She wouldn’t be charged with freeing a slave.
She’d be charged with attempted murder.
Sweat broke out as she worked on the gunman, and her arms flagged long before a finely dressed woman knelt on his other side.
“I’m the LeBeaus’ private physician.” The doctor removed her blazer. She popped open the dead man’s mouth to check his airway, something Lila had forgotten to do. Or perhaps she’d been too disgusted by the foam pouring from his mouth.
Lila saw the broken capsule as soon as the doctor did.
“Poison,” the doctor said, her brown eyes flitting to Lila’s before she took over chest compressions.
They said nothing to one another about the futility of it.
Sweat beaded down the side of Lila’s face as they switched back and forth. It was important to save the man, even though she understood now she probably hadn’t killed him after all.
It still felt like she had.
Lila and the doctor worked until the ambulance arrived. The EMTs’ boots squeaked as they lugged a clattering stretcher across the ballroom, the wheels marking the wooden floor with black streaks. Their simple Randolph General polos and black trousers looked out of place among the highborn finery around them.
The EMTs only continued chest compressions because their boss had begun them. They connected sticky pads to the man’s chest and shocked him with a tiny electrical box. Lila jerked at the noise, the sound seeming louder than the gunshot moments before.
They lifted him onto the stretcher and continued their work.
“Do you want to come with us?” one of the EMTs asked, a man who likely regretted not shaving that morning. He skimmed her face then stared at the floor, not meeting her eyes.
Lila shook her head, and the LeBeaus’ doctor volunteered to go in her place.
A second ambulance arrived a few moments later for Olivia. She’d wake up with the worst hangover she’d ever have in her life, as well as the full force of her matron’s wrath.
An hour before, Lila might have found Olivia’s situation funny.
The EMTs also checked Lila’s hands before they left, confirming that she didn’t need more stitches. Lila watched them go and looked around for something useful to do. Since the gunman had been taken away and her father’s security had already been handled, she had nothing to occupy her mind. Instead, she waved off her parents, collected her Colt and clutch, then retreated to the ladies’ room on the top floor. It looked much like the lobby of the auction house, except it contained a few couches and dressing tables.
Underneath a painting of sunset, Lila took off her gloves and shoved her fingers under the faucet, splashing cool water on her arms where the gunman’s spit had landed. A bruise had already formed across her jaw, and Lila winced every time she brushed the bone.
She didn’t want to look at her stomach. The gunman’s kick still throbbed.
Patting her arms dry, she slipped in her earpiece, listening to the militia while she carefully added more concealer to her jaw. Toxic must have cracked their new signal.
It appeared that her father’s security personnel had ordered a thorough search of the auction house. It didn’t take them long to find the body, some man found in a ground-floor closet, strangled, his clothes stolen. His wallet had been tossed onto his naked chest as though the killer thought himself above petty theft.
It made the death seem worse somehow, a man killed only for his clothes.
A DNA stick had established the lowborn’s identity: some proxy for a foreign bidder.
Lila took out her palm and nearly typed Tristan a message, but she had no idea what to say. She felt as if she’d just relived Reaper’s death all over again.
Except this time she had held the gun, rather than Tristan.
Her palm vibrated before she could put it back in her clutch. She opened it immediately, expecting little more than a message from the Randolph security office.
Good evening, Prolix. I trust you’ve had a few days’ rest? Interesting stuff on the news lately. Fallen highborn are so very entertaining, don’t you think?
Lila swallowed. Reaper had been the only one who knew about her fake Prolix account, and he was dead. She’d suspected that he had a partner, though, for Reaper’s tech had been wiped the day he died, including all evidence of his misdeeds.
Hers too. He’d written an article about her activities in BullNet and hosted it on his private server. The only saving grace was that it had been unconnected to any other webpage.
Lila could only assume it had been a message to h