Page 48 of Braxton

Quinn snapped a quick photo of the list then tucked it back inside the drawer.That seemed a little too easy, she thought, making her way back into the hallway. Maybe she was just overthinking things. She had a tendency to do that. But her instincts had never let her down before. Pausing, she tilted her head, listening as the big house settled, deciding where to go next.

The slightest wisp of sound caught her attention and she immediately stepped back into the office, pulling the door nearly closed. Looking through the narrow crack, she waited and, a moment later, the mysterious woman from earlier strode by, her long black garments flowing behind her. Caught in a shaft of moonlight, she looked like some kind of eerie wraith and Quinn suppressed a shiver.

Who was she? And why was she covered from head to toe?

Curiosity propelled Quinn forward and she followed the woman at a distance. After several turns, the Lady in Black disappeared in a room. Ducking through an opposite doorway across the hall, Quinn waited patiently. After five minutes or so, the Lady in Black swept out and went back the way she’d come.

Pushing the door open, Quinn crept over and stepped into a bedroom. Everything looked normal except a side table with several flickering candles. Moving closer, she saw a framed photo of a little boy and girl with dark hair, their arms wrapped around each other, and smiling at the camera. A few flowers tiedwith a ribbon lay in front of the picture, along with a very sharp-looking knife.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Quinn pulled her phone out and snapped a couple of quick pictures. After sending them to Brax, she snuck back up to her room, took a quick shower and crawled into bed. Her thoughts whirled as she kept picturing what she found downstairs and what it all meant. And who the hell was the shrouded woman in black?

???

Early the next morning, Braxton and his team started their day on a conference call with River, Lucas and the others back in San Francisco. The dinner party was taking place that evening and they still didn’t have half the answers they needed.

He’d shared the images Quinn had sent of the supposed guest list and picture of the kids. As Zane, River and Lucas launched searches on their laptops, everyone began speculating. Ryland was on the other side of the room, talking on the phone with his sister. Brax didn’t know a lot about Addison Mills other than she was four years older than her brother and a world-class thief who claimed to be an antiquities expert.

Inda’s dark head was bent over the photo of the kids. Zane had printed the image out for everyone and she couldn’t stop studying it.

“What’re you thinking, Bruja?” Brax asked.

“The flowers and candles make me think it’s some kind of altar—she set it up as though in memory of the children.” Hercaramel eyes squinted. “And did you notice how similar they look? Like they’re—”

Her voice trailed off and Gray completed her sentence.

“Twins,” he stated ominously.

They’d only run across one set of twins in their dealings with The Agency—the deadly duo of Camille and Julien Mercier. And they’d been eliminated, thanks to Gray and a tank full of acid.

“Maybe it’s their mother?” River suggested through the speaker. “After my experience with Camille, only a mother would mourn that bitch.”

“Maybe,” Inda murmured thoughtfully. “Makes sense.”

She didn’t sound completely convinced, and while that bothered her, something else bothered Brax—the planned Novichok attack on the party guests.

“Bruja, when you and Lucas saw Selma die after being exposed to Novichok, you said it was fast and brutal, right?”

“It was awful. She had convulsions and couldn’t breathe.”

“She died in under two and a half minutes,” Lucas stated.

“Same with Petrov and everyone in his compound,” Saint added darkly. “When I released the Novichok through the ducts, we had to move fast to get out of there.”

“Why?” Inda asked, tilting her head. “What’re you thinking, Pharaoh?”

“Well, the whole point of using Novichok is to make someone’s death appear natural. It attacks the nervous systemmaking it appear as though the victim merely had a heart attack and wasn’t murdered.”

“Exactly,” Zane said. “Unless Cross wants to make a statement or some kind of spectacle, why bother going to all this trouble to create it? Just shoot these assholes.”

Inda perked up. “Lucas, do you remember when Cross asked Zaitsev about his delivery method?”

“Yeah, he asked if he’d made a liquid, an aerosol…”

“Or a powder,” she finished, popping up off the couch. “What if we’re thinking too big? The smallest amount is lethal and untraceable.”

“She’s right,” River said. “For all we know, Cross could simply be planning to spray some of that shit on the doorknob or dust it on their utensils.”

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