Page 17 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
“And?”
“She’s your sister. Don’t you care what happens to her?”
“Ah, dear old dad. I’m not sure that his infidelity constitutes a family.”
I stare at him, shocked. “He was married to your mother?”
Jonathan Scott has always seemed more legend than man. I can’t imagine him doing something as mundane as getting married. Who could convince him to say vows? Who would want to?
“How do you know she didn’t leave on her own?” he asks softly.
My lips press together. I know it deep in my bones, which ignores everything I believe about numbers and symbols. This is some other kind of knowledge.
“In fact,” he says, using a low version of that showman’s voice. “That puts those terrible statistics in a different light, doesn’t it? Realizing that some of the women that go missing do it on purpose. They do it to escape. And they don’t want to be found.”
“Avery didn’t do that.”
He speaks in slow challenge. “How do you know?”
“Because I was there,” I burst out, my voice shaking. “I was sleeping when she disappeared. Right next to her. She asked me to spend the night because she was afraid, and I failed her.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I turn away from him—from the warm yellow glow of the lamp, from the tall silhouette of a man who doesn’t want my grief. He doesn’t care about it. It’s an inconvenience to him, and even that’s my fault. Who would he be if he’d escaped instead of me?
Damon Scott is too sharp, too strong. Too real in every way.
I didn’t cry when Avery went missing, not when the police came and took my statement. Not when they escorted me to the station and made me wait in an interrogation room for three hours. Not even when Gabriel Miller arrived and looked at me with cold calculation, as if he was figuring out whether I had hurt Avery or had a hand in it. He must have decided against it, because I’m still alive.
Damon destroys the walls I’ve kept around myself for years. Rips through the dreamlike state I’ve been in since I found myself alone in Avery’s bed, wishing every second to wake up. I’m awake now, but she’s still gone. There’s a piercing ache in my chest with no numbers to shield me.
The air shifts. I don’t hear him move, but he doesn’t have to make a sound. He could leave me here, the scared little girl unworthy of his time. He could find one of the beautiful women downstairs. I already know they would do anything for him, when I can barely bring myself to breathe.
Something appears in front of me. He’s holding out a sheet of paper. I blink to clear my vision. A single tear drops onto the page, leaving a large gray dot. There’s ink scribbled here.
Two rows of jumbled letters. A row of random numbers.
“What is this?” I say, my voice thick with grief and confusion.
“You tell me, baby genius. It arrived seven days ago. The same day Avery James disappeared.”
Chapter Eleven
“What is it?” I ask even though I already know. It’s a puzzle, and there’s a part of me that yearned for this. For a puzzle I can’t immediately solve. One without a textbook to explain it to me. I’ve been searching my whole life for something I can’t unscramble, for a riddle without an answer.
Which makes me feel like a terrible person.
“Maybe nothing. Gibberish. Or a message from Avery herself.”
“Or a ransom note.”
“Why would a kidnapper put his ransom note in code? Doesn’t he want to get paid?”
Okay, that’s a good point. But this is still the best lead to where Avery has gone. The only one. “You think it’s related or you wouldn’t have shown me.”
“I told you to leave.”
“And you didn’t throw this away when it came.”
“I have no interest in games.” His words are punctuated by a crash from downstairs.
The thought of that beautiful foyer chandelier broken on the marble entry makes me wince. “Not interested in games? Then what do you call what’s happening downstairs?”
“Boredom,” he says.
I know my expression reflects my doubt at that. There was a full harem of beautiful women down there. Men, too. Does he sleep with both of them? “Aren’t you worried about what they’re breaking?”
A dark look. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I say even though the admission feels too personal. The Den may be a bed of crime and masculine power, but it’s also the only place I felt truly safe.
He studies me as if he can see under my skin, beneath the college student and even the mathematician, all the way to the scared little girl who’s never trusted anyone but him.
With a short nod he turns away and pulls out a shiny black phone. He murmurs something I can’t make out, slipping it back into his pocket a moment later. He stares at me with those dark, fathomless eyes.
