Page 17 of Hell and High Water

Of course, the security system should blow the whole place if that happens, a little secret I haven’t shared with Tell. Gavin helped me set it up, against his better judgment.

The main issue we’ve had trying to pinpoint cohesive info on the Sinful has been with seeing the big picture and putting all of the clues together. Hellena would be a huge help.

Since she’s awake…

“Look through that stack and the two flash drives. Maybe we can bring Hellena some good news and some work to look over if she’s feeling up to it in a day or two.”

“There you go. But why wait? We could go now.”

So tempting.

I shake my head. “I’m close to something here, and there’s the ever growing list of requests that need seeing to as well. Need to follow up with the Williams and Haverthorne accounts. If they leave without warning, half the town’s supply of food vanishes. At that rate, Sanctum will die of attrition as much as anything else.”

“Ol’ Jensen Williams owns every grocery store on the east side of town, right? They are looking for a panic room, lockdown scenario, too?”

I only nod, losing myself in the stack of manila folders in front of me.

An hour slips by, making calls and putting whimpering millionaires at ease. Tell is on his third cup of coffee and halfway through his stack of work when he leans back, rubbing his temples.

“What happens if we don’t find anything?”

“We will. Or we will figure something else out. You and I both grew up here. Neither of us can let anything happen to this town.”

“Agreed. Just putting it out there. Maybe we should start looking at other options sooner than later.”

“That’s Gavin’s job. Let him plan our contingency.”

“Fine. Oh, I forgot to tell you earlier. No dice on any leads out of City Council. No one seems to know anything official about the Seven outside of the Ball and getting their needs met, voices heard, etc. However, A few of them have received instructions in the past, voice modded phone calls with privileged info.”

“Good to know. And not all that surprising. Makes me wonder what the purpose of having a city council is, though.”

“Town still has to run like a town, I guess. Infrastructure. Daily rules and regs.”

“Right. But where does the money come from?”

Even Tell has nothing to say on that front. He is a consummate spy, a gift, supposedly. If he didn’t swear against it, Gavin and I both would be convinced he used to be CIA. The guy is an expert at infiltrating, getting people to spill even the most difficult secrets. His network of personas and contacts is unreal.

So if he can’t tell us who funds everything behind the scenes…

It always brings us back to the Seven. What little we know about them.

“Hubris. Spite. My contact and yours.”

“And Ire. Councilman Herd let it slip, just once, in a phone call a couple of years ago.”

“How did you?—”

“Computer hacker, remember? I bugged a few of them and have had their calls recorded. Just had to program a search for keywords like that. Still, I was lucky to find it in hundreds of hours of calls.”

“Impressive.”

“Yes, I am. So, that leaves… four we can assume also have cheesy theme names, right?”

“Right. And as much as I hate to assume, each of them must, or likely, has a purview in the group. Spite was your contact, could be a link to information gathering, keeping people from backstabbing one another.”

“Good guess, and Hubris could be closely linked to saving face, people being able to purchase their fantasies and deepest needs without judgment.”

“For a fee,” I retort, tapping my pen on my lips.

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