Damyr turned to Dara, his eyes a little cold. "Dara, what about you?"
“Most of them were just warehouses or alternate homes. But there are a couple I don't recognise. Roxie, could you bring up the image of the old Neolithic Mansion and the old bank?” Dara stood and wandered over to the screen. "I definitely haven't seen these two before."
Roxie waffled through the history of the mansion, images of the inside of the building flashing in rapid succession. Memories exploded in my mind. Walking down the hallways, down stone steps. The grating of the heavy metal doors.
The basement...
I jumped up from Byron and ran to the corner of the room where there was a bin. I threw up the contents of my stomach, bile burning my throat and tears stinging my eyes. Byron was next to me in an instant, his hands rubbing soothing circles on my back. My whole body shuddered as the memories resurfaced and I threw up again, dry heaving when there was nothing left in my stomach.
When I'd finally finished, a wet wipe and a bottle of water appeared in front of me. Byron sat next to me on the floor, his legs wide open and he pulled me into his lap, his hand trailing up and down the length of my spine.
"Sorry," I grumbled to the room.
"Don't be," Damyr said. "It's okay. Do you want to leave while we go through the rest of this?"
I shook my head. "I'm good. I'm still getting pieces of my memory back and that building was where it all happened."
God, I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Throwing up in front of all these people had sucked.
Damyr nodded once. "Then let's continue. Roxie. Tell us about the mansion."
Roxie's nails started clicking down the line again and more information about the property filled the screen. "Okay, the Elwood Mansion has been purchased several times over its history. All by holding companies connected to Lawler. It looks like Lawler was involved in the original design of it, which is probably why the blueprints look a bit hinky."
"Hinky?" Vlad asked, his hand raised in confusion.
Roxie's furious typing paused for a moment. "Yeah, you know, kind of kooky. Like something doesn’t sit right."
"No way 'hinky' is a real word," Vlad scoffed, his large shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
"Don't you mock me. It's totally a real word. Anyway, when you look at the blueprints and then images of the actual building, it seems like some of the rooms don't quite line up. Windows aren't where they're supposed to be and the overall size of the building doesn’t seem to match. Makes me wonder if there are extra rooms built in the place."
"I think there are," I added, my voice quiet and unsteady. "I remember a large portrait that used to swing open in one of the downstairs rooms and there was a small, soundproofed room in there. Father used to put me in there when I refused to go to the basement."
Byron's hands squeezed my hips, his fingers sinking into them hard enough that I flinched. "I'm going to kill him."
"I'm sorry, Wilder. I didn't know." Dara looked like she was going to throw up herself. "I didn't know any of this."
I wondered whether she'd suffered under his hands as well, or whether I was the lucky one. But that was a conversation for another time. It was bad enough trawling through my traumatic history without adding hers to the mix too.
I shrugged one shoulder. "It is what it is."
"No," she replied fiercely. "I should have done more, and I should have done it sooner."
"You weren't to know. Father was good at keeping secrets." Other memories swirled in my mind and I pushed them away. Now wasn't the right time to start filtering through them all.
"Are there any local properties that belong to any of his shell companies," Aleksey asked, getting us back on track. The man still scared the shit out of me. He was just so angry looking all the time, like he was wrong word away from slicing everyone's head off. Byron was scary because he was sinisterly calm, but Aleksey radiated barely restrained wrath.
"There are two. A warehouse down in the shipping district and an apartment in the old financial district." Roxie put the locations up on the board and Byron hummed low by my ear.
"That warehouse is near where I found the wendigo," he said. "Can't be a coincidence."
He didn't believe in coincidences.
Damyr turned to look at him. "Go and check out the warehouse. See if you can find any link to the wendigo and the people who were keeping him. Vlad?"
“Yes, boss,” he replied, his spine instantly straightening.
"Take Aleksey and scope out the other property. Roxie?"