“So you’re gonna rat me out for the right price, too?” she asks, and I finally understand where she’s driving the conversation.
“Not everything is a game to me,” I say.
“Hard to believe, when all that comes out of your mouth are non-answers, lies, and manipulations.”
I don’t know what it is, but a strangely hollow sensation appears in my chest.
I don’t break the gaze into her eyes, although I want to. I want to remove myself from the situation, but I can’t have her know that her words touched me.
I have this desire to punish her for seeing me, for calling me out.
“Did it ever occur to you that all of it might be a way for me to protect myself?” I say with a hardened voice. “Because yes, I am that arrogant. I don’t care what happens to Susie. Call me selfish, I don’t care. Please do, because my time on earth is much too valuable to be anyone’s bitch.”
With that, I get up and leave, even if I don’t want to give her the win. But I need a beat for myself.
12
REID
PLAYLIST: SEVEN NATION ARMY – THE WHITE STRIPES
“What’s up with you?” asks Rachel as she knocks at my open office door.
“Don’t ask,” I say as I lift my head entirely. I have been brooding over everything I have learned about Avery Zayne.
“She’s pretty cool, isn’t she?” Rachel asks.
“Cool?” I ask incredulously, because it’s the last word I’d describe her with.
“Yeah,” Rachel says. “I mean, the way she solved the Met case, but she’s also funny and combines things we didn’t even consider looking for.”
“She’s driving me mad in ways that make me aggressive on a cellular level,” I say blankly. “And I am quite sure she is playing us.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“Come here and close the door,” I tell her.
When she stands next to me, I show her the images.
“She gave me these,” I tell her. “The thing is, if she is tricky enough to document things like these, what if she knows even more? Does even more? What if they all worked together? What if none of what we see is real? What if she just wants the thingsfor herself? Something about these photos makes me hesitate. Something is not right, but I can’t tell what. I know she was in the Fullerton’s house yesterday, but I can’t prove it. What if she’s orchestrating all of it?”
“You think she orchestrated the Met thing, too?”
“It was too good. She was too good. The entire deal was too easy. She didn’t try to escape. Didn’t try to sneak out. It feels too slick, too perfect. What if she’s trying to keep us close to get information? Get access?”
Rachel stares at me.
“I mean, I have to agree, the Met thing was—looking back—pretty performative.”
Rachel looks at the photos.
“You know what’s interesting about the photos?” she asks after a while.
“Tell me.”
“The most valuable object was Cleopatra’s bracelet. But it’s nowhere on them. There’s the Chinese vase, the elephant skin, the flute, and the coins. Almost all of them appeared on the black market. But not the elephant skin, nor the bracelet. The latter is neither in the photos nor on the black market.”
I snatch the photos from her hands and look through every single one.