Page 126 of Lock Up the Darkness

“A bit,” I ground out. “Still dictates every aspect of her life.”

“So, all those charity balls and events, all the philanthropic work isn’t actually her?” she asked.

“No, he’s pulling all the strings. Down to every little detail. The Carmichael Foundation is one of the biggest fronts for the Infidels’ underground activities. Including this whole dollhouse thing.”

“I knew about the front it functioned as. Just not this dollhouse aspect. That was buried deep.”

“Until your dad dug it up,” Asher said. He gestured at the details splashed across the monitors and told us, “These were his targets. The dollhouses.”

“His plan was to take all of them down, in order to break the Infidels,” Aurora added.

“He took down ten before my father caught up with him,” Asher reported.

“Jesus Christ,” Jonah exclaimed. “That’s some crazy feat right there.”

“He’s the best for a reason,” Aurora said proudly.

“Site A through to J is how he identified them. They correspond with the data I gathered on those operations, those ten being marked as inactive by the Head Infidels. The timing also coincides with a massive financial hit they took.”

“Losing all that coin from not having those dolls to sell,” Jonah mused.

“Yes,” Asher confirmed. “It also put a dent in their reputation, because they weren’t able to supply what they’d promised to some very powerful buyers. It had them making reckless deals and moves, trusting people they shouldn’t have and dropping the ball on vetting their staff. Revenant was able to use that to his advantage and he planted people.”

Aurora went on to tell us, “Dozens, apparently. He doesn’t name them, just says whereabouts they’re distributed.”

“And, what, they’re gathering proof to send to the Feds or something?” I asked.

“We don’t know the intent,” Asher said. “But with Revenant having gone to ground, it halted things.”

“Until my dad put himself back on the radar briefly a few months back because Carson got too close to me.”

“Maybe he didn’t just do that to draw out your dad,” Jonah said. “Maybe he suspected these plants too and was monitoring them to see if they moved or snapped into action when news spread that Revenant was still alive and kicking.”

“It’s a possibility,” Asher said. “Because of the extreme covert nature of what Revenant created here, and making absolutely no mentions of their identities, the main way to know more about that part of things is through the man himself.”

“You said main way,” I pointed out. “That means you see another way.”

He gestured at a case file on one of the monitors. “This all started when Revenant was working on a case for a client called Nancy Tenor. Her college-aged daughter, Abigail, had gone missing. It had been six months by the time she came to his security firm. The cops had turned up nothing and all leads had gone cold. As good as he is, he found her.” He winced. “Or, what was left of her—at one of these dollhouses. So, that was what led him to one dollhouse. But how did he identify the others? She couldn’t have known. Their victims are kept to one house only, then taken to those live auctions and sold to top bidders. But somehow Revenant was able to connect the dots to the other locations, something even we can’t do. Even I can’t do as heir apparent.”

“Well, Carson kept you out of the whole thing once he saw how sickened you were by it. It meant he couldn’t trust you with it,” I said.

“What about the guards?” Aurora asked. “Could they have passed on intel to my dad?”

“They use a different set of muscle for each house. They don’t ever overlap. It’s a security precaution,” Asher told her.

Jonah stepped forward, eyeing the monitors and taking all the information in. “The only other people who would have a big picture view are those sitting at the head of the table. And there’s no incentive for them to turn. The exact opposite actually. They make a mint off this.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” Asher said.

Aurora frowned. “What are you thinking?”

“There was one other person who was on the inside and attended all the live auctions. My father’s favorite doll. Amethyst was the name he gave her.”

“The one he paraded around you during those old mandatory family dinners you had to attend?” I asked.

“The very one.”

“I thought she was dead?” Jonah said.

---