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“It’s simple. When I was researching Memories from the Hart, I started looking into what Walter Hart was doing with the bodies he wasn’t giving back to grieving families. I thought maybe he was selling the organs, but it turns out that you have to yank them out pretty soon after death for them to be viable. It’s more likely he was selling body parts on the medical market.”
“Do I want to know what the medical market is?” Gabriel asks.
“It’s where your body goes if you donate it to science,” George explains. “Mostly it’s chopped up cadavers medical schools purchase for teaching anatomy to doctors. Demand always exceeds supply, so plenty of schools won’t ask too many questions about the provenance of their supplies. It’s been like this ever since the earliest days of medicine, where medical students spent their nights robbing graves to supply cadavers for their anatomy lessons—”
Gabriel makes a face. “You take way too much delight in this stuff.”
“I know.” George grins. “So, anyway, I dug around a little into the medical market, learned some delightful things on the dark web, and I came up with this guy’s name – Brutus August. Apparently, he’s the guy you call if you want to sell a dead body in Emerald Beach.”
Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. “That’s my uncle, a real charmer."
Brutus seems determined to stomp on Daddy’s legacy. First, he gets out of the antiquities trade, then he doubles down on drugs and starts dealing in skin. He repeals Daddy’s rule about damnatio ad bestias. Now he’s moving cadavers?
Daddy is rolling in his grave.
“From everything I’ve heard, the guy is terrifying and dangerous and not well-liked,” George says. “He’s also fucking good. There’s no evidence he’s connected to Memories of the Hart. He’s wiped everything clean. I take a chance that Walter Hart isn’t that savvy. I got a hacker friend of mine to break into Walter Hart’s laptop and download files from a hidden directory. Those photographs show Walter and Brutus together at a party. It’s not enough to stand up in court, but it was a clear sign to keep digging. I handed over that photograph along with all my other information to the FBI, but August’s name never came up in the trial. I figured he’s organized crime so they can’t touch him and forgot about it until Eli asks me if I could look into him, along with what really happened to the Malloys. I remember the photograph of his dad with Brutus, so we confront Walter Hart with it and see if we can shake something out of him. Well, Eli confronts him, after he bribes a warden and—”
“Elias Hart bribed someone?” Gabriel bangs the table with glee. “This is bloody brilliant.”
“It was terrifying,” George shudders. “We needed to sneak Eli’s phone into the prison to record their conversation. But it worked – we got confirmation from Walter he worked with Brutus and we found out he’s been visiting Walter in prison. His last visit was the day he disappeared. That got me wondering if Walter Hart had helped Brutus somehow, so I went digging into his property portfolio and found most of it sold off except a dilapidated ranch about an hour from the city.”
I remember Noah telling me he and Eli had a place they went when they needed to be alone. It makes sense that it could be this ranch. What if Eli’s going there right now and Brutus gets hold of him? I drum my fingers against the counter. We need to hurry up and get out there. “Does Eli know?”
“I haven’t told him yet,” George says. “He’s acting so strange. I was afraid if he knew he’d do something stupid—”
I hear the door to the garage creak open. “Noah, is that you? You need to hear what George —”
Noah leans against the door frame, his arm back in its sling and a faint smile playing on his lips. “I have a surprise for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Please tell me it’s not more of your cuisine.”
Noah grins and steps aside. I hear a weird noise, like a cat meowing with excitement, but it’s not Queen Boudica’s howl. It’s—
A strange black-and-white tuxedo cat careens around the corner. It sees us and tries to about-turn, but it’s got too much momentum so it skids across the tiles, collapsing into a ball at my feet and immediately sitting up to wash a paw, trying to convince me it meant to do it all along.
This cat almost looks like—
“That’s Gizmo. I told her I’m not going anywhere without her.”
That voice.
The frying pan slides out of my hands. Bloody steaks slide across the floor. I do not give a shit.
I step forward on shaking legs. “Eli?”
He’s here. My golden boy, looking anything but as he hovers behind Noah, staring everywhere but at me. I itch to throw my arms around him and pull him close, to inhale the warm, summer scent of him and to feel the safety of his arms.
My feet won’t move. I can’t do it, can’t throw myself at him again to have him push me away. He’s too important. The whisper of his kiss dances on my lips – the kiss from the party that he freely gave but now hangs around his neck like a noose.
He’s here.
He may still hate me, but he’s here. I can protect him.
Noah nods to his friend. “Eli says he’ll stay here if it means he’s away from Nero, but that doesn’t mean he’ll speak to you.”
“I’ll take it.” A smile spreads across my lips as relief floods my body. He’s here. He’s safe.
For now.
