I’m not saying I’m happy she died. But the thing is, I really,reallyneeded Rook’s money. If it makes you feel any better, when my plan works, I will, in fact, resurrect his sister. So really, I’m doing him a favor.
Once I learned about his sister, Credence, I made sure word got back to him through one of his antiquities dealers about me—bloating my reputation, of course—and Rook did the rest himself.
This was the second step: the Encounter. And with any good Encounter, the mark thinks it was their idea. He showed up at my house—a bit creepily, I might add—and I made him work for it. Made him thinkhewas convincingme.
And now I have funding and we’ll both get our siblings back. Everybody wins. Now that the crew is reunited, we can move on with the next part of the job: the Buildup, bringing the mark into the fold, laying out the plan for him, setting the trap.
There’s just one more thing I have to do first: accept the job.
I arrive at Rook’s house before the others. I need to iron out some details without them hovering over my shoulder. Plus, it’s easier to learn about someone when you catch them off guard.
When someone invites people into their home, they usually aren’t presenting themself authentically. Think about it. If you’re hosting a party, you clean your house, hide anything you don’t want noticed (or stolen), put on something nice. You curate an identity that you want to present to the world. Something more palatable than who you were a few hours earlier: a troll in sweatpants, sitting in chip crumbs, watching reality TV. I don’t want to see the person Rook wants me to see.
I want to see the troll.
His mansion is outside Cambridge. It’s a large Gothic Revivalmonstrosity. Elaborate millwork. More towers and turrets than I can count. Probably a wife locked in the attic. It’s hidden behind oaks and pines, the lawn a bed of crisp leaves. There’s a seven-car garage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were stables and a tennis court out back.
An iron gate greets me at the end of the drive, and I have to punch in a code before it groans open. Gravel crunches under my red heels as I make my way toward the house.
For all intents and purposes, this is a business meeting, so I’m wearing a black suit today. But my business is crooked, so I have an asymmetrical blazer to match, buttons trailing from my right shoulder to my left hip, accentuating my curves. I’ve straightened my hair and pulled it back into a twisted bun at the nape of my neck. I’m wearing glasses again, but these are sleeker than the chunky ones I used as Random Lab Assistant Number Four.
It’s midday, but the sky is overcast and a thick mist that should have dried off hours ago clings to the air. There’s a screech above me, and I look up to see Crowlene settled on the eaves, her one good eye flashing at me. As a familiar, she’s still autonomous—honestly, probably more autonomous than she should be, given how often she flies off and I don’t see her for days—but sometimes I find her trailing me when she knows I’m “up to something” and I haven’t given her a job.
“I told you, I got this,” I mutter.
She tilts her head and blinks skeptically.
Crowlene is thebestfamiliar, but she’s also not a very good familiar. Technically, I should be able to see through her eyes (or eye, I guess) at will, but when I try, I get nothing. She has never had great timing and doesn’t always do what I ask.
She does bring me lots of shiny things though.
The porch creaks as I step up to the front door and knock. The wind rushes past, scattering the leaves behind me.
I let about thirty seconds of silence pass before I knock again. I’m only a half hour early, which should give me enough time to get a read on Rook before the others arrive but not so early that he wouldn’t be here. I knock again, then give two presses on the doorbell, which sounds a haunting chime.
There’s a crackle under the doorbell camera, and someone says, “Just a minute!” Definitely Rook’s voice but high and strained, almost like he’s in pain.
I could wait, but that gives him time to get his shit together. The door is, unsurprisingly, locked, but just above the handle is a keypad, and I enter the same code I used on the gate, because most people are either lazy or forgetful and will use the same code for multiple entrances. Plus, the same numbers are rubbed off the keypad. There’s aclick, and I gently push the door open.
It’s quiet, so I let myself in, careful of the sound of my footsteps. The entry hall matches the grandeur of the exterior of the house. Dark marble floors, cathedral ceilings, double staircases wrapping up the walls to the upper floors. A crystal chandelier casts freckles of light let in by stained glass windows.
There was a meticulous history of the Crawford family online—eighteenth-century English immigrants, eventual robber barons, antique collectors—but I couldn’t find any blueprints on the house, so I have to make my best guess on navigating my way through, because this is definitely a house you could get lost in.
I randomly choose a hallway to the left that takes me past a dining room, breakfast area, and two kitchens. I hear movement on the other side of a butler’s pantry, and it leads me to what must have been a servants’ wing a hundred years ago. I’m in a long dark hallway, not as ornate as the rest of the house, a walk-in fridge to my left, a laundry room to my right. That’s where I find Rook.
Covered in blood.
It streams down his face, soaking the front of his white shirt. Hishands are dripping with it, and he’s wiping them with a towel that is growing redder and redder.
I swallow. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
He looks up as though I’ve startled him. “What are you doing?” he snaps.
“Sorry, I thought you said ‘come in,’ ” I lie.
When he realizes the towel he’s using is just moving the blood around, he flings it to the ground with a curse.
I take a moment to look at him. He’s frustrated, obviously. And his labored breaths and tense voice tell me he’s in pain. Although the blood had already tipped me off. But it’s the way he won’t meet my eyes that gets me.
