Page 27 of Consume Me

I lowered my voice to match hers. “It’s important.”

“It belonged to the royal family,” she said her voice so quiet now that I hoped I was hearing things.

But I wasn’t.

The royal family. The house belonged to us—and there was a house and a patient. But why? Why drug a nurse? Why lock her away? What did she see that warranted such a cruel punishment?

Unless…

I had to know if I was crazy or if I’d finally found a piece to a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving. There was one way to do it.

“Rachel, do you have any idea who I am?” I asked in a strangled voice.

She shook her head, studying me for a moment like she might find a clue. “Should I?”

“No.” I said. There was one more question that would tell me everything I needed to know, one that could raise a million others. I asked anyway. “What year is it?”

She cocked her head looking at me like I was the crazy one. “2009.”

Chapter 10

It hadn’t taken him long to figure out exactly where he was—that was the first and last bit of good news.

The nurse believed he knew where the Queen was, which meant she was still missing. He didn’t know what category to sort that info into. It didn’t quite add up—the attack, the interrogation, the restraints binding him now—which was how he knew it was all a lie.

Alexander had not sent him here. He wasn’t under suspicion from anyone. That was how it worked, though.

It was how they broke people.

It was how he’d been trained to break people.

They seemed to have forgotten that very important point. Whatever tactic they’d tried next would be equally transparent.

Then again, maybe that was the point. Sometimes, wasting time was simply that. The more time he spent trying to figure out what they were up to, the more time they had to enact whatever scheme they’d been plotting.

He hadn’t wanted to believe that it would all come back to this. He’d chosen to turn a blind eye to them and his own past. That was a mistake that would cost him. He could only hope it wouldn’t cost the ones he loved most as well.

So, he’d waited until it looked like he was under, then he’d carefully regulated his heart rate enough that it did register while he broke the fingers in his right hand—all while pretending to be under sedation.

Someone had forgotten that he’d been trained to withstand most sedatives. Or maybe that they thought that was a skill he’d long forgotten. That mistake was going to cost them.

He hated resorting to his dominant hand, especially since he’d compromised his other earlier, but this was more important.

He needed to get out. He needed to find Alexander and tell him what he suspected. It was the only way Clara would be found. It was her only chance. He owed them that. He owed his true family that.

When his hand finally slipped free, he paused to consider his next steps. He had moments before the alarm went off, once he detached the monitors. That meant he had to be ready for action. He undid his other restraint and pulled the blanket over his mangled hands to hide the truth. He couldn’t act. Not yet.

It was a frustrating truth that sometimes, even when time was running out, you had to wait for the right moment to strike.

Chapter 11

ALEXANDER

I’d promised myself that if I ever saw Oliver Jacobson as a free man, I would kill him on the spot. Now, as we made our way to Knightsbridge, I wondered if that was still an option. Oliver Jacobson might prove a valuable source of information if he ever bothered to speak in a language that wasn’t riddles. In the time we kept him in custody, he hadn’t given us anything other than vague threats and innuendo. But he knew more than he let on. That had become apparent to me when, while sitting in a cell, he’d admitted to the Child Watch attack. He hadn’t been involved, but he’d still known it happened. Since I’d made certain he didn’t so much as know the outcome of the latest Arsenal match, it was a surprise.

He knew what they were planning then, and I ventured to guess he knew what was going on now. But Jacobson wasn’t going to roll over.

“He won’t tell us anything,” I said to my companion, voicing my thoughts.