Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Dev walked out with Aubry, heading to go see the injured and the scared, but his mind continued to pick holes in the believability of the scenario. Yes, a number of Psy had proven they’d cross any lines to obtain power and Dev’s people were starting to display some very unusual ones, but the Marshall family was a business empire, not a military one.

“Don’t forget,” Katya said to him that night as they stood on the balcony of their apartment in a soaring high-rise. “The ‘Marshall’ part of their name comes from Marshall Hyde. The family changed its surname to his first name when he first rose to power in the Council. Ruthless is their nature.”

“But the Marshalls are smart.” The family group was a significant force in the financial world. “This wasn’t smart—if I know their identity, I can launch a retaliatory attack.”

Katya nodded slowly, the wind pasting strands of her fine blonde hair to his shirtsleeve. She’d grown it out until it now reached the middle of her back, and every so often, she’d smile at him and hand him a brush in memory of the time when he’d carefully untangled her hair though they’d been strangers to one another.

“Yes,” she murmured. “The Marshalls never pick fights unless they know they’ll win.”

Sliding his arm around her, he tucked her to his side. “My gut tells me that, no matter what, there was always meant to be at least one survivor who could point us toward the Marshalls.”

A frown of concentration on his wife’s face, her skin gilded gold by the sun she’d been getting as she helped play babysitter to a friend’s young and active children while the friend and her husband took a long-overdue honeymoon. “Maybe the Forgotten and the Marshalls have a common enemy,” she said at last. “Could be you’re supposed to get angry and eliminate them.”

Dev ran his fingers desultorily over her nape, satisfaction uncurling in his gut when her eyes closed, a sigh of pleasure escaping her throat. “It’s also possible the family was arrogant enough to think they didn’t need subterfuge, that it’d be an easy snatch.”

“How do we find out which?”

“Pax Marshall and I are going to have a conversation.” Pax might have a rep as a stone-cold bastard, but if he was behind this, he had no idea who he was baiting.

Chapter 53

FRUSTRATED BY THE inability of their tech people to trace the e-mails Olivia had received back to an identifiable source—even more so after Vasic confirmed he couldn’t lock on to any of the people BlackSea had tagged as missing—Zaira went to speak to the team she’d charged with pinning down Olivia’s life prior to the moment when she’d been captured.

“The trail goes dead in Milan,” Mica told her, after running through the data they had to date. “It’s as if she appeared out of nowhere a month ago.”

“Or out of a holding facility.” Pulling up the photograph of Persephone, she examined the child in detail, fighting her anger to think clearly. “She’s not thin enough to suggest she’s been mistreated a long time.”

Mica nodded. “Mother and daughter held together until the mother was dropped off in Milan?”

“Yes, I think so.” Zaira stared at the image of the little girl who clutched at her doll and could feel her fear, her confusion at what she’d have seen as abandonment. “Focus on Milan. Use facial recognition software. Unless she was teleported in, which in itself will tell us something, she will have used transportation at some point.”

Leaving Mica to organize the detail-oriented task, she realized that hovering would achieve nothing. She’d already sent search algorithms out into the PsyNet in case Persephone’s abduction had been mentioned there, and she’d touched base with Miane Levèque to see if the water-based changelings had any further data.

The answer was no, though Miane intended to return the next day to speak to Olivia again, once the medication had had a chance to further clear her system.

In the interim, Zaira needed to do something to burn off her anger and she owed the teenagers in the valley a martial arts lesson. She’d canceled it the day before, part of the fallout from the attempted attack on the compound, but it was important she fulfill her commitment today—because Persephone wasn’t the only child about whom Zaira was concerned.

Beatrice remained on her mind.

She made sure to make eye contact with the seventeen-year-old once the class assembled under the valley sunlight. The brown-haired girl had taken position on the periphery of the back row and couldn’t seem to hold the contact.

Not pushing the issue, Zaira took the class through the advanced training session. For the first time, she didn’t only correct mistakes, she made sure to offer praise for tasks well done. That didn’t come naturally to her, but she was learning along with her students. The teenagers didn’t react to her change in tactics as openly as the much younger Tavish had, but they lingered after the session to speak to her in a way they’d never before done—like flowers parched of sunlight, then given just a ray.

A single act of kindness, she thought again, could change a life.

“Beatrice,” she said when she saw the girl about to break away. “Stay. I want to speak to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Finishing her conversations with the other trainees without rushing them, Zaira went over to the teenager. “Walk with me.”

Zaira led the compliant girl toward the trees beyond the training area. It was a significant distance but Zaira didn’t push the speed. The gentle pace was good for Beatrice, would further stretch out her muscles. Only once they were far enough from the compound that no one could overhear them, did she say, “Who beat you?”