Unraveled (6 page)

 5 

I asked Sophia and Catalina to watch over the restaurant, grabbed the food for Finn, and drove over to First Trust of Ashland.

First Trust was the city's most exclusive and highfalutin bank, catering to the extremely wealthy, powerful, and dangerous. The seven-story building took up its own block in the heart of downtown, and the gray marble gleamed in the weak winter sun. I left my car in a nearby parking garage, grabbed the box of food, and headed for the main entrance.

A couple of weeks ago, a single giant guard would have been posted outside, casually watching folks hurry by on the sidewalk. But thanks to Deirdre Shaw's recent and almost successful robbery attempt, security had been dramatically increased, and four guards now flanked the double doors, all keeping a sharp lookout, and all with their hands on the guns holstered to their belts.

I'd brought Finn lunch enough times over the past few weeks that the guards knew who I was, but they still eyed me with suspicion as I approached, and they kept watching as I opened one of the doors and stepped inside. Even then, one of them peered in through the glass, tracking my movements.

The doors opened up into an enormous, elegant lobby that had a light, bright, airy feel. Seams of white swirled through the gray marble floor before snaking up the walls and spreading out onto the ceiling, where they curled around several impressive crystal chandeliers. Dark, heavy antique desks and chairs were clustered together in groups throughout the lobby so that folks could have a bit of privacy as they talked about their finances.

Given that this was a weekday, several folks moved through the area. People coming inside to make deposits, others leaving after having handed over their money, bankers carrying papers from one desk to another. Tellers typed away on their keyboards, and the murmur of half a dozen conversations filled the air, along with an occasional high-pitched
beep-beep
from a cell phone.

Once again, my gaze was drawn to the giant guards, all eight of them, stationed in teams of two in the four corners of the lobby, all on high alert, with their hands on their guns, just like the four guards outside had been. Normally, I would have gone over to the receptionist—another newly installed giant guard—sitting at a desk close to the entrance and told her whom I was here to see, but a man standing by the tellers' counter waved at me.

“Gin!” he called out. “Over here!”

His voice wasn't all that loud, but compared to the other hushed murmurs, it boomed like thunder through the open space, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him, then me. I grimaced and tightened my grip on the box of food. Still aware of the guards' gazes on me, I walked over to the counter, which ran along the back wall.

Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, straightened up at my approach. To the casual observer, he looked the same as always—a handsome investment banker poured into a slick Fiona Fine suit. But his walnut-brown hair was more mussed than styled, his white shirt was rumpled, and his navy-blue suit jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, instead of being impeccably tailored. He'd lost weight these past few weeks, despite all my attempts to coax him to eat.

Finn eyed the cardboard box in my hands and sighed. “More food? I still have leftovers from the barbecue chicken that you brought over for lunch a few days ago.”

I passed the box over to him. “Well, now you have more.”

He nodded his thanks, but his green gaze moved past me and darted around the lobby before focusing on a spot along the left wall—the same spot where he'd first found out that Deirdre Shaw was his mother. Finn's shoulders sagged, making his suit jacket droop even more, and I could tell that he was reliving her betrayal yet again.

Deirdre had claimed that Fletcher had threatened her, forced her to leave Finn behind, and kept her away from her own son for almost Finn's entire life. She'd swooped back into Ashland a few weeks ago, saying that with Fletcher dead, she could come home, get to know her son, and finally be a part of Finn's life.

Damn, dirty lies, all of it.

In reality, all those years ago Deirdre had threatened to freeze a newborn Finn with her Ice magic if Fletcher didn't let her leave town. She hadn't cared about Finn at all—until she needed him to help her rob First Trust in a desperate, last-ditch effort to pay back the millions that she owed to Tucker and the rest of the Circle.

Finn stared at that spot along the wall a second longer before turning away and screwing a smile on his face, as though everything were normal, and he were still the carefree, happy-go-lucky guy he'd been before Deirdre had blown into town. Before she'd ripped his heart to shreds and betrayed him in the worst way possible. Before she'd tortured him with her Ice magic. Before he'd killed his own mother to save me.

“Alrighty. Let's get this show on the road,” Finn chirped.

He left the tellers' counter behind and walked over to a metal door set into the back left corner of the lobby. The two giants stationed there eyed me, but Finn showed them his access card, and they opened the door. I followed Finn down a long flight of stairs that led to the basement, where the senior bank officials' offices were located. Finn left me standing in the hallway while he ducked into his office and put the box of food on his desk. Then, together, the two of us walked over to Big Bertha.

Big Bertha was the bank's largest and most secure vault, featuring hundreds of safety-deposit boxes that were a literal treasure trove of cash, precious jewels, stocks, bonds, and other valuables. Since this was a normal business day, the vault's thick outer metal door was wide-open, although the inner door was still shut and locked. That inner door was actually a tight mesh of silverstone, an extremely tough and durable metal that could absorb and store magic. The mesh had three distinct layers now, each separated a few inches from the next, instead of the one layer that Deirdre had so easily blasted through with her Ice magic during the attempted robbery.

To my surprise, a dwarf with wavy silver hair, sharp hazel eyes, and rough, craggy features was standing in front of the vault, waiting for us. Stuart Mosley, the head of First Trust, and Finn's boss.

I looked at Finn, who shrugged at me. “No one goes into the vault now without Mosley's approval. I had to tell him what I wanted in there.”

I didn't like anyone knowing what we were up to, especially not Mosley, since I had no idea if we could trust him. But there was no way to avoid the dwarf, so we walked over to him.

“Ms. Blanco,” Mosley said in a deep, gravelly voice. “So nice to see you again.”

“Mr. Mosley.”

We shook hands, as though this were just an innocent business transaction, then Mosley looked at Finn. “You have the key?”

Finn nodded, reached into his pants pocket, and drew out a safety-deposit box key, which he held up for his boss's inspection. Mosley stared at the number—1300—that was engraved in the metal. For a moment, a hint of a smile played across the dwarf's face, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I'd only imagined the amused emotion. I stared at Mosley, but his face was stone-cold somber again, and I couldn't get a read on what he was thinking.

Mosley turned around and punched in a code on a keypad that was attached to the first silverstone mesh door. The light on the keypad flashed green before winking back to red. He punched in two more codes; the light flashed green twice more before staying that color, and all three of the silverstone mesh doors slowly slid back one after another.

“Well, you know where that box is, Finn,” Mosley rumbled. “I'll leave you to it. Be sure and lock the vault again when you're done.”

The dwarf nodded at us, then turned and walked down the hallway and around the corner, presumably going back to his office.

“Am I the only one who thought that was odd?” I asked. “It almost seemed like he was about to crack a genuine smile there for a second.”

Finn shook his head. “Honestly, I can't tell around here anymore. Up is down, and down is sideways, with all the new security measures and changes. Anyway, let's go see what Dad left us.”

We stepped into the vault. The last time I'd been in here, the space had been in ruins, since I'd used my Ice and Stone magic to collapse the ceiling on top of Deirdre and Rodrigo Santos, the professional thief who'd been helping her. But the piles of rocky rubble were long gone, as was all the gray marble dust, shattered lengths of silverstone rebar, and other debris. The area looked pristine, and the rows of safety-deposit boxes gleamed as though they had all just been shined by hand. Maybe they had been, given Mosley's attention to detail.

“This way,” Finn said.

He led me to the back left corner of the vault. All the boxes were marked with small black numbers, and Fletcher's box—1300—was the center box in a row of three across and three down. Nine boxes total, set off by themselves from all the others.

Finn held the key out to me. “You found it, so you do the honors.”

After Tucker had taunted me with the knowledge that my mother had been part of the Circle, I'd gone to Blue Ridge Cemetery to dig up her grave to see if Fletcher might have left a clue for me there, as he had in Deirdre's empty casket. I'd found the safety-deposit box key buried in the dirt in my mother's grave and had been wondering about it ever since.

But now that we were finally going to open the box, doubt filled me, along with more than a little worry about what we'd find inside. What horrible secrets had Fletcher discovered about my mother? What hard truths about her had he hidden away for all these years? And how much would they hurt me now?

“Gin?” Finn was still holding out the key to me. “Are you okay?”

I blew out a breath. “Yeah. Let's do this.”

Before I could think about it any longer, I took the key from him, slid it into the slot on the front of the box, and turned it. The lock clicked open, and I grabbed the handle and slid the safety-deposit box out of the wall. I carried the long, rectangular container to a waist-high table at this end of the vault and set it down there. Finn nodded at me, and I slowly lifted the lid of the box to reveal . . .

A single sheet of paper.

I frowned. Not what I was expecting. Not at all. Given all the photos and broken mementos that Fletcher had packed into the box in Deirdre's casket, I'd assumed that this box would be filled to the brim with information too. But maybe the old man hadn't had time to find out everything about my mother and the Circle. Maybe he'd just left behind a list of the members' names. That would be more than enough for me to start tracking down Tucker and all the others, however many of them there were.

Heart pounding, I reached for the paper. My fingers were trembling so badly that it took me three tries before I was finally able to grab hold and lift it out of the box. Finn moved to stand beside me, and I held the paper up where we could both see it to find . . .

A rectangle drawn on the sheet.

That was it. That was all. Just a large, simple rectangle drawn on a plain white sheet of paper.

I turned it over, hoping that something was written on the back. A note, a phone number, an address. But nothing was there. I held it up to the light, thinking that maybe there was a rune, watermark, or some other faint symbol that I hadn't noticed yet. Still nothing. Desperate, I stared at the front again, but it was the same as before.

Nothing—there was nothing here. Fletcher hadn't left me any clues about my mother, Tucker, or the Circle. Not a single one.

Once again, I had zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. A whole big fat lot of nothing. More damn
nothing
than ever before.

“That's it?” I growled. “That's all there is? You've got to be kidding me!”

Disgusted, I tossed the paper down onto the table. The single sheet zipped across the smooth metal surface, floated through the air, and landed right in front of those rows of safety-deposit boxes. The whole bank of them looked like a doughnut now that Fletcher's box was missing from the center. I glared at the paper, wondering if the old man was somehow mocking me from the great beyond. That's certainly how it felt.