by Edie Harris
“When,” Keir corrected. “When he don’t provide you with those answers.”
Tobias nodded. “Good point. When you don’t provide me with the answers I want, if I decide to let you leave this hotel room, this—” he gestured to Keir “—is the face you’re going to spend the rest of your pathetic life looking over your shoulder for. My guess is that life won’t be a long and prosperous one, by the way.”
“Is that a threat? ’Cause I don’t much tolerate threats,” Pinney sneered with false bravado. “Ye’ve had me here all day and not laid a finger on me, so it got me to thinkin’ that ye don’t plan to hurt me at all.”
The first part of Pinney’s statement was true enough, according to the status call Tobias had made to Keir before driving to the inn. After nabbing Pinney at the station in the early morning hours, Keir had held him in this hotel room, kept him hydrated and asked only the most basic of questions, none of which named either Pippa or Chandler, but merely verified what Tobias already knew: that Victoria Nolte had hired Pinney to look into a personal matter, with a hard deadline of Saturday, April fifth.
The latter half of his pronouncement, however... Well, Tobias would prefer to avoid the use of force. That didn’t mean he remained entirely opposed to the concept. “Let’s talk about Philippa Landry, Mr. Pinney.”
Pinney’s sly expression and smug silence told Tobias everything he needed to know. The investigator had uncovered the dirtiest of dirty secrets: that Pippa—sweet, successful, big-hearted Pippa—was the child of psychopathic Reggie McCallister, the infamously evil Scottish Slasher.
Tobias had spoken with Pippa at greater length during supper last night, and the degree to which she reminded him of Beth threw him for a curve. It wasn’t just that their tastes ran along similar lines—both women were art lovers and obviously appreciated designer labels—but they possessed the same steely backbone belied by smiles made of sunshine. Clever and witty, and wanting absolutely no part of their siblings’ dangerous world, Pippa and Beth would no doubt have clicked like Dorothy’s red-slippered heels. Was it any wonder that she inspired familial feelings in him, or that he would’ve protected her from the danger posed by Lady Valsar regardless of whether or not Chandler had asked it of him?
But what was a threat to Pippa was also a threat to Chandler, and that...did not sit well with him.
The first faint flares of rage coiled, waking the beast inside, that feral animal in the abyss always so determined to defend those under his care. Tobias leashed the urge, tapping into the well supply of his control, and reminded the animal that the best defense was a killer offense. “Fine, you don’t want to talk about Ms. Landry? We can talk about me, instead. Put a name to my face yet?”
All of Pinney’s smugness drained away, the nerves returning. “Yer the bloke who built the drones.”
Eh, close enough.
Keir snorted his amusement.
Ignoring his cousin, Tobias kept his stance casual as he focused on Pinney, his hands no longer fists at his sides but slipped into his trouser pockets. “I’m the bloke who built the drones,” he agreed, offering a silent apology to his sister Gillian, the real engineering brilliance behind a multibillion-dollar US “invisible” drone project that had made headlines the world over late last year. “Makes you wonder why someone like me has taken an interest in someone like you, doesn’t it?”
Pinney swallowed visibly. “It’s about the Landry girl, yeah? Her and the Slasher.”
From the corner of his eye, Tobias saw Keir straighten from his slouch against the wall. No one outside Tobias, his siblings and Raleigh Vick knew of Chandler and Pippa’s connection to one of London’s most famous modern serial killers, but everyone in the United Kingdom recognized the moniker Slasher.
Twenty years ago, for a period of about six months, a Scottish-born security guard by the name of Reggie McCallister had kidnapped, raped and murdered seven sex workers. He’d made a mistake with his final victim and chosen a professional escort instead of a street prostitute, however, and when the escort hadn’t checked in with her employer, the police had been notified and a full-scale search launched, law enforcement having already been on high-alert to catch the Scottish Slasher and free London from the fear gripping the city by the throat. McCallister’s capture had been violently bloody, the crime scene photos a matter of public record, and his trial fantastical enough to make the world stand still. His death in prison less than a year later, after receiving seven back-to-back life sentences, had seemed almost anticlimactic.
Reggie McCallister had been the twentieth century’s Jack the Ripper, the public’s abject horror and cult fascination on par with his Victorian counterpart. Were the news outlets to get ahold of the information that the Slasher had daughters, one of whom was about to marry into the British aristocracy, it wouldn’t matter that two decades had passed: the slavering masses would go wild.
No wonder Keir had perked up, but Tobias had bigger concerns. “I don’t care what you know, or what you think you know, Mr. Pinney.” His only care was for how much it would cost to make the PI disappear, and how quickly.
“Even if what I know is that the Slasher had daughters off a missing barmaid named Jenny Valkner and that she is potentially his prototype victim?”
In point of fact, while the Faradays were aware of the twins’ birth mother, her disappearance hadn’t been excessively investigated when the first background check was being run on Chandler. Reggie had raised the girls for the first nine years of their lives, up until the time of his arrest, though his parenting had left something to be desired; food stamps and government-assist programs were the norm in the McCallister household.
But Pinney wasn’t done. “And that poor presumed-dead Jenny had a half sister, Ophelia Landry, who, ’bout a month after Reggie got bagged, suddenly adopted twin girls? One named Philippa, the other Mary something.”
Mary Chandler. Tobias’s blood turned to ice. “Is that all?”
“I know there were two of ’em the night Reggie was caught. Two little chits, probably nine or ten years old. The unredacted police report says they were hiding in the front closet of the flat the whole time.”
The whole time. Meaning that for the entirety of Reggie’s last torture and kill—where he had held the escort hostage for three days in a short-term let apartment, subsequently raping and slicing her to surgically precise ribbons—Chandler and Pippa had been unwilling witnesses. Had their monster of a father even known they were there? Had they seen anything, or only heard the sounds? The terrible, sickening sounds that Tobias could hear ringing in his own ears, because no doubt they were much the same as the sounds from Beth’s torture tape.
Good God. Chandler.
His body flushed hot then cold before he got a handle on his emotions. “An unredacted police report, you say.” When Adam had first discovered the connection between Chandler and her infamous father, he’d found the link through birth certificates, adoption and guardianship paperwork, and name-change request forms. The online police archive pertaining to the incident was heavily blacklined, physical pages scanned in and publicly available, with no mention of the twins in any of the reporting.
At the time, Tobias had been relieved by their apparent anonymity, but he’d fallen victim to the trap of his generation, it seemed—he’d believed that what was available online was all there was to find. No doubt Adam had uncovered everything, insofar as digital files were concerned. But if there was an unredacted document on real paper floating around...
Pinney shrugged against his bonds and confirmed Tobias’s fears. “Twenty years ago was all paper files and whatnot. Nothing much on the computers, and I found a copper from back in the day who said the DCI had redacted all the files ’cept one to protect the kids’ identities, being as they were minors and all. Paid a clerk to get a peek at the original, but it took weeks to find. Shite back-filing, y’know.”
A glance at Keir was all that was needed. Before the end of the day, that paper file would be in Faraday custody and no longer a threat to the sisters’ future. “Do you want to leave this hotel room, Mr. Pinney?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suggest you tell me what’s more important to you—work or money.”
Frowning, Pinney looked to Keir and back again to Tobias. “Don’t catch yer meaning, guv.”
“I don’t know what kind of man you are.” Tobias began to pace, more for effect than out of any consternation. “Are you the type who takes pride in his work, wants his clients to know that no matter what the cost or temptation, he will always finish the job?” But he didn’t let Pinney answer. “Or are you the sort who wants to make a buck and call it a day, regardless of who pays you? Because I can pay you to go away and never share what you learned in that police report. But to get any of my money, you have to decide which is more important. The money or the work.” He speared the older man with a cold stare. “What sort of man are you, Mr. Pinney?”
The investigator considered Tobias’s words, the beads of sweat at his temples dripping past his ears now. It wasn’t even particularly warm in the room. “There’s a third option—fame. What’s to say I don’t sell this story to the rags? I’ll never have to look for work again, because work will come to me.”
Ah. It appeared Pinney had reached the Desperate Stupidity stage of this conversation. “It’s not your story to tell, Mr. Pinney, nor to sell, and if you do either, I will have you shipped to a United States black site to reside in a hole for the rest of your life.” Tobias made to move around the chair, only to be stopped cold by Pinney’s next words.
“What about the girl? The other one. Mary something.”
Mary Chandler. “Consider your next words carefully,” Tobias warned, voice soft.
“She’s here at the wedding, yeah? I find her, talk to her, get her to come forward with the story. It’s her sister who’s marrying the fancy lord. What’s to say Mary don’t want a little posh in her own life?” Heedless of the danger he courted, Pinney continued. “I don’t have to tell the old lady nothin’ to stop the wedding, which is what yer all fired up about, innit? Won’t say a word ’bout Philippa. But ye can’t possibly expect me to sit on a story like this forever. Ye just can’t.”
And maybe, if he’d stopped there, it wouldn’t have happened. But he didn’t stop. So it happened.
Pinney eyed him beseechingly. “C’mon, guv. A chit like Mary, never quite touching that glow around Philippa, the perfect princess? Let me have a go at selling her to the tabloids. She’s got to be gagging for it by now, for any scrap of atten—”
Tobias’s fist connected with enough force to send Pinney, tied to his chair, crashing to the hotel room floor. It happened before thought and reason intervened, before he was conscious of wanting to hit the man at all, but standing over a groaning Pinney provided a rush of primal satisfaction Tobias desperately needed, after two days of quashing his most primitive impulses.
That those impulses centered around Chandler, and solely her, was a concern he’d address as soon as he was done here.
Exhaling heavily, shaking out his aching knuckles, Tobias pulled his wallet from his back pocket and removed the thick wad of cash he’d had transferred to a local bank this morning. “If time weren’t of the essence, I’d say we have a quandary, Mr. Pinney. I don’t want to give you ten thousand pounds—” he slapped the stack of paper bills against his palm “—because you’re very obviously not worth the full ten thousand. But you’re going to get it all if you agree to keep your mouth shut and forget you ever saw that police file.”
Pinney coughed, his cheek pressed to the thin carpet. “Wh-what police file?”
“Precisely.” With grim satisfaction, Tobias dropped the bank notes to the ground and moved to where Keir stood near the room’s door. His cousin hadn’t blinked at Tobias’s unusual show of aggression, and he said nothing now as Tobias murmured, “Put him on the next train back to London.”
“You want me to go with?”
“Yes. Keep his phone, too, and disable any computer in his home. I’ll have Adam shut down his internet connection.” Hopefully the ten thousand would dissuade Pinney from being too motivated to find new means of alerting Lady Valsar about his findings. Tobias was banking on a combination of the man’s inherent laziness and his fear of Keir to keep him quiet until after Saturday’s wedding. “I need you to sit on him for the rest of the week.”
“Sure thing. But this is eating into my holiday time, so it’ll cost you.”
Tobias almost smiled. “I think I’m good for it.” With a pat to Keir’s big shoulder, Tobias left the room, exited the hotel and climbed into his Mercedes. And then pulled out his phone.
Seriously, checking this app was a sickness. He supposed it came from a month of having Chandler under video surveillance within her cell, surveillance he could check anywhere, anytime from a similar mobile application. He must have spent more time than he’d realized looking at her pixelized grayscale image, always at-hand whenever the familiar anger over Beth’s trauma sparked deep inside.
He’d looked at her constantly in those early days, when Beth was in the hospital. He’d looked at her more when Beth was home in Boston, recovering. He’d looked at her repeatedly in between meetings, and when he was on the company jet, and at night when he couldn’t sleep because he wondered if she was working out in her cell again. She had a handful of routines, combinations of sit-ups and push-ups, lunges and jumping jacks, stretches and meditative poses.
Tobias was familiar with them all.
Perhaps that was why he’d reacted as he did to Pinney’s threat against Chandler. She didn’t inspire the same protectiveness in him that Pippa did, but he had defended her without a second thought nonetheless. Because she was...familiar. To him. And that familiarity had instilled a kernel of possessiveness in him. She wasn’t simply his prisoner; she was his.
The car still in Park, he rolled down the windows and let in fresh air to clear his buzzing head. Punching the PI had undoubtedly been a mistake. His fist had made his grievance against Pinney personal, and in turn given Pinney a reason to run his mouth and not simply accept the payoff. Thank goodness Keir was around to do damage control—something Tobias had never needed on his own behalf before today. It unsettled him.
His bruised knuckles throbbed as he opened the tracker app, disgusted with himself, his mood positively foul. Unsettled, indeed. It was her fault he’d lost his control with Pinney, her fault he couldn’t stop manhandling his phone, her fault he was at this ridiculous Regency-reminiscent house party in the first place.
Which was why it was her fault his jaw snapped shut when he saw her purple dot blinking at him from four blocks away. He zoomed in on the map, glaring at the words that popped up declaring her location: the Mandarin Melody. A karaoke bar.
He despised karaoke.
But what he despised more? Losing control over the variables in a given situation, and this given situation fell entirely within his domain. And what a domain it was.
Joining the family business in an official capacity at age twenty-one had seemed like the only option available to Tobias. At the time, he’d just graduated law school, having attended college since he was fifteen years old, and his father, Frank, had only recently admitted to the severity of his illness. Frank’s multiple sclerosis made it nearly impossible for him to be the powerful giant of a man he’d once been, which was why Tobias and his siblings had unanimously agreed to take on the myriad responsibilities that Frank alone had been juggling.
Passing the bar exam had been less than a challenge for Tobias. The truly terrifying part of his entry into adulthood was the sharp drop and sudden stop of becoming a public figure after a life of enforced privacy. His formative years on the compound had shaped him into an individual
uncomfortable with the limelight, but necessity being the mother of invention, he had donned the mantle of authority and demanded meetings with the Secretary of State, the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and, with the ballsiness of the young, the president of the United States to discuss the current and future business the government did with Faraday Industries.
He had been granted every single audience he wanted, to his shock.
To the shock of Frank, too. His father’s family legacy, generations in the making, had defined his very existence, and no doubt to him, Tobias’s ascension to the top of the political food chain with a single phone call to the leader of the free world had read as rude, arrogant and perhaps entitled. Unsurprising, then, that Frank had so obviously resented Tobias’s decisive—and rash—choices.
Eleven years later, Tobias could see his actions as missteps in his relationship with his father. He had decided, with the support of his brothers and sisters, to parlay the respect afforded to him by his law degree into the national theater. Within his first year as chief counsel and financial officer for Faraday Industries, he had negotiated contracts with various military branches and law enforcement agencies—some pre-existing, some brand new—that had grown less-than-clean under Frank’s oversight. He’d played a role in bringing hundreds of millions in fresh revenue into the company, and he had done so with a brash arrogance that had neither acknowledged nor respected the work his father had done before him.
There were moments where he wondered if they all wouldn’t have been better off—Tobias and Beth and Casey and Adam and Gillian—if they had settled the family legacy into the hands of external parties, brought in a new board of directors or new CFO. They could have separated their identities from their shared, infamous surname.
Tobias could have simply been an attorney, and never a ruthless negotiator selling covert services to the most powerful people in the world. Beth could have been a museum curator, and never the most sought-after assassin and sniper on the market for a decade. Casey could have risen through the ranks in the military; Adam could have started his own network security firm; Gillian could have focused her considerable scientific knowledge into curing cancer instead of crafting the world’s scariest weaponry. So many possibilities unrealized because of their combined hubris and their efforts, likely in vain, to appease their father. Frank had lived and breathed Faraday for so long, immersing his offspring in his obsession, and none of them had wanted him to think they didn’t honor their heritage that dated back to before the Revolutionary War. So on they had forged, until they, too, drowned in Faraday.
