Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(65)

“Balanchine, Anya. Barber, Scarlet.”

“Natty and I love you. Leo loved you, too—”

Scarlet put her hand over my mouth. “Oh, please, please, please stop! I don’t want to cry any more tonight. I’ve existed in a permanent state of tears for the last two years.”

The bus arrived at Scarlet’s stop. Between the combined volume of her skirt and belly and the height of her heels, Scarlet was having trouble getting up out of the seat. I stood and offered her my hand.

*   *   *

Late that night, after the party, Win came over to the apartment. We’d just seen each other but I suspect his main reason in coming over was because he could—he was now officially over eighteen, which meant that city curfew didn’t apply to him. We went into my room, so that we wouldn’t wake Natty, who had already gone to bed. We were both hungry but there wasn’t much to eat in the house. Win noticed the mongrel bar of chocolate on my dresser. “What’s this?”

I told him I had bought it in the park. “You can have it if you want but it might be terrible.”

I went into the kitchen to get water. For a second, the tap wouldn’t start running and an awful breathy banging sound came from the pipes. I wondered if this would be the day the water ran out. But, finally, the water started.

When I got back to my room, I found Win studying the chocolate. He had taken off the jacket, and he was holding out the gold foil–wrapped bar. “Look, it’s not Balanchine,” he said. “The paper looks like it is, but underneath it’s something else.”

“Yeah, I thought that might happen,” I said. “I bought it in front of Little Egypt. The jacket was off, so I thought it would probably be some generic brand underneath.”

“It’s not generic.” Win held out the foil-wrapped bar so I could read it: BITTER SCHOKOLADE, HERGESTELLT FÜR BITTER SCHOKOLADEN GMBH, MÜNCHEN.

“At the funeral, someone was saying that they were the perennial fourth-place chocolate family in Germany,” I said quietly. “Mickey’s wife’s family actually. You remember Sophia…” Sophia Bitter Balanchine. Sophia M. Bitter Balanchine. Sophia Marquez Bitter Balanchine. The former Sophia Marquez Bitter, who Theo’s oldest sister hadn’t liked. Sophia Marquez Bitter, who had once been engaged to Yuji Ono …

Everywhere I had been, she had been first.

Bitter Chocolate under a Balanchine wrapper.

Who would have had the ability to orchestrate supply-wide poisoning?

Who would have had the ability to execute a three-country hit?

Who would Yuji Ono have protected over me?

I dropped the bar on the floor. Because it was thin and stale and cheap, it broke into several pieces.

It was obvious. I had been so stupid.

Again.

I had to sit down.

“Annie, are you all right?” Win asked.

I was about to lie: to tell him I wasn’t feeling well and that I’d see him tomorrow; walk him to the elevator; then, I’d go back into my room, close the door, and puzzle this out alone. But the truth was I hadn’t done that well with this method—that is to say, solitude. Win knew plenty of appalling things about me, and he was still here.

I took a deep breath. “What if Sophia Bitter was the one who arranged the Fretoxin poisoning? That was about the time she came to New York to marry Mickey. And Theo’s sister says that Sophia was once engaged to Yuji Ono.”

Win nodded. “But Jacks confessed to it, didn’t he?”

“No one really believes he did it, though,” I said. “I think someone in the family convinced him to confess because he was going to jail for shooting the district attorney’s son.”

“Right, him,” Win said. “He who thought he was going to prom. Him.”

“Him—you.” I paused to kiss him on the mouth. “The point is, Jacks would have had to go to jail either way. So it could have just as well been someone else.”

Natty came into the kitchen. She was wearing her pajamas and rubbing the sleep out of the corners of her eyes. “If Bitter Chocolate is really the fourth-place chocolate company in Germany,” Natty said, “maybe Sophia thought she could improve their standing by expanding the business into America. Listen—she marries Mickey, just to get close enough to destroy the Balanchines. Or at least, to take over the business herself.”

“When did you wake up?” I asked her.

“Now. You two are loud. Hi, Win,” she said.

“Natty, my gal,” Win greeted her. “The question is, did Mickey help her, or will this be news to him, too?”

“And also, did she arrange to have Leo killed?” Natty added. “And did she try to kill Annie and me?”

“Aside from Yuji Ono, I think she was the only one who had the reach to arrange such a hit,” I said.

Natty sighed.

“What are we going to do?” Win asked.

We. It was presumptuous of him, but I felt better all the same. “I’m not sure yet,” I said. If she really was the one who had killed Leo, I might need to do some very hard things. But like Charles Delacroix had said, first I needed to make sure. And I needed to find out who her conspirators had been. Also, while it was pleasant to have Win and Natty to go over things with, I wasn’t ready to admit to them that I might need to kill someone. “I’m going to visit Jacks,” I said. “He might have some information and he’s been bothering me to come see him for months.”