Infinityglass(15)

“Poe is where?”



“Tennessee.” Dad wore his usual poker face. “ICU at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He was hurt, badly, but is expected to recover.”

“How—”

“I don’t know how, Hallie. Just that he had a terrible knife injury and almost bled to death. But he didn’t.”

I blew out a deep breath. Dad’s words rolled through my brain like the crawler at the bottom of a news broadcast.

“When’s he coming back to New Orleans?” I asked.

Dad’s eyes closed briefly, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.

“Dad?”

“No idea.” He dropped his hand. “But if I let him come back, things are going to change.”

If. I wanted to let loose, like Godzilla on an unsuspecting city, but people crossed oceans to avoid Paul Girard’s anger. Not a good idea to cause more if I wanted to get Poe back.

“No one else has the same skill he does,” I said, trying to reason. “Are you really willing to let him walk?”

“Possibly, yes.”

“Can we talk about why?”

My father went to the mahogany liquor cabinet, took a few ice cubes from the ice bucket, and dropped them into a glass. He poured a glass half full of amber-colored liquid. It was only on the rocks because lunchtime hadn’t rolled around yet. After that, it was straight-up.

“Poe’s loyalties have come into question.”

“Who would he be loyal to besides us?”

Dad set his glass down firmly and wiped his mouth with his thumb. His hands went to his hips, pushing back his suit jacket, exposing the lines of his holster.

“No,” I said. “No way. Not Poe.”

The cutting edge of betrayal overrode the feeling of dread she usually conjured up.

My mother.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“She called. As a courtesy.”

I could imagine how courteous that conversation had been.

Dad and I didn’t talk about her, and only in business terms when we did. She’d done a bunk when I was ten, though she’d stayed at Chronos. I rarely went on jobs for her and had started to refuse them altogether, so a couple of years ago, she’d “made things easier for all of us” by choosing to operate out of her own office. She’d only made things easier for herself.

Teague Girard might be able to give up her family, but she’d sure as hell stick around for science.

“Why? Why would Poe do that?”

“I think you should sit down,” Dad said.

My head came up sharply. Weakness wasn’t in Paul Girard’s vocabulary, yet he sounded unsure.

“You know I’m about business. Always have been.” He filled his glass a little higher than halfway this time. “That’s why your mother pursued me, because of my connections and business sense.”

Not because she loved him.

“She brought Chronos to me.” He took a drink. “This much you know.”

I nodded.

“Chronos had chosen to be esoteric instead of savvy, and she wanted to change that. Time is money, and things were going downhill. There are people with special time skills all over the world. I didn’t know about those talents until your mother. Once I believed, I threw my backing behind Chronos. It didn’t take me very long to see the benefits, so I got involved.” He swirled the Maker’s Mark whisky in his glass. “There were people who didn’t agree with the way your mother wanted to handle things. One is the head of the Hourglass.”

“The ones who do the squeaky clean jobs?”

“The perfectly legal ones, yes.” He took another drink, a long one. “Your mother has recently been involved with them.”

“If they’re into legality, why would they hook up with her? Don’t they know who she is?” How she is?

“I don’t think they had a lot of choice in the matter.”

Mom had sacrificed our familial relationship, and now she’d ditched our business one, too. She couldn’t cut us out any more clearly if she’d used an X-Acto knife.

“And as far as Poe is concerned, I believe your mother persuaded him to help her instead of us.”

The hits just kept coming.

“He wouldn’t betray me like that.” He couldn’t have. He was my only friend.

“I hope not, Hallie, but I’m not sure what to expect from anyone anymore, and until I know exactly what your mother is up to, I’m going to hire extra security.”

“Come on, Dad,” I whined in protest. “What are you going to do, put a guard on every inside door?”

“Just yours.”

I put my face in my hands to stifle the sound of my groan. “You can’t—”