“I took enough to set me up in Germany, only a few percentage points, a commission. I earned it. I set up everything to ensure that my mother could save the family. What else am I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs in Saxony? Wait until my mother dies before I lose my birthright and get tossed to the poorer classes? Just because I was born a man? What a bunch of crap. I could have been as good as a chairperson as Alex.”
“Who is Zephyr?”
“I have no idea!” Patrick shouted, his cuffs rattling against the wood. “Did you know that Alex is bound to the Randolphs, Chief Shaw? Smug little highborns that they are. Simon, my youngest brother, is busy cleaning up the Masson vineyard, right at this very moment. My mother’s seen to it that my other siblings and cousins are either in the senate or married.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that I couldn’t care less about the rest of them. You and your little boys in the tech department can dig through every computer on the Wilson estate for all I care. Whatever the rest have done, they’ve done. Just like I have.”
“Are you refusing to cooperate?”
“It wouldn’t matter either way. I know what you’re up to. You’re trying to find out about Zephyr so that you can put him in the cell next to me. Mark my words, Zephyr knew the minute your men snatched me at the airport. If he didn’t know then, I’m sure he knew when the money wasn’t transferred into his account. He’s gone, and you’ll never find him.”
Lila couldn’t argue with his logic.
Something tugged at her memory, something Patrick had said earlier in the interrogation. She cocked her head to the side, parsing the man’s words once again. “Ask him when Zephyr broke into BullNet for the first time and what files Patrick asked him to retrieve.”
Shaw’s head shot up, and he frowned at the window as he repeated the question.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But Chief Shaw wouldn’t let it go. He and Dr. Adams circled the question for the next half-hour.
Soon their patience was spent. Shaw finally called for a guard to fetch the truth serum as well as Dr. Booth, a doctor at the Bullstow health clinic who was qualified to administer the drug.
“No, wait,” Patrick shouted, chains rattling. It was common knowledge that the serum had a host of terrible side effects, triggering migraines, nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhea, incontinence, and a whole other host of painful and embarrassing side effects that lasted for a week after the injection, and sometimes longer. The shot itself might be pure bliss, but the aftermath made some beg for death. It was far worse than the sedative used in militia darts, yet it had been ruled as legal. It could only be used in the case of serious crimes, though, and only if Bullstow suspected the prisoner withheld information that could lead to great bodily or financial harm.
No one would argue against the serum’s use on Patrick Wilson, and he knew it. The life of an heir hung in the balance. The wealth of a family teetered on the brink.
“It was one of the first tasks I gave Zephyr,” he started, words flowing like a waterfall. “I asked him to break in and find dirt on the Randolphs. I’d heard a rumor about Jewel Randolph’s time at university. I thought I might be able to blackmail her and ask for Alex back. The elder Randolph daughter has always been good with computers. I figured she might have helped hush it up, whatever it was. It was the only way to save the family. My mother certainly couldn’t do it, and no one would give me a chance to try.”
“What happened?” Shaw asked.
“Nothing happened. Zephyr didn’t find a thing.”
“Did you send Peter Kruger to murder Chief Randolph?”
Patrick opened his mouth. Closed it again. Staring first at Dr. Adams, then Chief Shaw. “I had to, don’t you understand? I heard her speaking with my mother. The bitch knew too much. I told Zephyr to take care of it. He called me back later with a plan.”
“Then you knew what was going to happen to Chief Randolph? You asked Peter Kruger to murder your sister’s best friend?”
Patrick tried to stand, but the cuffs tugged him back down to the stool. “She’s no friend. Haven’t you been listening to me? The bitch had it coming. The Randolphs did this to us. They ruined my sister’s business. They became her jailor. They even bought Simon and sent him away.” The chains clinked and pulled at his wrists as he gestured, cutting red swatches into his skin. “I bet you they even killed Madeline and Lisette. It all ruined my mother. We had to do what we could to survive. It’s their fault, don’t you see? They should be in here, not me. The only one who deserved it more than that stupid bitch is her mother.”
His words echoed in the tiny room.
Lila could say nothing against Patrick’s words. It might have been everything she had ever said to her mother, and everything Tristan had yelled in a moment of anger. It was all mixed together and lobbed at her, lit on fire like a bomb.
She couldn’t even dodge and avoid it.
“What about Simon?” Shaw asked. “Why did you frame him in the Club 137 raid?”
“He got too curious. I didn’t trust him to keep quiet. Do you see what those women made me do? He’s my little brother.”
“That must have been very difficult for you, Patrick,” Dr. Adams agreed. “Tell us more about Peter Kruger and his connection to the AAS terrorist group.”
When Patrick claimed to know nothing about the AAS, Shaw nearly called for the serum, but Lila gently prodded the men to question Chairwoman Wilson first. She had just arrived, for as soon as Patrick had implicated his mother, a team at the Wilson compound had brought the matron in for questioning.
Unlike her son, the chairwoman refused to confess to anything at all, ignoring question after question from her interrogators. After an hour of watching the chairwoman fume, Shaw summoned Dr. Booth. They needed information to find Peter before he came after Lila again, not to mention locating Zephyr. Shaw suspected the chairwoman was a part of the case, a conspirator to treason, and she refused to defend herself against such charges.