Starling House(78)

Baine studies me politely, chin resting on her folded hands.

I want to stare her down, but I find my mouth opening, my voice whipping down the table. “Did you know? That he wasn’t there?”

She considers. “Yes.” The answer sounds as if it was drawn out of a hat at random.

I picture myself striding over and slamming my forehead into the bridge of her nose.

She sighs as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You are so determined to think the worst of me. Hal searched the room just before the incident. We knew your brother wasn’t inside.”

“And what about the other rooms? The front office? Did you carefully evacuate the premises before committing arson?”

For the first time, there is the slightest hesitation before she speaks. “The event was not intended to reach that scale. Hal is a very experienced operative, but . . .” She does a small, mannered shrug. “He claims the flames spread more quickly than they should have, and that the smoke alarms failed.”

I think of the mist mixing with the smoke, the shadowed shapes I saw there; there was more than one kind of Beast running loose tonight. I smile at her, a vicious twist of my lips. “Bad luck, I guess.”

Baine’s eyes glitter back at me. “Yes.” She unsnaps a black case at her side and withdraws a raggedy yellow legal pad. She smooths the pages flat on the table. “Hal retrieved some very interesting documents from room 12, before the fire. Your work, or Jasper’s?”

I close my mouth, hard.

“Listen, Opal. All we’re looking for is a little help. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, but there are a lot of very serious parties with an interest in the Starling property. They hired us to get results, and I don’t intend to let them down. You understand, don’t you?”

Arthur and all his predecessors had fought and fallen for generations rather than let the Beasts loose on the world; Elizabeth Baine would stand aside and watch with a clipboard and a smile.

“You don’t know what you’re messing with,” I tell her, cliché-ly.

“But you do?” Quick and eager.

“Can’t you just let it alone?” I can tell from her quizzical half smile that the question doesn’t make sense to her. It’s the same expression a Gravely might have worn if someone had asked them to stop digging when they knew there was still coal under Eden.

Baine checks her watch again. “Let me be clear about your situation. There was an act of arson committed tonight, and a reliable eyewitness with no reason to lie and a clean criminal record is willing to swear under oath that he saw you do it.”

“Tell Hal thanks from me.”

She ignores me. “Add arson to identity fraud, and no judge would find you a fit guardian for your brother.”

Panic twists in my belly, familiar as a toothache. I want to shout You can’t do this or He needs me, but I hear Charlotte’s voice in my ear: Does he? I hear Jasper himself: I’m not your job. Maybe it’s time to trust him a little more, to stop selling my soul for something that never belonged to me in the first place.

I swallow sour spit. “So? He’s a big kid now, and his future is taken care of.”

Her head tilts very slightly. “And what if his new guardians choose a different future for him?”

“What new guardians?”

Baine is tapping at her phone. “Well, his family, of course.”

“I’m his family, you—”

Which is when the door opens, and the CEO of Gravely Power walks into the room.

The last time I saw Don Gravely he wasn’t anything to me. He was a sweaty handshake and a polyester suit coat, and the only thing I noticed about him was the way he flinched away from me. I remember glaring at him, not out of any personal grudge, but just out of solidarity with Bev and her luna moths.

Now I find myself staring, trying to force his features to assemble into something or someone familiar. But there’s nothing of Mom in this man, nothing of me, except maybe the eyes: gravel-gray, cold.

He pulls out a seat and sits with a harassed sigh. I don’t think he’s even noticed me yet. “Look, Liz”—Baine’s face gives an imperceptible twitch—“you can’t just order me around. I’m a busy man.”

“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Gravely.” She smiles at him; he doesn’t seem to see the malice in it. “I was just talking to your great-niece here about her future.”

For the first time since he walked into the room, Gravely faces me. His entire body recoils, his head retracting into his collar. I have the childish urge to stamp my foot at him, just to see if he’d fall out of his chair.

He produces a smile that makes me think of a stray dog licking its canines. “Delilah’s girl. How are you?”

So: it’s all true. This man is my family, my history, my roots, and everyone knew it but me. Hot shame floods me, the sense that the whole town must have been laughing at me as soon as I turned the corner.

I work hard to make my voice come out flat. “Been better.” I rattle the handcuffs against the back of the chair.

“Ah, well.” Don Gravely isn’t looking at me anymore. “We always meant to reach out, of course, since Delilah finally went and did it. We—my wife and kids—we’d love to have you over sometime. You could meet the rest of the family. We could take care of you.” Baine widens her eyes very slightly at him, and he adds, “And the boy, your brother. You’re Gravelys, after all.”