When Devils Sing(94)
Then she eyed the biometric scanner again.
What if it isn’t for biometrics at all?
Neera angled the pick in the light, finding the faintest glimpse of something etched into it, recalling a similar moment from the night before. With shaking hands, Neera pressed the pick against the scanner.
The panel turned green, followed by a click, and the door opened.
Inside was a handgun, several bundles of cash, and a manila folder. Her hands were drawn to the folder, and she grabbed it, laying its contents out on the desk. Among papers with Second Sons Inc. written across them was a copy of a birth certificate.
Neera’s birth certificate.
She’d seen it before dozens of times, but why did Grant, of all people, have it in his safe?
A creeping realization was forming in Neera’s mind as she looked back to the scrapbook’s pages. She stared down at the final photo, the one where her mom sat between Grant and Ajay. Her eyes lingered on the date, a year before she was born. She traced her finger over the image, noticing the way Kiran’s and Grant’s knees touched, their shoulders leaning into each other in a way that suggested more than friendship.
“Oh my God,” Neera breathed, slowly shaking her head. She shoved the scrapbook off the desk, sending it sliding across the wood floor. “Oh my God.”
Behind Neera’s birth certificate was something else. Ajay Singh’s autopsy report. Except, the copy that Grant had in his safe classified her uncle’s death as a homicide, not suicide.
As she glanced up, she found Grant Langley standing in the doorway across the room, a drink in hand. “Hey, kid.”
SAM
26 HOURS
AT THE TAVERN, Jonah Langley was out cold, laid face down in the booth at table one. His buddies had thought it was funny at first, as if he’d taken a little too much of whatever they dabbled in earlier in the day. But enough time had now passed to cause concern.
Once the ambulance was called, Sam began to feel sick. What if Jonah was not just knocked out, but dead—by her hand? He may have never cared about the lives of others, but Sam still did.
She told no one as she slipped out the back for her fifteen, yearning, once again, for a cigarette. Sam hovered beneath an awning as rain fell in waves, blanketing Lake Clearwater in a dense haze of gray. She checked her phone for the hundredth time, desperate for Neera to call or text her back, but it was only radio silence.
I owe her the truth about Jack’s second bargain, Sam thought. She needs to know.
As she bounced anxiously, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips, Jason popped his head out the back door.
He asked, all red and flustered, “Have you seen Kiran? We can’t find her anywhere.”
“What?” Sam blinked, then checked the time on her phone. “I saw her take her break a couple hours ago. She’s not been back?”
“No,” Jason said, blowing air from his lips. “Of all days to do this—goddamnit.” He gave Sam a shrewd once-over. “You know, cigarettes will kill ya.”
With that, he was gone. Sam’s heart pounded wildly at Kiran’s sudden absence. She couldn’t help but think the worst, that this was her fault, despite spiking Jonah’s drink instead.
Sam called Neera again, but it didn’t bother to ring. She began to leave her a hasty voicemail, when a figure appeared, emerging from the rain.
Jack leaned against the Tavern’s dumpster a few feet away. His expression was unusually solemn. “You really shouldn’t have lied to the devil, Red. We could’ve worked somethin’ else out.”
“I couldn’t do it,” Sam admitted. “I didn’t have it in me.”
“I see that now,” Jack said. He gave her a sad, discerning look before vanishing around the dumpster from where he came.
Sam started to follow after him when rough, familiar hands gripped her arm, yanking her backward.
“Daddy?”
Wiley’s cruel face was the last thing she saw before the world went black.
CHAPTER 39ISAIAH
26 HOURS
That stormy evening, Isaiah and Reid were inside Clearwater & Co. Law Firm, the attorneys long gone for the day. Isaiah made a few laps to be certain they were the only ones there. He then arranged a filing setup on his desk, which looked a lot like a work in progress, in case one of the attorneys showed up unannounced.
Reid’s gaze flitted anxiously around the firm. “Any word yet from Neera?”
“No,” Isaiah said, checking his phone to be sure. “It’s been voicemail all day.”
“I’m sure she’s okay,” Reid murmured. “She seems like she can handle herself.”
Isaiah wished he could feel as assured of Neera’s safety as Reid did, but her long silence had him imagining the worst.
Once inside Leblanc’s office, Isaiah sat at his desk, staring haplessly at the black computer screen.
“Go ahead,” Reid said from beside him. “Don’t you have the password?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
He laid his phone beside him, then pulled up a video he’d recorded earlier in the day when he’d been working alongside Leblanc. It was a brief, slightly blurry video of Leblanc putting his password into his computer. Isaiah slowed the speed down, then zoomed in on Leblanc’s fingers, watching the clip several times before he was sure he saw the correct input.