Silver Vein: Beneath the City Sleeps Book 1

by Shannon French

  “Surely you get plenty of people coming into Omen and asking questions. Do you pay all of them a visit?” I retorted, hoping that I was feigning enough confidence to fool him. Given his impatient expression, I was guessing it didn’t fool him at all, not even slightly.

  His focus drifted away from my face and studied the walls of the modest office building we were sitting in. He pondered the pictures on the walls, the odd news article, with a strange curiosity. As though he didn’t venture into this part of town often. I studied him with morbid fascination as his concentration lingered on the cracks trailing from the skirting boards up into the ceiling, where damp was already seeping through the fresh coat of paint I’d applied a few months ago. This room was too small for a man like him and it seemed he was thinking the same thing—the chair he lounged in creaked beneath his weight, his legs were stretched out so far in front of him that the toes of his expensive shoes could graze the underside of my desk if he let them. A man like him didn’t belong here. My senses became acutely aware of what a shambles the office was. It had never bothered me before. I’d never felt insecure about it until now, and acid stung my throat. This guy was a stranger to me, but already I hated that he’d made me feel like less.

  “Most people know better,” he replied, finally looking back at me and clenching his jaw, only further exaggerating the sharp angle of his high cheekbones.

  “Is that so?” I mocked. “So who are you? Omen’s PR guy? The hired gun?” I threw in a chuckle for good measure, although my heart was thrumming in my chest at twice its normal speed.

  The man smiled again, his hands tensing around the armrests of the chair. “Not exactly.”

  A few moments passed where we seemed to stare at one another in silence, each waiting for the other to speak first. His face was unchanging, still decorated with the same curiosity. It was like I was some rare creature he’d never seen before and he was trying to decide if he should keep me or kill me. Neither of those options seemed like a winner to me.

  “Next time you have questions about my business, don’t go to my staff,” he began, his voice low and steady. Classy to a fault. “Xavier Sallow, I own the club you’re so interested in.”

  I should’ve felt like I’d won, like our strange battle of wits had resulted in my victory. Instead, I just felt even more terrified. If the owner of the infamous Omen nightclub felt it necessary to come all the way to this neck of my woods, then I must be onto something. Surely Omen had something to hide. It wasn’t just smoke and mirrors.

  I hauled open my desk drawer and plucked out another one of the photographs Lily, Jocelyn’s sister, had given me. Without hesitation, I pushed it across my desk towards him and stood up. I folded my arms in front of myself as though I were trying to make up for my short stature with width. It wasn’t working. I was easily half his size and by the looks of the twinkle in his eye, he knew it too. He pitied me, however, which I found surprising, and picked up the small photo and stared down at it with a frown before lifting his broad shoulders in a shrug.

  “Don’t know her, sorry,” he added, but there was something else lurking in the background. Something about the way his Adam’s apple trembled, flexing up and down as he spoke. It told me he was hiding something, a familiarity perhaps, with the girl in the picture. Before I could question it, he leaned forward, with his knuckles sinking into the worn wooden desk between us. He was just a few inches away from me, so close that I could smell the subtle cologne clinging to the fabric of his crisp shirt.

  “Come with me and I’ll tell you what you want to know.” His voice drew you in like a current, a beckoning depth who’s endless, roiling doldrums would see you lost forever. It was comforting in the same way darkness could be. A promise of danger, of death. I stepped back from the shore and the softly breaking waves of temptation.

  My ankle bumped against my desk chair, and I grasped the backrest to steady myself. All the while, Xavier Sallow stared at me in surprise, as though amazed I’d resisted his charm. Arrogant asshole.

  “I thought you didn’t know anything?” I asked, struggling to hide the celebratory smile that had my lips twitching upwards.

  He cleared his throat and buttoned his suit jacket, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from the pocket and setting them on the bridge of his straight nose.

  “Since now isn’t a good time,” he began. “Why don’t you join me later, this evening perhaps. I’ll send a car to pick you up around six.”

  The private-school manners had returned, but he didn’t wait for me to answer.

  “I’m not in the habit of getting into cars with strangers, Mr. Sallow,” I said, causing him to stall with his hand grasped around the door handle.

  “If you want to find her, you’re going to want to hear what I have to tell you.”

  I was about to answer him, but he was already out of the door and climbing into a car outside. The vehicle pulled away from the path and merged with the rest of the traffic, leaving me staring out the dirty office windows with my mouth open and a frown creasing my brow.

  Thatch rolled in seconds later, as though nothing had happened. I suppose to him, nothing had.

  “I got you a steak pie and I don’t want to hear one complaint about it,” he bellowed, chucking the grease-stained, brown paper bag across onto my desk where it landed directly on top of the discarded business card Xavier had just returned to me.

  “Why do you look like I just caught you with your hands down your trousers?” Thatcher asked, finally looking at my face.

  “You’ll never guess who was just in here,” I began, but stopped myself as soon as I made eye contact with Thatch. He’d told me to tell him the next time I did something he thought was stupid, but I knew if I told him about Xavier’s offer to pick me up later, he’d talk me out of it. My attention landed on the photo of Jocelyn, her kind eyes staring up at me from inside my desk drawer, and I swallowed despite my dry throat.

  “Well? Spit it out,” Thatch urged with a frown.

  I shook my head and smiled, picking up the paper bag and shaking it at him. “How many of these did you call lunch?”

  He rolled his eyes, “eat your pie and get back to work.”

  Chapter Six

  Unsurprisingly, there was nothing online about Xavier Sallow. Clearly, the name on all of Omen’s tax returns and business registrations were a dummy. It seemed as far as the government was concerned, Omen was up to date with everything it needed to be and that was all they were interested in. Naturally, there was nothing on social media or the like either, so by the time 5:30 rolled around, I was almost certain it was a bad idea to get into the car Xavier was supposedly sending for me.

  Scratch that. I knew it was a fucking terrible idea. Getting into cars with strangers was a big no-no, but getting into a car with a damn ghost was even worse. Thatcher had left half an hour ago to go back to Friar’s for a couple of drinks with a friend of his and I had managed to make it through the entire day without telling him what I may or may not be planning to do.

  Knowing it was a cheap move, I scribbled down a quick note and left it on Thatcher’s dark computer screen. With a bit of luck, if everything went OK with Xavier, I could get into the office and remove the note later tonight or early in the morning before Thatch could read it. If I ended up chained to a wall in some underground bunker somewhere being tortured for days on end, then at least Thatch would have a name and some information to get his investigation started. Or he comes to the office after he’s been to the pub and before I can get rid of the note, he sees it and then kills me himself.

  At 5:45, the same dark car Xavier had climbed into earlier pulled up outside the office, and I hastily grabbed my things and left the note for Thatch. If Xavier Sallow was expecting me to turn up dressed to the nines for a dinner at some fancy restaurant, he’d be sorely mistaken. My face was still bruised and puffy from last night, and I was still wearing the pair of scruffy black jeans and a baggy shirt I’d been wearing all day. I shook the thought
from my mind, reminding myself that this wasn’t a date—it was an interview. Or at least, I think it is.

  After turning off all the lights and locking up the shop, I walked towards the dark car, glancing down the street to see if anyone was around the bear witness to my kidnapping. Just my luck that the only people visible were a couple of young university students who seemed as if they were already intoxicated. London, I sighed to myself. If this was the last sighting of me before I was murdered, there’d be no one around to remember me getting into this car. No one to recall what I was wearing or who I was with. It was a risk I was accustomed to, but it didn’t make me feel any better. My eyes scanned further down the street in search of other, more dependable witnesses, but it was useless. This side street of Whitechapel was usually quiet at this hour, and today was no different. I was on my own, nothing but the distant wailing of sirens and the glimmer of high-rise office buildings against the city skyline to wave me goodbye.

  The driver’s door opened, and an older gentleman stepped out, opening the back door and signalling for me to climb inside.

  I could already feel the warmth from the inside of the car spilling out into the street and clambered inside quicker than I had intended. The driver clicked my door back into place gently, just as I noticed that the backseat was empty.

  “I thought Xavier would be here?” I said as the driver pulled out onto the road at a sensible speed. In the rear-view mirror, I noticed him glancing at me, meeting my eyes for just a few seconds before focusing back on the road.

  “Mr. Sallow has instructed me to drive you to your destination. No more, no less, ma’am.”

  The man’s voice was gruff but polite, but his good manners didn’t put me at ease in the slightest. Knowing that the only two options I had were to sit in this car or to open the door and make a run for it despite already being in rush hour traffic, I remained seated. I’d taken enough of a beating last night. I didn’t need to add a road traffic accident to my list of run-ins.

  “How long have you worked for Mr. Sallow?” I asked, hoping that I could at least get a slither of information on Xavier before meeting him for the second time in one day. The driver chuckled and I could see him shaking his head.

  “Oh, a while,” he replied, toning down the humour in his voice when he noticed I wasn’t in on the joke.

  After the brief conversation, the rest of the journey was silent and uncomfortable, and only one of those things changed as we pulled into Carlyle Square and stopped outside of one of the intimidatingly grand townhouses. I’d been expecting a bar, possibly a restaurant. Hell, part of me had even figured Xavier would meet me at Omen.

  I hadn’t expected to be brought to what looked like his home.

  The driver got out and opened my door for me. Well, he tried to. I was already clumsily getting out of the vehicle and staring at the imposing red door in front of me. Without waiting, the driver closed the car door behind me and led me up the few steps before pausing to ring the doorbell. Moments later, Xavier answered the door, looking far more casually dressed than he had been earlier.

  “Sir, Miss. Laurier for you, as requested,” the driver nodded graciously, as though addressing royalty and I couldn’t even begin to disguise the snort of amusement that slipped from between my lips.

  “Thank you, Richard,” Xavier replied, nodding for me to come inside.

  “Shall I wait outside until Miss Laurier is ready to return home?” The question took me by surprise. It was as if the driver had forgotten that I was standing right next to him.

  “Yes, thanks, Richard,” I butted in with a little more venom in my voice than I’d intended.

  “Come in, please,” Xavier encouraged, stepping aside to let me enter his ridiculously over the top house. I knew Carlyle Square for being an affluent little residential area in Chelsea, with traditional ivory townhouses surrounding a verdant green, fenced park in the centre. If money was no object, it was the ideal part of London to raise a family—houses here were scarce and rarely came on the market, something I only knew because I was partial to sneaking a look online at the ones that did occasionally pop up for sale. It was a whole other universe over here. Despite the street being completely silent right now, it wasn’t difficult to imagine family’s eating picnics on the grass in the summer, or young mother’s pushing designer prams along the well-maintained paths with a green tea in hand on brisk Autumn mornings. Not that it was all picture-perfect families that lived here. You had your trust-fund kids and your businesspeople, those who just wanted the status symbol of the postcode. Who was I to judge what went on behind these closed townhouse doors?

  The high street was just a stone’s throw away, where you’d be spoiled for choice if hipster cafes and bars were your kind of thing. You certainly wouldn’t find anything close to The Friar Tuck nearby. Chelsea had never held much appeal for me personally and looking at Xavier Sallow, I couldn’t place him here either.

  Inside, I was welcomed with the scent of something cooking. A mixture of rosemary and garlic filled my nose and, had I not been standing in the presence of someone I figured was dangerous, I might have been thankful I didn’t eat that sorry excuse for a steak pie Thatch had gotten me earlier.

  The warm hallway was lit up with antique wall lights perched beside huge paintings from what I presumed was the renaissance period. I wasn’t one for art, but the amount of antiques roadshow Thatcher and I watched was bordering on excessive, so I’d picked up on a few things. Xavier had moved to walk through a set of double glass doors and into what I presumed was the kitchen.

  Fighting my instincts to make a run for it, I followed him. Ivory cabinets lined two of the four walls, whilst fine brass chandeliers hung down from the impossibly high ceiling, casting an amber glow across the room that reflected over the pristine granite surfaces. The tall windows, typical for the period of these Edwardian townhouses, were draped with dove grey curtains, hiding the outside world behind pools of velvet fabric.

  “Wine?” Xavier offered, his voice momentarily reminding me that I was standing in his house and not peering in from the outside as a mere bystander. He looked so comfortable as he strode across to a cupboard and retrieved two large wine glasses. I listened to them clink like fine crystal as he placed them gently atop the clean worktop.

  Whatever I had been expecting from Xavier Sallow’s home, this wasn’t it. Masculine, yet modern and far more understated than the industrial gothic interior at Omen. I could only presume he’d hired different interior designers for both properties. Unless this was all part of the plan, bring me into his home and make me feel at ease. It would be easy to do. This room alone with its cooking smells and amber lighting felt homely already, and I’d only been here five minutes.

  “You aren’t vegetarian, are you?” He asked, breaking me from my shamefully obvious admiration of his home.

  “No, why?” I frowned as he passed me the wine glass filled with a dark red wine. The scent melded with those of the herbs, and I took a long breath as I resisted the urge to guzzle.

  “I find steak is always a people pleaser,” Xavier replied as he began grinding fresh pepper and pink rock salt onto two thick sirloin steaks, newly unwrapped from butcher’s parchment. “But that only goes for those who eat meat.”

  “You’re cooking me dinner?” I frowned, still nursing the glass of wine as I studied him. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off the thick muscle of his arms, especially as he began chopping up a pile of fine green beans.

  “That was the plan,” he retorted with an edge to his voice, as though my question was utterly ridiculous. “Have a seat, please.”

  He waved his arm towards a light oak table by the window, dressed simply with white plates, shined silver cutlery and tumblers. A large jug of iced water was perched in the centre beside a delicate arrangement of green stems and wildflowers.

  “I was under the impression I was here so that we could talk. I seem to recall you telling me you had informa
tion about Jocelyn.” I couldn’t even try to hide the suspicion in my voice, which seemed to amuse Xavier as he smiled down at the frying pan he’d just set down on the stove. He remained silent as he cut a wedge of butter and melted it down until it was bubbling and lightly browned.

  “You should never talk business on an empty stomach,” Xavier clarified, picking the steaks up and laying them down into the pan, not flinching at the loud sizzle they argued in retaliation for the heat.

  “So, you consider a missing person to be just another day at the office for you?” My curt tone didn’t go unrecognised, and I spent the next few minutes watching him sauté the green beans and rest the steak before plating up with a large spoonful of roasted new potatoes. He set the plate down in front of me and sat down opposite, leaning into the high-backed chair just as he had done at the office. Casually, he removed the tea towel that had been tossed across his shoulder and wiped his hands before he spoke.

  “I understand that you’re looking for this young woman. You’re clearly very passionate about finding her.” The statement was vague and I sensed I was in for a long night.

  “It’s my job to get her back to her family,” I replied.

  Xavier leaned forward, his elbows perched on the glass table and his hands steepled beneath his chin.

  “Honesty goes both ways, Quinn.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I hissed, almost in disbelief at his arrogant demeanour. “You asked me here. You told me you had information. I didn’t come here for the pleasure of your company, so if you don’t plan on giving me something I can use to find Jocelyn, then it’s time for me to go.”

  I braced myself to stand. My ass barely left the chair before he held up both his hands in mock defeat.