Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,104
and murderer.”
“I think he’s figured it out by this point. He was pretty shaken when he came downstairs and saw through my illusion, though he tried to hide it.” Alexis had sauntered sideways while she spoke. I didn’t realize where she was headed until she picked up Taylor’s pistol. “Carson said you would be gone by now, not to bother to come look for you. I think he underestimated your superhero complex.”
“People do tend to underestimate me.”
“Not me,” said Alexis, handling the gun as easily as a fashion accessory. “I’ve been on the lookout for someone like you ever since I found Oosterhouse’s Book of the Dead. You were just what I needed. The problem was how to convince Carson to go along with kidnapping you. He’d left the Brotherhood already. Ethics, he said. In his position, can you believe it? That boy is seriously messed up.”
That was a mistake I made, Carson had said, when I’d discovered the Jackal’s mark. I’m not like them, he’d told me on the train. I still believed that. I had to, or I’d have to start doubting everything I knew.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Downstairs, waiting on Dad. With all those conflicted principles, I wasn’t expecting him to come onboard with me so easily. But his finding out that Dad played him—and worse, forced him to put you in danger—has got him rethinking alliances, which is convenient for me.”
No wonder I had so much trouble putting the jigsaw puzzle together. This picture had more double crosses than string art.
“So your father,” I prompted, since she seemed to enjoy my questions, “he was the mastermind behind this whole thing?”
She grinned, her straight white teeth gleaming in the dim light. “That’s what he thinks. That’s the trick with managing Dad—nothing magical about it. You just have to make him think something is his idea. Carson, too, in the opposite way. I knew putting you on the run together would bring out all his protective instincts.” She paused for thought. “I did seriously underestimate his hate for Dad. It’s kind of oedipal, don’t you think?”
“Except for the part where his dad ordered his mom killed. That isn’t how the play goes.”
“Whatever.” She sighed heavily. “If I’d known, I would have just asked him to help me. Subterfuge is a lot of work.”
It sounded like she had a plan for Maguire—and maybe Carson, too. He must be playing along with her, but if he had a plan beyond that, I was pretty sure it didn’t account for the fact that his half sister was a sociopath.
“But what do you get out of it?” I asked. Taylor had once told me that sometimes the best interrogation technique was to shut up and let the suspect spill his guts. It was like a compulsion, whether they felt guilty or proud of what they’d done.
Alexis? Did not feel guilty.
“Power. And dynasty, of course.” She checked her phone, a very businesslike gesture. “I need Carson’s help, which means I still have a use for you. He almost wrecked it, giving you the chance to escape. But here you are.” She flashed another grin. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
I had a bolt of inspiration. Not the good, get-out-of-this-jam-with-everyone-you-care-about-alive kind. But the bad, this-shit-is-so-much-deeper-than-I-thought kind. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I had to know if I was right.
“Did you make Maguire think it was his idea to kill Carson’s mother?”
Her smile vanished, and something deadly sparked in her eyes. “Can you blame me? I had to discover by accident I had a brother. And when I found out he had the same weird talents I did? Of course I wanted him in the house. I’d always wanted a sibling, and Dad always wanted a son. Everyone wins.”
“Except Carson’s mom.”
Alexis gave an Oh well shrug. “It’s time to go downstairs. Dad found a way in, and everything is set. But since I just got Carson onboard and you’re a bit of a wild card, I think you should take a little nap, too.”
“Wait!” I said …
Just before everything went dark. Again.
I woke to the flickering of torchlight on hieroglyphs and the rhythmic chanting of men’s voices. My arms ached, and when I tried to move, I found I was sitting on the floor, my wrists tied behind me and around the base of the statue of Anubis, in the reconstructed tomb in the bottom of the museum, where this had all started that afternoon.