Bo asked another question. “How did Frank explain the situation when you never lost your incisors and grew Lamai teeth?”
“I was an anomaly, at first, and then he blamed my mother. Frank said she swore to him I was Tobias’s child. The only use my father had for Frank was that he orchestrated my abduction so my father could raise me. Then Frank played dumb for everyone else’s benefit and sobbed crocodile tears at my disappearance,” Jade said.
“Shit, that still leaves us with the problem of finding Raven,” Bo swore.
Philippe Laroque stood in the corner of his study, opening the windows to let the trade winds inside the room. He held a letter, yellowed from age. Raven Strigoi was in an upstairs bedroom guarded by two Lamai and three shifters. His mind raced as he thought about what had transpired over the past week. He worried incessantly about Jade. Was she all right? Was she safe? Had Tobias hurt her?
He used his magick in search of answers, but wasn’t happy with the outcome. She was safe, but somehow changed. The events that had taken place left an indelible mark on her. To what extent, he wasn’t certain.
And that useless mayor wasn’t answering his calls anymore. Had they turned Jade against him? Filled her head with lies so she would never want to see him again? Perhaps she finally felt a sense of belonging with the sister she’d lost so many years ago and now she hated him for taking her away from the only other family she had.
But Jade was smarter than that.
She had to realize everything he did was for her-wasn’t it? Or, more to the point, it was out of his hatred for Tobias. And his jealousy. That, he was certain, Jade knew.
Jade saw through her father’s motives and called him on it repeatedly. She’d asked him to give up this sick game of revenge, and he constantly told her no. Other than Jade, it was his only connection to Nicolette-this vendetta against Tobias. If he let it go, that meant he had to let Nicki go. He couldn’t, not this time.
In every other lifetime Philippe had visited through spiritual journeying, he witnessed Nicki choosing Tobias again and again. He’d been in love with other women, but if Nicki’s spirit was incarnated at the same time as Philippe’s, he was drawn to her, like the typical moth to the flame.
When the price became too high for him to pay and he realized his own daughter was in jeopardy, for the first time in his adult life he entertained the idea of letting go of this war. Nicolette was gone, and nothing he could do, even with all his power, could bring her back.
Perhaps Jade was right after all.
He’d fully intended to make a trade, one daughter for the other. He knew Tobias would agree to that, but what he hadn’t planned on, what no one was able to foretell, was the evil that lurked inside Frank Dubois. Like a festering boil, it became rancid inside the once-genteel man. The sins of envy and lust overtook him-the lust for another man’s wife, and the lust for power.
Frank fooled Laroque.
And Tobias. Philippe reflected on that time.
Frank was merely puffing up Laroque’s ego, asking endless questions about magick and contacting spirits, only to turn around and use everything he’d taught in good faith against him. He’d used the same technique with Laroque as he had to cover his feelings for Nicolette.
Poor Deidre.
She loved Frank, and he took her for granted. She wanted to raise a family with him, but Frank told Philippe he wasn’t cut out to be a father. He told Deidre his career came first. The timing wasn’t right. The years passed, and no children were born.
Deidre became distant. Though she still loved her husband, she knew that in his heart, Nicki would always come first. Deidre wrote to Philippe, pouring her heart out about her suspicions that her husband was keeping something from her. She asked whether he knew what it was.
He was so entrenched in his work in the lab-so focused on getting back at Tobias-that he hardly gave Deidre’s letters a second thought.
He should have. He would have had a better insight into the monster that dwelled inside Frank.
He opened one of the letters and read.
Dear Philippe,
I hope you are well. We received the photos of Jade, and I cannot get over how big she’s gotten-how much she looks like Nicki. I wish you would reconsider bringing her back to us. She would have a stable life here. I know how you feel about Tobias, but he agreed to let us raise her.
Frank misses her so much. That’s where the ink became streaky, and Philippe knew instinctively that Deidre had cried when she wrote this part.
He’s not the same, Philippe. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that maybe you can get through to him. He looks at Jade’s picture and cries for hours. He locks himself in his study and won’t let me in, won’t let me touch him.
I have tried to comfort him, but he gets so angry sometimes. I swear he called out Nicki’s name the other night in his sleep.
He claims he dreamt of Jade and must have called out her mother’s name, asking for help to get Jade back.
I don’t know when you’ll get this letter, since you’re always on the move, but I hope it finds you well.
Tell our Jade we love her and miss her.
Deidre
The pieces were coming together. Philippe had heard the rumors that Frank insisted Deidre wear green contacts when she decided to shed her glasses. In another letter from Deidre she revealed Frank refused to touch her when she had her hair straightened and made her wear the same perfume that Nicolette wore. These facts sat before him in black and white, in the letters strewn across his desk.
All from Deidre. All written without Frank’s knowledge.
Then there was his strange sexual preference of never making love to her face-to-face. Always in the dark, always from behind-and she “even heard him mutter ‘sweet Nicki’ more than a few times” when he did have sex with her.
How had he missed this? On and on, the desperate woman’s pleas for help fell upon his deaf ears. If only, he thought. If only…
His own deadly virus would not be killing him.
Philippe still wasn’t exactly sure how Frank had done it, but he knew it was him. After the night his daughter disappeared, Philippe retrieved the virus from his den and, upon examining it more carefully later, noted that one vial had less virus than the others.
He knew exactly how much should be there. Enough to dose at least three people was missing. Frank was the only person, other than himself, who knew where he hid the virus.
“Excuse me, Mr. Laroque, the-uh-woman wants to have a word with you,” Mick, the treacherous Lamai, former employee at Blood Pool, said.
Philippe gathered the letters and placed them in a locked drawer in his desk. “Good. I want to talk with her as well.”
Raven watched Laroque enter the room, carrying a tray with food. The Lamai stood leaning against the door jamb. Philippe approached her. She felt the sting of the straps that held her onto the bed digging into her skin. He placed the tray on the table at the far end of the room.
Laroque smiled. “You look more like your mother now. Your mouth is the same, your complexion-even your hands are like hers.”
Raven ignored the small talk. “Are you going to kill me?”
Laroque’s expression was stone cold. “Probably. But I do have a deal to offer, if you’re interested. As long as you can help me, I’ll let you live. And depending on how well you do, maybe I’ll even let you go.”
She struggled against the straps. “What is it?”
He stared at her for a few moments before speaking. “What do you know about the virus?”
Raven couldn’t help herself from laughing as she asked him to repeat the question.