Page 74 of Chaos Crown

But now he neared the end of his usefulness, which was why I finally sent that letter to the Bedlam Boys. I thought the man had information I needed, but after weeks of questioning, I could be sure that he’d have given it up if he knew. His only use now was to keep the Bedlam Boys in line, and I had other options for that. At least Paris Keller would be nice to look at.

Together we crossed the threshold, stepping into a long hallway that still held the memory of the faded floral wallpaper, cobweb-covered lamps, and green carpet that had long since turned black and brown from grime.

The filthy carpet muffled our footfalls, and the bag of tools and trash bags my companion dragged behind them. We made sure to stop and get the best for Sheriff Sharpe. His mangled body would haunt his son’s nightmares until he finally blew his brains out. Out of respect, we had to put the effort in.

I shoved into Sharpe’s bare, filthy room, and my grin melted away. Sitting on the chair in the middle of the room, was a pile of cut rope and a gag.

He was gone.

“What? How!” I stormed in, craning my neck around as if the fat, drunk slob was hiding in a corner. “This isn’t possible. Where is he?”

“Davidson must’ve cracked.”

“He wouldn’t crack,” I barked. “Especially not that quickly. Fuck!”

Heaving the chair, I threw it at the wall—busting through the falling-down wood into the other room.

My roar echoed through the forest.

***

JACQUES

I walked aways down the forest path until Davidson’s grunts and maniacal laughs were as loud as the owl hooting overhead. Cairo was motivated to get that man talking. Unfortunately, Davidson was just as motivated to see Cairo desperate and suffering. He wasn’t giving anything up.

He was enjoying this too much.

Ivy must have something.

I typed her number in Davidson’s phone. We had to get out of the station fast since Mars was due back at any second. That left no chance to retrieve the phones, wallets, belts, and everything else they took from us during processing.

Davidson’s cell was the only way to reach her once we beat it out of town and took him to the one wooded spot we knew well, Buller’s Den. Though, also unfortunately for us, Davidson wouldn’t give up the code to get into his phone either. I wasted time we didn’t have breaking into it to finally—

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“Ivy, it’s me.”

“Whose phone are you calling me from? Are you at the police station?”

“No. We left and took Davidson with us. We’ve been questioning him for a while, but I can read the time. It’s long past seven o’clock. Tell me if there’s any point in continuing,” I said. “Did you find Quinn? Did she tell you what you needed to know?”

“Of course she did, baby.” Ivy dropped this like someone says they made meatloaf for dinner. “You told me to find her and I did.”

“And... she told you where the sheriff was,” I said slowly.

“She didn’t want to at first, but it turned out repeated blows to her broken ribs was pain even she couldn’t bluff her way through. I’ve got her and the sheriff. Whenever you feel like joining us, love.”

I didn’t speak as she told us where she was, blew a kiss over the phone, and hung up.

All that effort, time, money, and thefavorit cost us to get out, and Ivy had the situation in hand.

Cairo kept saying she was colder, smarter, and more manipulative than us. Make that the last day I underestimated her.

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