So would her beloved Blanc roadster.
Chapter 21
Lila and Shaw flew from New Bristol International on her father’s plane, a crowded four-seat affair that left little room for Lila’s boots, much less her legs. Dedicated to the principles of austerity, Unity would not splurge for the prime minister, choosing a budget model that would get her father from point A to point B with no added frills.
At least the seats were lush. Lila shifted on the cream-colored leather, careful not to bump her fold-out table for the twelfth time, for her laptop perched precariously upon it. She’d brought it on board in her satchel, knowing that Chief Shaw wouldn’t waste her time with a longwinded debriefing of the case. In fact, he’d said nothing about it. He preferred her to remain untainted by his militia and their initial thoughts, claiming it was best all around.
Lila didn’t care one way or the other. She had work to do, work she’d rather Shaw not be privy to. Luckily, the chief sat in the seat facing her on the opposite side of the plane. That was the benefit of arriving late. She’d been able to choose a seat away from his curious eyes.
“Militia reports,” she’d answered pleasantly when Shaw asked what she was doing.
He’d raised a brow, clearly not believing her story. The brow shot higher when she told Captain McKinley to disengage sections of camera feeds throughout Wolf Tower until nine o’clock. When McKinley pressed for a reason, Lila only gave her one. “It’s for a test,” she’d said before disconnecting.
“That’s not for a militia report,” Shaw observed.
“You bet your ass it’s not.”
Mischief complete, Lila spent the next hour suffering through a spotty net connection while tracking Natalie’s friend of a friend. The initial message had come from Teresa Bailey, the lowborn owner of the first chop shop that she and Tristan had visited. Unfortunately, Lila needed an unofficial net ID, a whole host of snoop programs, and far more privacy if she wanted to follow Teresa’s trail further.
She’d need the same to follow Xavier.
Instead of taking a much-needed nap, Lila switched gears and used the second hour of the flight to tackle her militia inbox. She managed to handle a third of it before they touched down in Sioux Falls. Her fingers locked in a white-knuckled grip on the armrest as they landed.
Lila gathered her things as soon as the pilot stopped in a far corner of the small regional airport, eager for
her boots to touch the ground once more. The plane’s steps bobbled under her weight when she descended, and she pulled up her heavy scarf against the cold La Verde air.
To think that only a small flap of metal had separated her from death during the flight.
She nearly tripped when her toe met the tarmac, and she eyed the plane as if it might explode.
Shaw chuckled. “The auction house hero hasn’t got her sea legs yet.”
“You’re going to see my legs kick you in the face in a minute,” Lila mumbled, hitching her satchel farther up her shoulder.
“Is that before or after you fall on your butt? You forget. I was there for your hand-to-hand training. It was endlessly entertaining.” Shaw pointed into the darkness toward the sound of a wheezing electronic engine. “I think our ride is here.”
Lila squinted toward the noise. By the light of the lamps overhead, she made out a blackcoat inside an open four-seater cart.
Chief Vance, the La Verde militia chief, stopped before them, cart shaking as he hopped from the driver’s seat. His blackcoat covered a navy uniform lined in silver piping, an orchid stitched on his breast in silver thread. The buttons flashed in the light as he shook hands with Chief Shaw, his blue eyes curious, his blond hair chopped off at the collar. The length was a compromise between his upbringing as a senator and his choice to enter the militia after he could not. He’d been ambitious, talented, charming, and handsome, a perfect candidate. Unfortunately, the doctors had ruled him infertile, barring him from advancing as a senate intern.
No High House and no children, at least not without effort and a lot of money. At eighteen, Vance had been forced to choose a new career. His professors had pushed him toward graduate studies and a potential teaching role with Norrington. He would train great statesmen, they promised.
But Vance hadn’t wanted to train great statesmen.
He’d wanted to become one.
Ambitious to a fault, he’d chosen a different sort of power. He’d become the youngest government militia chief in the nation’s history, shortly after his thirty-eighth birthday, partly through a convenient set of retirements. Some forced. Some not.
Lila had often wondered about that.
She also wondered how he had attained such a position while spending so much time in the gym. It was evident in every bulge and angle of his blackcoat.
She’d only met him once before, and she’d been greatly tempted to ask him out for a meal. Beautiful? Barren? A man who understood what it meant to be in the militia? A man who knew what it meant to lead multiple compounds stretched over a wide area?
How could she resist?
Chief Vance bowed to Lila, not because she was Chief Randolph but because she was an heir. Old habits and confusion over her status tended to obscure what should have been plain.