I glance at her. “Are you offering to help?”
“You’re in up to your neck. Alex, Fournier, Van Wyk, Amelia… this Company thing.” A pause. “Severedfingers, for crying out loud?” She grimaces. “So yeah, if I can help you get out of all this, I’ll sleep better.”
I bump her shoulder with mine. “You’re a good friend.”
“The best. Now, I’ll take litigation and corporate, you take social.”
We work in companionable silence for a while, like we were both back at Dalton Reed. All it’s missing is Franklin breathing down our necks and being ever so slightly creepy.
An hour later, and Carol leans back. “That’s pretty sparse.”
“How sparse?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s sparse.” I look at my own paltry results. “Amelia was the same. Van Wyk, too. They’re clean. If there are records, they’re not public.”
“You got the medical examiner’s report, right?”
A text comes in from Alex, distracting me.
Still sore, Tink? Take a bath when you get home, and I’ll pick up some massage lotion for this evening.
Goddamn it. I’m never going to be able to take abath again without thinking of him.
That’s fine, I like showers.
It’s almost a sweet message, if I didn’t know he’d have something deeply uncomfortable planned,despitehow sore I still am.
And my traitorous body reacts to the images that thought produces. My stomach clenches, my nipples tighten. Heat pools where I don’t want it pooling.
“Vicky?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you all right? You just went bright red.”
And calling attention to it only makes it worse. “Uh… medical examiner’s report?”
“Right, yeah.” Carol gives me a look, then carries on. “I’ve got the death certificate, but there’s nothing we don’t already know.”
“And I have a bunch of old photos. All they prove is Van Wyk has a type, and Juliette and Amelia both share it.”
Carol puffs out her cheeks. “She didn’t own property. She didn’t have any corporate ties I can find. No litigation against her, and no bankruptcy. What did she even do?”
“I’m betting very little,” I say, thinking of Amelia’s apathy, the blank look in her eyes. The lack of emotion, just like Lucy had said. A woman who used to laugh, and now no longer does. Like she was just…
“What?” Carol asks. “I know that look.”
“Amelia’s trapped, right?”
“Yeah… that’s pretty clear. What did you say? ‘I’m not trying to leave anymore’?” She shakes her head. “It’s sick.”
“So we assume Juliette was trapped too, right?”
“Okay…”
I pull up a new browser, typing in as I speak. “What do trapped people try to do?”
