“I watched it happen.” She levels me with a look that tells me I’ve walked into dangerous territory.
“Is this what it is now? You treat me like some patient you’ve never met or some guest at the convent who you treat like a ward? Because I’d rather skip it if it’s all the same to you.”
“I just feel responsible, Levi. If you’d just gone with Rowan and Bishop, you would have never been shot. It never would have been this scary with you so close to death. You should have gone.”
“I don’t leave people behind. Least of all you. I had no idea what he would do to you if he were left to his own devices.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t critical to you all getting out of there. Rowan and Bishop might not ever trust you again.”
“Rowan can go fuck himself, and Bishop will understand. Don’t worry about them. They’ve both done far more questionable things. Besides… At some point, you do what your gut tells you is right, and that’s what I did. We would have never gotten as far as we did without you. We’re alive, and we’re here, so you can let the guilt go.”
“I guess,” she answers softly and then sits up a little straighter. “What can I get you? Do you want dinner yet? Some more ice water?”
“Youto come sit next to me and watch television with me.” It’s the truth. All I want in the world right now is time with her. It feels like the most precious resource I have, and I don’t have any way to buy more of it.
FORTY-SEVEN
Zephyrine
Our whole groupis assembled for Charlotte and Dakota’s presentation on the relics. I helped them, spending time in the makeshift office we created out of the spare penthouse suite in the casino. Charlotte brought what felt like half a library’s worth of resources from her home, and Grant and Dakota supplied anything else she needed to work.
It allowed the three of us to grind out long hours in a safe place where I could still be close to Levi during his recovery, and Grant could oversee progress, while their mutual teams maintained security over the relics. Charlotte was too nervous to transport them out of state to her normal office while we waited for the governor’s next move.
I glance over at Levi, checking to make sure he’s comfortable. He insisted on being here today, and I’m worried that he’s pushing himself too hard, too fast in an effort to seem unbothered by his near-death experience. I get a look of reassurance from him when he sees me checking, and I run my hand over his knee under the table when I see it anxiouslytapping out a rhythm as Charlotte explains how she drew her conclusions.
“Three relics were found in the vault along with several other antiquities I’m still researching. But for our focus today, it’s these three.” Charlotte brings a picture of the relics up on the screen at the far end of the table. “This relic here belonged to Jameson Kelly, Hudson’s grandfather. This relic was taken from the private collection of Edgar Markdale in a heist six years ago. And this last one belonged to Charles O’Leary, Zephyrine’s maternal grandfather.”
“There was paperwork in the vault alongside the O'Leary relic that leads us to believe it was kept in a safety deposit box as part of a collection willed to Zephyrine on her wedding day. At which point, we believe her former husband, working on behalf of her father, extracted it and delivered it to the governor,” Dakota adds as she passes around a copy of the paperwork, and my heart breaks to see my grandfather’s signature again.
“Zephyrine?” Charlotte looks at me.
“My grandfather was an antiques dealer, but according to his journal, he obtained this piece when he was deployed during WWII, when he won it in a card game. According to his notes, he and a couple of other men in his unit were playing. He couldn’t recall the names of the other men, except for one man, who he knew from back home, Abbott Schaefer Sr. My fraternal grandfather. The same man who lost the game and paid off Charles O’Leary with the relic.”
Rowan lets out a low whistle, and I see Grant’s eyebrow arch skyward.
“Schaefer Sr. continued playing cards that night after O’Leary turned into his bed after his win, and he believed that Schaefer Sr. may have lost additional relics in those games,” I explain.
“And my grandfather served around the same period, so you believe he was in the unit?” Hudson asks, turning his attention back to Charlotte.
“Yes. We can’t say for sure yet. There was a massive fire in the seventies at the National Personnel Records Center, and many of the enlisted men’s records from that time were lost. So we’re piecing it together with the help of some archives back East, but with what we know so far, yes. We think that’s how Jameson Kelly ended up with one,” Charlotte explains.
“Markdale’s family doesn’t appear to have anyone connected to WWII service, though, so we think that it may have been a private purchase long after the war.” Dakota looks at Levi, and I glance between both of them. I’m unaware of anything new he might have, so I’m as curious as everyone else.
“And while I was searching bank records on another matter, I was able to find a seven-figure deposit that ran through an offshore bank account into Abbott Schaefer Jr.’s account. The same one he used to purchase the relic we put up for auction earlier this year.” Levi grins at my surprise.
“What a fucking coincidence,” Rowan muses.
“So Schaefer loses two relics in a card game, brings a third home, and gives it to his son. He sells it off in order to bail himself out financially?” Grant asks.
“Yes. It happens right around the time Schaefer Jr. got involved in politics, and it was not long after that he became involved with Zephyrine’s mother,” Dakota explains.
“Another coincidence?” Rowan asks.
“Unlikely. Given my family’s personal history and what I was able to glean from my maternal grandfather’s journal, I think my father pursued her in order to seek out the third relic,” I explain.
“Kelly’s and Markdale’s would have been inaccessible to him. He was a nobody at the time, politically and financially,” Charlotte interjects.
“But according to the journal, my grandfather said he was obsessed with it. He would ask questions about it whenever he saw it in his display cabinet and asked more than once what he planned to do with it and whether he’d ever considered selling it,” I add in.
