Vision in Silver(68)
“We leave it exactly as is,” Monty said. “I’ll call Captain Burke.” He hesitated, not sure how Wolfgard would react to the next part. “Police will need to examine this, ask questions of all of us.”
“Police who are not connected to you because the Lizzy is your pup?” Simon asked.
“Yes. Until we know what happened, it would be better if it wasn’t anyone on my team.”
“But one of the police we know and one of our enforcers will watch the unknown police.”
That was more of a compromise than he’d expected, so he agreed.
When he walked into the reception area, Lizzy jumped off a chair. She looked at his empty hands, then at the door of the examination room.
“Boo Bear has to stay here and help the police with their inquiries,” Simon said, addressing his words to Lizzy. “Theral is kin to police, so she and Henry will stay with Boo Bear. Officer Kowalski will bring your carryall to the efficiency apartment where you and Lieutenant Montgomery will wait and rest while the police do their sniffing. Blair will wait at the delivery entrance and will escort the unknown police back here.”
I’m off balance and not being much help, Monty thought as they left the medical office and followed Simon to the efficiency apartments above the seamstress/tailor’s shop.
The last time he and Simon had dealt with children, they’d been bringing five girls from the Controller’s compound to Lakeside. He’d been overwhelmed by what he’d seen when he, Simon, and Dominic Lorenzo had entered the compound. Savagery and slaughter. And heartbreak when he saw the girls, the cassandra sangue, who were being raised and trained for someone’s profit.
Simon had looked after the girls, and he’d made the arrangements for the Intuits on Great Island to take care of them. Now he was giving the orders again.
Take care of the pack. Protect the young.
It wasn’t quite that simple when you were human.
Jewels inside a toy that Lizzy took everywhere. Blood on Boo Bear. Elayne injured in some way—and feeling desperate enough that she’d told Lizzy to make the trip to Lakeside alone. Why hadn’t she called her mother or brother? They lived in Toland and could have fetched Lizzy if Elayne had needed to go to the hospital. Why send Lizzy all the way to Lakeside . . . unless staying in Toland wasn’t safe anymore.
Gods above and below, what was Elayne mixed up in?
* * *
One advantage to living with predators is we know how to wait, Tess thought as she and Meg sat at the little table in the back room of the Liaison’s Office.
Meg didn’t seem to be in distress. She wasn’t digging at her skin—a sign that she was plagued by a pins-and-needles feeling that indicated something that might be revealed in a vision.
How much was too much? When you thought about how many things had happened to Meg since she stumbled into the Courtyard a few months ago compared to how little had happened to her during her first twenty-four years, was it any wonder that her mind was overwhelmed? Of course, what had happened to the girl during those first twenty-four years might have been repetitive, but Tess didn’t think any of it had been kind.
“Merri Lee, Ruth, and I watched a movie recently,” Meg finally said. “It had a large dog with lots of hair. Ruth says there are lots of breeds of dog, but we weren’t taught breeds, just general identification of animals.”
“Makes sense,” Tess said. “Why would someone pay for a prophecy about an animal unless it was valuable? Why are you thinking about the movie?”
“The dog kept getting into trouble. It didn’t mean to, but it did. It knocked things over or chased a cat through a party so that people fell into a swimming pool or ended up with gooey food spilled over them.”