either side of Abayomi were kept empty for her safety. As you can imagine, she wasn’t popular with the other inmates. In her tenure as Grande Dame, she had sentenced many of them.”
“The good Samaritan wasn’t an inmate then.” I figured, but this was confirmation. “Do we have access to records on the guards and the administrative staff?”
“We do,” he said grudgingly, “which is how I can tell you they’re not going to be any help.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re dead.”
“The prisons run three shifts.” I recalled that from my days in Atramentous. “There’s overlap while any given shift is changing, but what about the third one?”
“Keep in mind the prison is small, given its exclusivity. There were maybe a dozen sentinels not at the prison when it burned. They were called into a meeting after the fact, according to text records, and shot as they exited their vehicles, spotted the blaze, and rushed to help.”
“The shock made them easy pickings.” I grimaced. “That leaves us with no leads on the Samaritan.”
“Except for the doll,” Linus murmured. “Have you made any progress there?”
“It’s an antique, made of bisque, and about eighty years old. It’s never been played with, that much I can tell you. It’s pristine, and all original. With the exception of the bloomers. They’re linen, from a man’s shirt. I can tell you that with absolute confidence because the tailor’s tag is intact, and the customer had his shirt monogrammed with the initials G. M. L.”
Gaspard Michel Lacroix.
“The fabric came from the back of the shirt?” I pictured it in my head. “Near the collar?”
“That’s my take.”
“The inclusion of the tag and monogram were intentional then. There’s not enough fabric between a tailor’s tag and the start of the collar for it to be coincidental. The back of the shirt is a large, useable area. There’s no reason to skimp or up the difficulty level for a single pair of bloomers unless they wanted to ensure the tag remained intact and legible.”
“It also tested around thirty years old, so fifty years newer than the doll and the rest of her clothes.”
“The Samaritan had contact with my grandfather at some point,” I said grimly. “Or access to his things.”
That could indicate any member of his clan, his allies, or his enemies. The possibilities were endless.
“Abayomi said he wasn’t interested in escaping with her,” Linus said, “that his time had yet to come.”
“That’s not comforting, if that’s what you’re going for.”
“He means there’s nothing you can do until the Samaritan makes his move,” Bishop interpreted for me. “Tie off the loose ends you’ve got. This guy made sure we can’t track him, so don’t lose sleep over it.”
For their sake, I sucked in a dramatic gasp. “Other new mothers get sleep?”
Linus, who had insisted on taking the dayshift so as not to wake me, chuckled because I had fought him for the privilege of losing sleep. The jury was still out on whether I could risk another pregnancy, and that meant I wanted to savor every sleep-deprived moment.
“Enjoy yourself, smartass.” Bishop chuckled. “Babies don’t stay babies for long.”
“LJ is a week old,” I agreed, “and he’s already grown so much.”
“What you need to remember,” Bishop said gently, “is there’s always another bad guy, another threat, another awkward dinner with your mother-in-law, but everything with LJ will be a first, a one-time only performance, if you will. You don’t want to miss those while you’re worrying about what comes next.”
The melancholy advice made me wonder if Bishop had children, or had had them once, but his tone didn’t invite questions. I appreciated it all the same. “Thanks for helping me put it all into perspective.”
“Hard truths and pretty lies sold by the hour,” he joked. “In your case, I’ll accept payment in churros. Hard to find a better churro than the ones down your way.”
“You can’t have Esteban. He’s mine.” His churros were what dreams were made of. “I can, however, get one of the Atlanta pack members to bring you some home when they service the Grande Dame’s lawn.”
“Consider your debt paid,” he said magnanimously. “Oh. I almost forgot. I’ll have those last two candidates vetted by tomorrow. I’ll send the file over then.” He hesitated. “You don’t have to rush into building your own team, you know.”
If the news took Linus by surprise, he didn’t show it, but he had an excellent poker face.
“I’ve leaned on you for too long. You’ve got your own potentate to keep up with, and