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He transferred the emails onto a flash drive, as Jacqui continued to read the documents he’d prepared.
“Gus, are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, frowning. “You’re suing one of the biggest publishers in the country—actually the world. They’ll come after you with rotating shifts of lawyers. And even with the notes, I’m not sure you can win.”
“I’m not planning on actually fighting this, Jac. Just hoping the response might help us find P. S. Altamirano.”
“Because you think she’s Theo?”
“Or knows where Theo is…or what happened to her.”
“If you’re right, it doesn’t seem to me that Theo wants you to know where she is.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m not going to talk you out of this?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Jacqui sighed. “Then I’d better help you make sure these documents are in order.” She folded her arms again. “What’s the second thing?”
“Oh.” Gus hesitated, suddenly nervous. However, much he’d been trying to protect her, he’d obviously hurt Jacqui Steven. “I was hoping…what I mean to say is…will let me take you to dinner, Jac?”
CHAPTER 37
Theodosia Benton ran her hand over the cover of Afterlife. Her book. Her message in a bottle. The thread she’d laid as she walked into the Labyrinth.
It had been over seven months since its release, and in that time, she had watched a writer’s dream unfold. It was as they’d promised—an international bestseller, critically acclaimed and widely loved. Her thirty pieces of silver.
She looked down at the city of Dallas below her. The suite was the hotel’s best. There was security in the hallway, and cameras—ostensibly for her protection. But she knew the truth now. The only way out would be to climb over the railing of her high-rise balcony and jump.
She was only in the U.S. for a week and five days. It had been hard won with years of compliance, a new book set in Dallas so that she could make her case for a research trip. Not Lawrence but close enough.
Veronica would call for her in exactly fifteen minutes, to take her to the locations she’d insisted she needed to visit in person before she could write them with any sense of place.
Idly, recklessly, she wondered what would happen if she just called Gus. Or Mac—Gus had changed his number several times in the wake of Mary Cowell’s death, and Theo didn’t know it anymore. She knew at least he’d survived, and the charges had been dropped in light of her confession. For that she’d bartered her freedom, walked voluntarily into a gilded cage from which she would perform for the rest of her life like a bejeweled mechanical bird with no name. Day Delos and Associates had promised that they could have the charges dropped, but only if there was someone else to take the blame.
It hadn’t been a difficult decision then. Gus was being charged because of her, he had been shot because of her. Mac, too, was being dragged into the vortex of it all. And the only reason she had not been arrested was that Day Delos and Associates had sent Alexander Wilson. Somehow, she had become the focus of Dan Murdoch’s vigilante fans, and it had become clear to Theo that it was only a matter of time until they killed her or Gus or Mac. She would certainly never be allowed to move on, to live, to write. Her only option was to run and hide. Or so she thought three years ago when she’d allowed Alexander Wilson and Veronica Cole to take control of her life.
But now she wondered.
Theo shook her head. It was a conspiracy theory worthy of the Etheridges, and she was embarrassed that it had even occurred to her. She had ultimately agreed to it all.
She looked again at Afterlife. Could Mac have read it by now? His mother was leading the charge to have it banned. Nancy Etheridge had even built a website dedicated to the cause. It had been seven months, but she knew it might be seven years, or never. There were a million books, why would he pick up hers? But if he did… It was not the same as talking to them again, but she liked the idea that they would hear her.
Theo wanted them to know she was still here. A ghost, unable to be a part of their world anymore, but she was here.
The day Gus Benton filed his claim was uneventful. He and Mac worked on other cases without any acknowledgment between them of the proverbial elephant, trying to keep their minds elsewhere. He sent Jacqui Steven flowers and worked late. He ate dinner in his apartment and called his parents.
His mother told him she’d felt Theo’s presence in the sunrise that day. That his father was carving a memorial out of Huon pine, which they would leave in the forest to be a home to birds. He did not tell them about the book; he would not add to the agony of their grief with the acrid pain of faint hope. If he ever had good news, he would tell them; otherwise he would bear it himself.
The first call came at eight o’clock the next morning. It was Alexander Wilson of Wilson Freeman. The attorney was outraged at what he saw as a fanciful and vexatious claim designed to defame and slander the good name of P. S. Altamirano.
“Am I to understand you represent the writer?”
“Wilson Freeman has been retained to represent P.S. Altamirano in this matter.”
“I’ll drop the suit if I can speak to her directly.”
“Don’t be fucking ridiculous!” Wilson exploded. “Look, you jumped-up little lapdog, if you think I’m going let you extort my client with some fabricated claim, you are out of your fucking mind! I’ll have this thrown out before you can open your filthy lying mouth!”
