Page 72 of Booked for Murder

“I tried once. She kicked me.”

I frowned. “But why?”

“I was trying to be lazy and asked my little sister to fetch a drink for me. She told me to go grab a stick and screw myself with it. I think we’ve mostly figured out our brother-sister relationship. I’ve generally enjoyed it. She even lets me off the hook sometimes.”

I smiled at that. “Okay. I’m happy for her.”

“I thought you would be. You’ve always liked her.”

“Well, she’s sweet even when she’s doing her best to convince us we shouldn’t like her. I never got that.”

“Yeah. She’s too used to a bunch of rich assholes who would judge her because of her hair.”

I read between the lines: he didn’t just mean her hair, but her skin color as well. “Her hair is beautiful.”

“I know that, you know that, but there are a lot of assholes who do not know that. So, we leave it alone because she doesn’t want us butting in. She had quite the fight with Mom and Dad over her adoption, too. She was concerned about our reputation.”

Foolish girl. “I hope your mother set the record straight on that one.”

“She did, but it was a pretty spectacular fight. They sorted it out. Mom basically had to put her foot down and say the adoption was out of love, not out of whatever else Jezabella had in her head. They even went to some shrink about it. Mom had to adjust her attitude, Jez had to adjust her attitude, but they sorted it out. Jez requires me to inform people she is my mother’s maid because she’s constantly fixing the family messes.”

The more things had changed, the more they had stayed the same. “That’s good to know. Okay. I’m glad she was adopted. Now, what’s this about changing how you hire people?”

“We’ve started working on a merit-based system of employment in all of our companies. Our hiring method now involves an extensive paid training period. We fire workers who aren’t willing to learn on the job, are too set in their ways, and so on. We have sensitivity training in place now, and we require adepts to work with those of middling ratings more frequently. One of the executive secretaries who works with my father has a 20.4% rating. She’s fantastic at her job, too.”

My brows shot up at that; from the research I’d done while guarding Bradley, all jobs close to executives of wealthy corporations required a 70.0% or higher aptitude rating, and those on the lower scale underwent an unfortunate amount of scrutiny. Before the accident, I’d been pressured to keep a closer eye on those with a lower aptitude rating, although I had gone out of my way to watch behavior rather than care about anyone’s particular abilities.

I only cared about who might be an actual threat.

Some things didn’t change, and if the Hampton family worked to undermine the other adepts and their practices, they’d all become targets.

Ugh. I considered Ren, wondering how good he could be at protecting Bradley when he rode so many different horses.

“I don’t know what I did to earn that look, but I’m concerned,” Ren said.

“I’m trying to figure out how you can protect him from an entire country of pissed off adepts out for his entire family’s blood.”

“The answer is simple. I can’t.”

Shit. “Ren,” I complained.

“Hey. I like this. She’s not yelling at me for a change. Go ahead, Janette. I’d love to see somebody actually put Ren in his place. I’ve tried. I usually fail. I have only claimed one significant victory against him.”

“What victory did he claim? And no commentary from the individual in the back.”

Bradley chuckled, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I agreed to drive him around during his searches for you, as I could not find a sufficient reason to bar him from doing it himself. I pick my battles, and I use logic against him as often as possible. As he is a somewhat reasonable person, logic tends to work against him.”

I could believe that. “Telling someone who worked as a bodyguard that the body isn’t being protected adequately is how you give the former bodyguard anxiety.”

“Janette, from the day you started working for him, you redefined overkill on the protection front. While I realize he had a few incidents when you were in his employ as a bodyguard, there have been no significant incidents since I took over the position. He’s somewhat reclusive, he rarely goes out to large public events, and he has a reputation for being a moderate despite his family’s current stance supporting those of lower aptitude ratings. It’s hard for other adepts to complain about merit because it’s created substantial financial benefits for the family as a whole. By covering their activities under the veil of corporate success, the Hamptons are recreating how employers treat employees. And it’s going to create issues because the employees will start judging other employers by their operations.”

Not only did the Hampton family swim through dangerous waters, they did so in an environment where politicians were being murdered for their involvement in the same fight. If I squinted, I could easily see how they could be added to the list of suspects using me as a vessel for the accusation.

Except I’d been comatose for the first two killings.

I wondered if the timing mattered—and if the accident had somehow become a blessing in disguise.