Page 46 of The Flame Game

“That’s not quite what I was aiming for, but for once in my life, I had completely thought that through before I jumped on their car. I remembered. Transports hurt. Cars probably hurt less than transports, but I figured I would prefer landing on their car rather than being squished by their car.”

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to argue with that, Bailey. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Good job. Also, I took the liberty of loading in my ex-wife’s banking records onto your work laptop so you can play with that while I drive. As you went through the effort of digging out her paper records, too, I also loaded in the digital version of the files, although I don’t know if there’s anything missing. She built the digital version after I showed her how. Honestly, if she’s hiding anything, it should be easy enough to find. We’ll just cross-reference the digital records and the paper records. Call me a fool, but I trusted her with the paperwork when, perhaps, I should not have.”

“I would say love makes people do stupid things, but I’ve come to the conclusion love wasn’t a part of that relationship, so I can’t give you a free pass on that. But to be fair, you need all of the patience to put up with me, so she was a suitable teacher for patience.”

“I don’t think you need me for coming up with zingers tonight, Bailey. That was a good one. Do I get an encore?”

“No, but you’ll get dragged into the shower at the hotel. Does that count?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I have us booked into a decent hotel two hours from here, and the staff knows we’ll be late. I asked for them to prepare dinner for us, so it should be ready when we arrive. I figured you’d want something quiet tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll try harder to appropriately dine you, although you do not get to partake of any wine.”

“They better not take away my coffee.”

“I have no idea if coffee is in the diet of pregnant cindercorns. Since most women wouldn’t find out they’re pregnant for at least another two or three weeks, I think it’s safe to say your coffee is safe for at least that long, but I’ll ask my grandfather and uncle. They probably know more about cindercorns than anyone else. I mean, I’ve been ordered to reserve most of my venom for you, so it’s obvious you don’t play by anyone’s rules. Cobra venom? Typically not safe for pregnant women. Compared to that? Coffee’s nothing.”

I did the math. Quinn’s cobras plus me being bitten by Quinn’s cobras equaled a fun time. “I don’t know who gave you that advice, but I will be very upset if you make your poor snakes sit around with uncomfortably full venom sacs. You better bite me daily. Right after dinner, every night. After we’ve sent the children to bed, of course. But we’ll make sure they know they can read for an hour before lights out.”

“Better give them two hours, as one hour is not sufficient time to appropriately care for my cindercorn.”

“That sounds reasonable. Should we call and check in on them?”

“I’ll call at the hotel to make sure they’re fine. It’s customary they don’t speak with us directly for the most part. That helps make sure they understand my grandfather and grandmother have full authority over them while in their care. It’s a gorgon thing, which he’ll be teaching them. They’ll probably cling when we get them back, but that’s also normal—and doubly so in their case. Since they’re with a familial hive, they won’t feel abandoned, so don’t worry. Family is pretty important to gorgons, and they’re probably overwhelmed with how much they need to learn right now.”

“I can work with that. Drive, my gorgon-incubus doohickey. I’ll fight with numbers and see if I can make sense of them. The next time you gas up, you can hand me the first of the files, so I can start matching things, too, assuming I haven’t found anything interesting by then.”

“You have a deal. But no homemade napalm today, even if I stop at a gas station with diesel.”

“That’s just mean, Quinn.”

“You’ll survive.”

Nine

Ew, ew, ew.

The insignificant, with new knowledge, could become significant in the blink of an eye, and Audrey’s financials told a chilling story. Lacking any reason to suspect his ex-wife, there was no reason for my husband to become suspicious over some—no, a lot—of the transactions in the spreadsheet.

However, understanding there might be a link between her, Chief Morrison, and the gorgons who’d kidnapped Janet changed the way I viewed her receipts.

Three years before her questionable marriage to Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, Audrey McGee had made weekly trips to the Hamptons. Those had changed to monthly trips to the Hamptons, although where she went remained fixed. Making use of my phone, I determined she’d gone for coffee at a shop several blocks away from the primary police station serving the rich and famous in the area, the perfect place for her to meet someone.

Most times, she returned home the same day, but before her marriage to Quinn, she’d stayed until morning more often than not, filling up at a gas station not far away.

How odd.

Near the end of their marriage, her forays to the Hamptons became weekly again, and she tended to go to the gas station several hours after the coffee shop. Sometimes, she went to the pharmacy. The purchases at the pharmacy baffled me until I checked the price of condoms and got a match on a common brand.

What a bitch.

Grabbing my phone, I went through my options and finally texted Janet, asking if she was aware of where Chief Morrison lived.

She replied with an address in the Hamptons.

I checked the address compared to the pharmacy to discover it was a quarter of a mile away from where the chief lived.

Ew, ew, ew.

I thanked her, wondering what to do about what I’d learned.