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“You think you’re the only one who’s creative in this house?”
“You realize Dane is going to have a conniption when he sees all the tiny nails you’ve hammered into his walls?”
With a coy smile, I said, “I’ll just have to convince him to get over it, now won’t I?”
Kyle grunted. “I don’t even want to know about that.”
“Okay, then.” My attention shifted to the printouts. “So here’s the Lux.” Off to the left side of Wayne. I hooked a piece of yarn around the head of the nail and pulled it tightly to my sketch of the Asshole and looped it around that nail. Then I continued upward, to the right, where Vale’s picture was, effectively connecting three dots. “We’re pretty certain Vale and Wayne conspired to destroy 10,000 Lux, even if there’s no actual evidence to back up that theory.”
“Not a news flash,” Kyle tried to delicately tell me.
“No, not a news flash. However, we’re not entirely sure of everyone’s motives and who’s fully responsible for all the destruction.”
“I believe that’s what the trials are about.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Don’t forget that we’re dealing with an Illuminati faction with a powerful network built around it. Lots of pieces to the puzzle.”
I gathered three more printouts. I posted my hand-drawn rendering of Tom Talbot with a rifle, his stick figure–illustrated wife and daughter tied up, and the sna
ke-tat guy we’d encountered who’d provided the rattler for Vale when he’d set me up in the stairwell at the Lux.
“You have way too much time on your hands,” Kyle drawled.
“Just hang in there a few minutes more.”
For good measure, I scrawled out the shadow of a likeness of myself—with an enormous belly—and tacked it up. Then I twined yarn from here to there to there and stood back, eyeing the web I’d created.
“Tom, Candace, Ruby—all connected to Wayne, I’m positive of it. Who else would have planted the snakes on our patio and held Tom’s wife and daughter hostage—just as he left the snake for me in the stairwell and helped Vale kidnap me? It sure as hell wasn’t Vale, because it was finally confirmed with DNA samples that he was splattered on the front of that freight train in Flagstaff,” I stressed. “Snake-tat guy provided all the reptiles to torment and endanger me. He worked with Wayne, according to Vale. Then there’s me, directly related to Wayne, because I’m always his target.”
I raised my hands in the air in a voilà way. Then I grabbed my red marker and drew a circle around Wayne’s “cheeks.”
“It all leads to him, not Vale. Not Bryn.” I concluded. “Just as Dane had begun to suspect. This chameleon, wraith, satanic bastard is our nemesis. And until we rope him in, anything could happen.” I swept a hand over my body. “Look at me. I’m six weeks away from giving birth. Do I want that psycho out there, lurking in dark shadows? Hell. No.”
Kyle stood. “Ari, you’re not suggesting—”
“Not suggesting. We’ve discussed this before. Now it’s time to take action.”
Perhaps it was the conversation I’d had with my dad and the fact that I’d reached that point of no return where I couldn’t afford to let—wouldn’t let—anyone threaten us again. Any of us.
Kyle shook his head. “No, Ari. No way. I’m not about to—”
“We both know that we need a confession from Wayne. Because he links right back to this.” I tapped the Lux with my finger. “And while he’s out there, I can’t fully do anything with the hotel, for fear he’s going to sabotage it again.”
“So let the Lux go.”
“No,” I insisted. “Not an option. Besides, I have more.”
He eyed me curiously. Slowly said, “I’m not sure I want to hear more.”
“Get a grip.” I rolled my eyes for effect. “You know that all Amano has to do is gaze at a person and he can pretty much read their every thought. He totally figured out what I was up to when he came in here again the other day. So he did some of his own research. Turns out, Wayne Horton used to work at a new multiplex casino in Las Vegas.” I smiled triumphantly.
Kyle stared at me as though I’d just declared I was the one to invent Post-it Notes. And couldn’t convince him it was true.
“Follow me here,” I said. “One of the high-rise towers had some damaged or misplaced rebar or some such thing that substantially weakened the structure and, after paying six hundred million to have it built, the owners had to reinforce the tower with concrete pillars within the lobby area. Apparently, it turned out to be quite the eyesore, and wasn’t a sufficient solution anyway. No one has ever been allowed to set foot inside, let alone occupy a room. They’re now taking apart the tower piece by piece. All that money and effort gone to waste.”
“And that has what to do with … what?”
“According to Amano’s findings, Wayne was a construction lead on the project. He could have easily been in charge.”
