Constance (Constance #1)(76)

“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.”

“I don’t know!” Con roared back. She was well aware that it didn’t matter one way or another if he wasn’t convinced. Crying and pleading ignorance was always an option; men like Franklin Butler fed on fear, so a woman crying in a locked basement would be like crack to him. The only problem was she couldn’t seem to muster any tears. Ironic, since there’d been no shortage of them in the last few years. But all she felt now was irritation. A deep, pervasive anger. It would have to do. “Maybe it is Gaddis. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? I’m just presumptuous meat, right, like all clones? Why would anyone tell me anything?”

Butler recoiled, caught off guard at the ferocity of her reply. It felt good to put him on his heels, so good that she wanted to make him choke on it.

“I’m sick of it. You and Gaddis and the police. You’re all the same. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you sort it out among yourselves and leave me out of it, you psycho?”

Reddening, Butler held up a cautioning finger. “You should remember where you are.”

“Like I could forget. Look, I don’t know why Gaddis is helping me. If he’s your anonymous donor, he sure as shit didn’t share it with me. So, why don’t we just get this over with, huh? I’m tired.”

Butler let a long moment pass, then nodded. “I think I would have liked Constance D’Arcy. I’m sorry she died.” He rose and went to the door.

“Where are you going?” she said, sure that she’d pushed him too far and scared what that would bring.

“I’m going to go have a little chat with your host,” he said cryptically.

“About what?”

“I’m going to take your advice.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, but the door had already swung shut.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


Con hunted the greenroom for anything that she could use as a weapon. She didn’t know what advice Butler thought she’d given him, and it sounded too much like a veiled threat for comfort. She’d been in enough negotiations to know when she’d overplayed her hand. But they weren’t haggling over the terms of a recording contract; this was her life, and Franklin Butler was a man who didn’t believe she deserved one. Bluffing and losing wasn’t an option. She was trying to loosen the arm on one of the chairs to use as a club when the door opened and Butler returned. She flinched away from him, but all he did was gather the remaining almonds into his handkerchief and slip it back in his pocket. Almost as an afterthought, he beckoned for her to follow.

“Where are we going?” she asked, not moving.

“Does it matter? Unless you’d prefer to stay here?”

She really didn’t.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “I need you to keep your mouth shut and your head down. Do you hear me? Any urge you have to run that smart mouth of yours? Smother it.”

“Why? What’s going to happen?”

“Taking you out of here is not proving a popular decision.”

“Do you run things or don’t you?” Con said.

“As I said, it’s not that simple. My leadership is not quite as ironclad as the media paints it. Children of Adam is more a loose confederation of independent groups than a single top-down organization. And even then, there are always fringe elements who accuse me of being too moderate, too soft. It took some serious horse-trading before Big John agreed to let you go.”