat at his temple. The glow of red and blue lights broke out then, shining through the front windows, and she knew at that moment that she couldn’t do anything to get out of this.
Whether she ran now wouldn’t matter. She was caught.
And above all else, she also knew this was Uilleam’s doing.
He had set her up.
Tricked her into believing pretty words that ultimately meant nothing.
And she had all too eagerly fallen for his bait.
Just as so many others had, she was sure. She’d been a fool to trust him.
As the officer crossed the room, more certain now that she wouldn’t try to run, she thought of the phone call she could make. One phone call to one person who would make all this go away.
It would be as if it never happened at all.
But even as she felt cold metal wrap around her wrists, she remained silent.
Tobacco and some kind of cleaning product were all Karina could smell in the back of the black and white cruiser.
And even as her heart was in her throat, she still couldn’t bring herself to speak, not even when they’d been reading her rights to her back at Paxton’s other house.
She couldn’t afford to incriminate herself, but her mind was racing, no matter how calm she appeared on the surface.
The drive to the station was over far more quickly than she expected. Even the walk upstairs to the bullpen proved rather uneventful.
The officer whose name tag read Jacobi took off her handcuffs and left her standing next to an empty desk, mumbling for her to stay put while he disappeared around the corner. She wasn’t sure where his partner had taken off to.
Odd.
She had never been arrested before, nor had she ever actually seen anyone getting arrested, but she couldn’t help but think this wasn’t standard procedure. She doubted people who broke the law were just left alone without someone to ensure they didn’t just walk out the way she was tempted to.
Yet no one was paying any attention to her.
She wasn’t even sure if anyone had actually noticed their entrance.
For a while, Karina did as she was told, standing in the same spot where Jacobi had left her, shifting her weight on her feet, but after minutes of this, she finally sank into the chair next to her hip and waited.
And waited some more.
And waited even longer.
Before she knew it, nearly half an hour had passed, and neither Jacobi nor his partner came back.
What the hell was going on?
“You waiting on someone, miss?”
Karina turned, spotting the officer who was looking at her expectantly. For once in her life, she had no idea what to say.
The truth … or a li
e.
“Ma’am? He’s already finished taking your statement, so you don’t need to stick around. We have everything we need.”
She blinked, not sure she was hearing him correctly. “Sorry?”
He smiled as if he dealt with people like her every day. “Once he took your statement, that’s all that’s needed. You don’t have to stick around for the paperwork. The officer explained that to you, right?”
She hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about, but she still found herself saying, “Yeah, he did.”
“All right then,” he said with a smile and a nod. “Have a good evening.”
Maybe this was some sort of game they played with perpetrators, but as she slowly rose out of her chair, she was willing to play it.
But she did wait until he turned—once he realized she was actually moving—before she stepped away from the desk, unable to keep from glancing back to see if Jacobi was returning.
Still, no one attempted to stop her.
She kept her hands balled into tight fists, then folded her arms across her chest as she made her way out of the police station, taking a calming breath with every step she took.
Karina didn’t relax until she was back in her apartment with the door shut and locked behind her before she slid to the floor.
Only then did she drag in a noisy breath and finally exhale.
14
Examples
God help him should he ever see the inside of a prison cell, even if it was inside a facility as nice as this one—Uilleam would be prone to drastic things if he was ever confined.
Though he had lost his image … and reputation … and his company was currently selling stocks as quickly as they possibly could, Paxton could still afford some luxuries.
For now.
His lawyer, a man who was far more brilliant than Uilleam had originally pegged, had managed to get him housed in a white-collar prison as opposed to one where more violent criminals were held. Though when he thought about it, and a smile usually crept on his face when he did, he knew Paxton wouldn’t survive a day inside one of those.
Here, at Gardsdale Prison, there were fewer guards—and those that were here were rather lax with the prisoners—as well as amenities men who had committed felonies shouldn’t possess, but to a man like Paxton, who had always been able to get whatever he wanted at the snap of his fingers and was used to the finer things in life, this was his own personal hell.
It didn’t take much effort at all for Uilleam to arrange a visit, to slip inside during the changing of the guards. When the video cameras froze within seconds of each other as he made his way through the various hallways until he found the designated meeting room he had requested.
It was an all-white affair with plain gray carpet. A desk bisected the floor, three bookcases on both the east and west walls, and two high back chairs that didn’t seem to belong in such a place.
The warden’s office.
A man who didn’t care very much about the criminal justice system and the way it worked so long as he had prisoners occupying his cells—that was the way of private prisons. There was good money in it.
One carefully wrapped bundle of hundred-dollar bills had ensured that the man would be absent and there would be no mention or recording of Uilleam’s visit here.
As he entered the man’s office, he didn’t bother sitting in one of the armchairs as if he were a guest but helped himself to the warden’s desk chair—the position of power in the room.
After all, that was what he was and had always wanted to be.
The most powerful man in the room.
He glanced down at the Ulysse Nardin watch on his wrist, counting the seconds ticking by as he waited for his guest to join him.
Funny, how quickly the tables turned.
How it had been Paxton waiting on him not too long ago. When he’d been the man behind the desk.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
It wasn’t long before he heard the thump of heavy footsteps outside the office door, then the unmistakable rattle of a doorknob being turned before two men were entering the office—one in a guard’s uniform and the other in a white prison jumpsuit.
Paxton had looked expectant as he entered the office as if he had been anticipating someone else where Uilleam was sitting, but when he saw who sat before him, his face mottled with red, a telling sight, but he didn’t utter a word.
Not until the guard handcuffed his wrist to the chair he sank into with a nod to Uilleam before leaving the room entirely. He wouldn’t go far—not so long as they were alone together. While the warden might have been willing to accept a bribe in letting this meeting happen, he also had to ensure that everyone left the room alive.
More paperwork for him otherwise.
“Come now,” he told the man, unable to help the smile forming on his face. “Why so glum?”
“As if I would ever have to explain that to you.”
“Surely, you don’t think I was the one who put you in here,” Uilleam said, rearing back and going as far as to look astonished by the accusation. “I never lifted a finger against you, Paxton. That’s a promise.”
The man scoffed, not easily convinced. “You found a way around that fucking promise, didn’t you? This was your doing—everyone fucking knows that. People see you for what you truly are.”
“And what would that be, exactly, Mr. Paxton?”
“A two-headed snake.”
Uilleam wagered he should have been offended by that. Paxton was clearly trying to get a rise out of him, but what the man failed to understand was that he had already won. The game was over. There was no need for him to feel any more emotional attachment to something that no longer meant anything.
He also didn’t mind the imagery of the perceived insult.
“I’m going to make you pay for this.”
“You never seem to understand when there’s no dog left in the fight, do you?”
“Gaspard will hear about this.”
“Who do you think came up with this little idea?”
Of course, Gaspard had never explicitly said as much, but it had all practically been spelled out for him since the beginning. He hadn’t understood, at the time, what the man had been trying to get him to understand, but after putting Paxton in here with no blowback to himself, he understood what the man really meant.
It was too easy and uncomplicated to conceal a dead body and paint an image that could just as easily be explained away any problems with the painted theory. There was no mystery or finesse.
Anyone could do that.
But not everyone could reverse everything they had done while making sure there was no connection to themself, and then and make it seem as if the evidence had all been right there in the first place.
The thought made him smile.
Those that underestimated him usually learned to regret it.
“We had a deal.”
“And you violated it the moment you went behind my back or had you thought I wouldn’t find out what you had done?”
Truthfully, he had already had plans to forsake the deal he’d made with Paxton long before he had actually done so. But before he had requested Karina meet him, word had gotten back to him about a certain conversation Paxton had.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“No? You weren’t attempting to have me blackballed?” Uilleam asked with an arch of his brow.
He wasn’t necessarily upset that the man had tried—at least it proved that he had a set of bullocks on him—but that didn’t mean he could let the slight go unanswered.
And simply because of the sheer unmitigated gall, he’d needed to make an example out of him, so here they were.
“It was a mis—”
“Let’s not rehash history.”
Some of the righteous fury in Paxton’s eyes died down, his back pushing a little straighter as he adjusted in the chair. It was too late to try and defend his actions.
/> He was already in prison awaiting trial and Uilleam simply didn’t care one way or the other.
That fact was probably written across his face.
The poor, foolish man.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t blame you for your mistakes. We were all weak once—some of us just grew out of it.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Though I would delight in providing you with all the sordid details, there’s just not enough time in my day for that, I’m afraid.” He tapped his thumb against the the stack of papers sitting on the desk, considering his next words. “We all have a part to play in this world, Paxton. Yours was to fail.”
Perhaps he finally recognized that there was no getting out of his current predicament. Not when Uilleam had placed him here and there was nothing he could do about it.
But his spirit wasn’t beaten, not completely.
“You’ll never be anything more than what you are right now. A maid cleaning up another’s mess. You’re nothing. Just a stupid boy who will die before you ever—”
Uilleam stood and planted his hands in the middle of the desk, leaning his weight forward. “If you finish that remark, I’ll have you transferred to maximum security and you’ll learn in the worst of ways what cleaning up someone’s mess actually means.”
Paxton wisely pressed his lips together.
Uilleam had come from a long line of great men.
Men who took without waiting for something to be given.
He would accomplish more than they had ever dreamed. And just because he hated the man, he would see Paxton transferred anyway.
An example for those that came after him.
15
Royal Eve
Across the city, just outside of Brooklyn, the Royal Eve Bistro sat on an unremarkable corner of 16th Street—the kind of place that blended in with the other buildings on either side of it so it might have been missed if one wasn’t looking for it, but it was unmistakable with its pale blue trim and white painted wrought-iron furniture.
Karina couldn’t remember how she had discovered the little restaurant or the delicious buttery croissants they made fresh each day, but once she had, she made it a point to dine here at least once every couple of weeks.
White Rabbit: The Rise (The Kingmaker Saga Book 1) Page 13
