Chapter 200 Leo Answer
ELIJAH
The drawing of the bait girl went out through the pack at midmorning and by noon we had a name.
Hazel brought it to me in the study where I had been going through the rest of the returned children’s accounts, each one adding a piece to the picture of what the facility had looked like and how it had operated and what Leo had been doing inside it.
“The girl’s name is Clara,” Hazel said. “She’s eight years old. Her parents are listed as pack members in the eastern residential quarter but the address on file is a rental that has been vacant for four months. Nobody has seen the family.”
“So they moved when the operation started.”
“Or they were placed here specifically for the operation and left when their role was complete.” She sat down. “I’m looking into the original registration paperwork. There are some inconsistencies in the dates that suggest the registration was backdated.”
“Landon planted them here,” I said. “He has been planning this for considerably longer than we knew.”
“At least a year. It could even be more.” Hazel set another paper on the desk beside the first. “I had someone work on this against our files on Shawn’s known associates. There are two possible matches. One of them is already accounted for and he’s in custody. The other one is a man named Drek who worked gate security for six months last year before leaving the pack for what was recorded as a family matter.”
“Any leads on him?”
“No, we’re still looking.” She paused. “There’s something else.”
I looked up from the papers.
“Adriana still hasn’t signaled through the link,” Hazel said. “But there has been an increased activity this morning according to Aiden. Many vehicles were arriving and leaving.”
My hands went still on the desk.
“More children?” I said.
“Aiden believes so, yes. Moving out, not in.”
“So why hasn’t she signaled?” I walked to the window. “If the children are released, she should be signaling. She should be ready to move.”
“Unless she’s not done yet,” Hazel said.
I turned around.
I sat back down because there was nothing else to do and the nothing else to do was going to drive me out of my mind if I let it. I picked up the next set of accounts from the returned children and kept working because working was the only thing that felt remotely like doing something.
Every account mentioned the boy who had arrived later than everyone else and had started doing something immediately, even if they couldn’t always articulate what the something was. The negotiations for better food. The conversations with the guards that had resulted in fewer incidents of violence. The way he had listened to every child.
One girl said he had told her to pay attention to everything and write it down or memorize it.
He had been preparing them to be witnesses before they left.
“He’s extraordinary,” I said, without meaning to say it out loud.
“He is,” Hazel said, from across the desk. “He gets it from both of you.”
My phone rang. I looked at it. It was not a number I recognized.
“Answer it,” Hazel said immediately.
I answered.
“Dad.”
“Leo.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Where are you?”
“Still at the secondary facility. Mum got the other kids out this morning. She’s working on getting me out now but I wanted to call before the window closed.” He sounded calm. “I’m fine. I want you to know I’m fine first.”
“I know you’re fine,” I said. “I got the drawing.”
“I know who the spy is but the drawing isn’t complete.”
“We’re working from what you gave us.”
“It’s the second one,” he said. “I heard Landon say the name when he didn’t know I was listening.”
“I have him,” Hazel said, from across the desk. She had been listening and was already on her phone. “We have him.”
“Tell Mum the eastern exit is still the best route,” Leo said. “The latch on the door hasn’t been fixed. And tell her—” He stopped. “Tell her I’m ready when she is.”
The line went dead.
I set the phone on the desk and looked at Hazel and she was already coordinating, already moving the pieces, and I breathed out slowly and picked up my own phone to contact Aiden.
We were almost there.
We just needed one more move.
ADRIANA
Landon finally let me see Leo.
The other children were gone by morning and Leo had been moved to a proper room, which was Landon’s way of demonstrating that he could be generous when generosity served his purposes. The room was decent enough, it had a bed, a window, more space than Leo had had in weeks. When the guard opened the door and I walked in, Leo was sitting on the edge of the bed with a piece of paper in his hands and he looked up and went completely still.
“Are you just going to sit there?” I said.
He crossed the room in three steps and I pulled him in before he reached me and held on. His arms came around me and tightened and we stood there in the middle of that room in somebody else’s palace.
He was thinner.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I want you to know that first. I’m okay.”
“I know you are,” I said. “I’ve been hearing about you from everyone who came home. You’re incomparable.”
“It needed to be negotiated.”
I laughed despite everything and he looked slightly pleased with himself. I pulled him to the bed and we sat and he immediately started talking before I could.
“The eastern exit is still viable,” he said. “The latch on the door hasn’t been fixed. I checked this morning. The guard rotation has a gap between four and five in the morning.” He paused. “He’s going to offer you something tonight. At dinner. He’s been building toward it for days. Don’t say yes to anything that keeps us here longer.”
“I know how to handle Landon,” I said.
“I know you do.” He stopped and looked at his hands for a moment. “He’s been saying things about Dad. About how Dad took you and about how everything that happened was Dad’s fault. I didn’t believe him. I want you to know I didn’t believe any of it.”
“Good.” I put my hand on the back of his neck briefly. “Because none of it is true. Your father is the best man I have ever known and the reason I’m sitting in this room right now instead of sending someone else is because he trusted me to do it myself.”
Leo looked at me for a moment.
“He’s outside the boundary,” he said.
“He’s been outside the boundary since before I arrived,” I said. “Hazel has the soldiers positioned. Aiden is at the secondary facility. We have everything we need except one thing.”
“Me,” he said.
“You,” I said. “And you’re going to give me tonight to arrange it.”
He nodded.
I stood. “I’m going to go have dinner with a man I find deeply irritating and get us out of here. You’re going to sleep.”
“I’m not going to sleep.”
“I know. But try.” I moved to the door and stopped and looked back at him sitting on the edge of the bed in that room. “I’m proud of you,” I said. “More than you understand.”
He looked at the floor. “Okay,” he said quietly.
It was the most Leo answer possible and I carried it with me down the corridor and back into the game.