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“Don’t you see?” Alix asks. She points past the arterial blood spray, past the horror that’s centered in the frame.
And when I squint, I realize what she’s talking about. Just to make sure, I tap the screen to restart the video. I watch for a full thirty seconds.
“They blurred the other faces,” Alix says. “The other members of the Diamond Ring.”
My nod is a tight little spasm. This time when I stop the recording, I turn the phone upside down. Neither of us needs to stare at the black and white still.
It’s a good thing I do, because the pilot chooses that moment to come aboard. “Mr. Prince,” he says with a professional nod to me. “Ma’am,” he greets Alix.
“Sorry to get you up early,” I say. I’m not sorry. I’m doing what needs to be done. But it never hurts to be polite to the guy who’s responsible for keeping you safe eight miles above the surface of the earth.
“Not at all,” he says, playing along. “I’ve got clearance from the tower. We should have you home in two and a half hours.”
Alix waits for him to close the cockpit door before she leans forward in her leather chair. “That’s a good thing, right? Hiding the other men’s identities?”
She’s an optimist, my sweet, good girl.
Me? I’m a glass-half-empty sonofabitch. But it still makes something ache deep in my chest when I have to tell her the bad news. “By blocking the rest of the Ring, the Herzogs created a highly motivated pool of people to blackmail.”
“Fuck,” Alix breathes, uncharacteristically. I couldn’t say it better myself.
The flight attendant refreshes our coffee and tells us she has to take her seat. Alix’s fingers tighten on the arms of her chair as the Lear picks up speed on the runway. The takeoff is clean.
I wait until sunrise before I move us into the office at the back of the plane and call Samantha Mott. Alix and I will both need experts in criminal law, but Sam is the freeport’s general counsel. She can get the legal ball rolling. I tell her to find the best shark on the market, whoever handled last month’s case of the century, or the one before that. That’s who Alix deserves.
I’ll go with number two. And Sam can meet us at the freeport gate, fend off the cops in the short run. Because if Dover’s finest don’t have a warrant by the time we land, they’ll get one soon. I want someone with legal training to make sure every fucking i is dotted, and every t is crossed.
Sam offers her usual calm reassurance that everything’s under control. That’s a lie, but I appreciate her making the effort anyway. I’ve barely ended the call when my phone rings again.
Bob Marcus. I don’t have anything to say to him, not now, not with the news breaking all around us. One slash of my finger sends him to voicemail.
Another call—Sean Ferguson, one of my newest clients. We’re still building out his storage gallery to his specs. The guy’s been a pain in my ass since he signed his contract. Voicemail for him, too.
I turn off the ringer.
But after fifteen minutes of drumming my fingers on my armrest and watching Alix stare out the window without blinking, I give in to my curiosity. I read the messages that are piling up.
Marcus is withdrawing from the Diamond Ring. Pussy.
Ferguson is leaving the freeport altogether. Good fucking riddance.
TheDelaware News Journalwants a comment, as does theDover Post.ThePhiladelphia Enquirerisn’t far behind, and theNew York Timeslands in a pile of requests with theWashington Post, theWall Street Journal, and theFinancial Times.
I shoot a text to Susan Richards, which I should have done when I was still wearing striped pajamas in the middle of Cinderella’s dream house. I tell her to identify the top media fixer on the East Coast and get them on payroll by noon.
After that, I turn off my phone again. For real this time. Not just the ringer.
Alix and I sit in silence for nearly an hour. The flight is a hell of a lot longer when I’m not bending her over my desk here in the office.
For once in my life, the thought of making her come doesn’t turn me instantly hard. We’re flying into a storm, and I need to figure out how I can keep her safe.
We’re somewhere over North Carolina when I remember Wolf’s solution.
“We’ll say it’s a deep fake.”
“What?” She blinks hard as she turns toward me. I don’t want to know where her thoughts had taken her.
“I talked to Cole Wolf a week ago. He said we can argue it’s all made up. Hollywood special effects. We never invited Klaus Herzog to dinner. Never had him in the house. And you sure as shit never took a steak knife to his jugular.”
