Page 239 of I Will Break You
The three of us stare into the screen, watching two shadowy figures in the Land Rover’s front seat kissing. I hold my breath, waiting for the couple to exit.
Seconds pass, and the couple continues their passionate embrace, making me discount the theory that Nocturne could be Father. The man was cold and austere. I never once saw him hug his legitimate sons, let alone his wife, and he sure as hell didn’t demonstrate any sentimentality.
“Hold on,” Jynxson says. “I’m moving in.”
The footage jostles as he exits the car. He sneaks across the parking lot to the vehicle and takes position with a tranq gun.
Calvin waves a hand. “Another message just came in from Alderney Hill. There’s movement outside Melonie Crowley’s house.”
“What?” I hiss. “Put them on speaker.”
“It’s Camila,” says a female voice. “I’m parked close to the front gates. Their garden lights just came on. Permission to enter the premises?”
I don’t know what to fucking think. Was Amethyst’s mother at the club? “Granted, but take backup.”
“Copy that,” Camila says.
I turn my attention back to the screen where Jynxson crouches in wait for the couple to emerge from the Land Rover. Leaning forward in my seat, I narrow my eyes. The vehicle’s engine goes silent and the headlights dim.
“Looks like they’re about to exit,” Jynxson murmurs into the mic.
The vehicle’s door opens. A medium-height man exits, and his stature isn’t anywhere close to Father’s. My heart sinks. So much for my theory of him being Nocturne.
Jynxson fires the dart into the man’s shoulder. He crumples to the ground without a sound. The passenger side door flies open, and the woman inside scrambles out, looking nothing like Amethyst or her mother.
She screams.
A tranquilizer dart lands in her chest before she evencompletes her sentence, and she slumps on the ground beside the vehicle. Jynxson rushes to the fallen bodies.
I rise off my seat. “Who the fuck are these people?”
“Give me a minute,” Jynxson mutters. “The male is Arthur Scroggins.” He pauses for a beat, the way he does before making a punchline.
“Get on with it,” I snarl.
“Bald, stocky, and carrying a bottle of Armagnac?” he asks, his voice light with amusement.
“Fuck. That club attendant?” I say through clenched teeth. “And the woman?”
“Dr. Monica Saint.”
“That’s the psychiatrist you asked me to research,” Tyler says. I turn to him for a progress report, and he shrugs. “I hacked into her system and found no records of Amethyst or Melonie Crowley.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Bring them in. I want to know why they’re using her car and how the fuck they’re connected to Delta, Nocturne, and X-Cite Media.”
“Xero?” says Camila’s voice. “I’ve got a man in a tuxedo entering through the back door.”
My breath hitches. The chances of him being connected to the Ministry of Mayhem are high. “Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Take him down,” I reply. “Bring him to a cell close to Tyler’s room.”
There’s a moment’s pause before she says, “Done.”
I grind my teeth. Where the fuck did Amethyst’s mother disappear to?
Amethyst’s psychiatrist is driving a car registered to her mother, and the man who set up tomorrow’s meeting with Nocturne is involved with the psychiatrist. Add to the mix the photo I found of Father at her parents’ dinner party and it spells one hell of a conspiracy.