Page 49 of Bitter Burn
My father-in-law glances at me and then says suddenly, “I know you’ve never liked me.”
I look back at him, this man who sold his daughter into marriage to a known murderer. Who’d dictated that we consummate the engagement so her Catholic guilt would keep her from backing out of it.
That Isolde had been working for her uncle all along, that she’d wanted to consummate things—it makes very little difference in my mind. Geoffrey didn’t know any of that, and he demanded it all anyway.
“You’re correct,” I agree. “I’ve never liked you.”
He’s too distracted for the confirmation to bother him, I think. “And I know I haven’t been the kind of father my wife would have wanted me to be to Isolde. When Inis died, I felt like…like all the best parts of me went too. Like she was the trustee of them, like she was the trust itself, and without her…” He looks back at Joan of Arc, his thin mouth pressing tightly together. “I know you don’t think much of me, but I hope you can trust this: I would never let someone steal from Isolde. Her future and the future of the bank are everything I’ve worked to build. Even my very worst choices have been for that.” He glances at my pocket. “We couldn’t find anything on Regina Springer except for that address. But the child at Stanford was easier—her name was on the payment record. She’s the daughter of a single mother, both of whom are quite active on social media. Both of whom seem to visit Rome quite a bit. Coincidentally, there is a prelate there who used to be the bishop of the mother’s diocese. She worked in the diocesan offices with him in fact. Around twenty years ago.”
“And the prelate…”
“Is a cardinal. Voting in the papal conclave as we speak.”
Ah, of course. While money is being funneled from the Cashel trust to pay for the secret daughter’s tuition.
Laurence smooths the ends of his scarf, a genteel gesture betrayed by the jerky, nervous movements of his hands. “If you were going to buy votes in the Sacred College, you could hardly be using Vatican money. It would have to come from elsewhere. And you would have to plan for it… You’d need to plan for years.”
One of Cashel’s strengths. “When did you start thinking that someone might be following you?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” says Laurence. “Our investigator called the prelate’s old diocese in the morning. By the evening, I noticed the same two men loitering outside the lobby doors of my building.”
“If you saw them, that’s a good thing,” I say. “It means either they want you to know that they’re there or that they haven’t sent their best yet. With Cashel in the conclave, this is being overseen by someone underneath him.” Like the Scales. “Have you done anything about the manager yet? The one who was actually moving the money around?”
“No,” Laurence replies. “We’ll certainly be pressing charges, but it was agreed that we shouldn’t alert him before we’re ready to make our move.”
Pressing charges, fuck me. Even now, watching over his shoulder, Isolde’s father still has no idea what pit of hell he’s tumbled into. For him, this is still all about money and politics and accounting and law.
“Don’t do anything until I say to,” I tell him in a low, urgent voice. “Call off the investigators for now, sit on the evidence, and let the manager continue to pull money out of the trust. You cannot let them know that you found anything of substance. It might be too late after the call to the diocese, but maybe not. If you play hard enough that you haven’t found anything, pretend that it must have been some shoddy accounting and nothing more, you’ll buy us all time.”
Laurence’s iron-colored brow lifts. “Some time until what? Mortimer is elected and he’s taking his papal cues from the Borgias or Medicis?”
“You’ll buy me time until I can make your daughter safe, Laurence. That’s all I ask.”
He studies me. “You care for her. Beyond our arrangement I mean.”
“Not that you deserve to know it, but yes. I do care for her. I love her.”
His shoulders fall, and he closes his eyes. “I’m glad. I’m glad that she—that I haven’t taken that too. Does she love you?”
“Depends on the day,” I reply honestly.
He opens his eyes and stares at the carved saint in front of us. “Inis was the same.”
“I’ll look into Regina Springer,” I tell him, turning to leave. “Don’t take any stupid risks in the meantime. However long you think Cashel has planned this, double it—triple it even. He’s planned for everything, including you.”
Twenty
Mark
Once I get to Lyonesse, I call Lox, who is not happy to hear from me, especially when I have more things for her to do.
“I’m not Google,” she carps at me. But I still hear her typing as I rattle off Regina Springer’s address.
“I’ll pay whatever you want,” I say. “I know your little Alaskan commune of server farms and zip-tied redheads doesn’t come cheap.”
“Oh, fuck off.” And then she hangs up.
A second later, I get a text message.
