“Out of curiosity, why is Gaddis underwriting your little tour of Virginia?”
“Abigail Stickling was my aunt,” she said, hoping the revelation would satisfy him. While what she wanted to ask was how the hell he knew so much about it.
“Yes, I know,” Butler replied. “The problem with that explanation is that he despised Abigail Stickling. And she him.”
“What?” Con said, unable to hide her surprise.
“Oh yes, the story goes they fought like cats and dogs. Especially in the last few years. Differing visions for the future of Palingenesis. Your aunt forced the board to choose between them, and they wisely sided with her. Money is easy to come by, you see, but genius . . . well, you can’t simply fundraise genius. So, the board elected to ride with the one who got them there and gave her absolute control over the research division. Gaddis was legendarily bitter about it. Being outmaneuvered by a lab coat with no interest in politics or people was not an easy pill for a narcist to swallow, I’d imagine.”
That was not at all the impression Gaddis had given her. He’d painted himself as her aunt’s one true ally at Palingenesis and cast Brooke Fenton as the enemy. Once again, Con found herself questioning all of her assumptions. She also saw why Butler had been such a magnetic young professor. The trick, she realized, was that he hadn’t come straight out and said it, instead teasing at an answer while gently scoffing at more straightforward explanations, implying that only a fool would be taken in so simply. But that was Butler’s gift—making people question themselves and persuading them to accept his viewpoint as their own. He’d built two careers on it.
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
“Why would you?” Butler asked. “It’s hardly the image Palingenesis wishes to project. But don’t tell me Vernon Gaddis risked crossing into Virginia out of loyalty to the memory of Abigail Stickling.”
“Look, I’m just trying to figure out what happened to my original. That’s all.”
“Ah yes, your original. Another thorny question. Why do you think Constance D’Arcy was murdered?” Butler asked. “The prevailing theory is that the husband did it, jealous of her infidelity. It’s at least plausible. Husbands murdering wives is a cottage industry in this country, but the four dead bodies in Charlottesville suggest there’s more to it than that.”
“Why? CoA put them there,” Con shot back.
“No, Big John was just hired to clean up.”
“By who?” Con said.
“He doesn’t know. Another anonymous party, which is where a less credulous man would start to see a pattern. Who were those men anyway?”
“I have no idea,” Con said, which at least had the advantage of being true.
“So why were you at that town house?”
“Why was Children of Adam?”
“Touché.” Butler sighed and reached for the almonds. “Were you good at math in school?”
“More of an English and arts person.”
“That’s right, you were in that little band, weren’t you?” he said. “Math was easy for me. Flew through it in high school. Algebra, geometry, trig. Just made sense to my brain. Teachers would dock me points for not showing my work, because I could see the answers in my head.”
“Congratulations?” Con said, not sure where he was going with this.
A rumble in his throat acknowledged her sarcasm. “And then along came calculus. My nemesis. Textbooks turned to gibberish. I went from an A student to a pest who needed every concept explained a dozen times. I had hit ‘the wall,’ as old Mr. Blake generously explained. It was the first time anything had been hard for me, academically speaking. Through sheer force of will, I ground out a C in the class, but math was never intuitive to me again. I hated that feeling. Knowing that I would never see the big picture no matter how hard I worked. I say this because I am having that same feeling again now.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know who is pulling my strings.”
“It’s not a good feeling, is it?” she asked, feeling a fleeting camaraderie with him. They had exactly the same question and, possibly, the same answer.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me,” Butler roared, scattering the almonds across the floor. “I walk out that door, there will be nothing between you and the thirty men waiting to end your miserable existence.”