Page 103 of Beloved Sacrifice

“But they didn’t just sink it. They must have boarded it to get all that art off,” Rose added.

Marek shook his head. “If the Trinity Masters stole from the Masters’ Admiralty, that would be one thing. But the children…”

Weston leaned forward. “That’s where you come in.”

Marek raised his brows.

“Your grandparents are members. And your grandmother must know damned near everything if she was able to help you find me in a rural cottage based only on a description of this.” He pointed to his right eye.

“She does know almost everything.”

“If they’d tried to smuggle kids out, and then that ship sank, someone would have talked about it. Even if they weren’t supposed to. Given the timing, it’s possible that the boat dropped the kids off somewhere along the way and was only carrying the art.”

Marek clung to that, liking that much better than the other possibility. “And you want me to ask my grandmother.”

“Without letting on that we might know the real fate of the Esperanza.”

“If this is true, the Admiralty will have to be told. They deserve to know.”

Rose sat back and crossed her arms. She swallowed and looked out the window. Marek glanced at her and then at Weston.

“This information is all we have to take them down. If this is the secret the purists are trying to protect, it will give us leverage. But it only works if we can use the secret, threaten them by saying we’ll tell the Masters’ Admiralty. If we actually do tell them, the whole situation will blow up. We don’t want that, because an investigation into it all wouldn’t end well for any of us.”

“If you don’t tell them yourself, you risk the Masters’ Admiralty finding out.”

Weston stared at him. “Would you tell them?”

Marek fished his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll do what’s right.”

“Fuck,” Rose groaned.

“I know what you’ve been through. Both of you. We’ll stop these purists,” Marek assured them.

Weston’s face closed down into grim lines.

Marek checked his phone, which was a special model usually only available to military personnel. He flipped it to satellite mode and placed a call to his grandmother.

It rang twice, and after a brief conversation with William, she came on the line. Marek put it on speakerphone, but turned down the volume. Rose slid out of her chair to sit cross-legged in the aisle beside him. Weston leaned forward.

“You didn’t come visit,” Jane Dell said.

Marek winced. “I’m sorry, Grandmother. Circumstances necessitated it.”

“Make sure you include that in my eulogy. ‘Circumstances necessitated me not coming to visit.’”

“I’m very sorry, Grandmother. I promise I will come visit.

“Did you find the one-eyed man?”

Marek made an apologetic face at Weston.

“I did. You’re actually on speakerphone with him. His name is…Wesley. And you’re also on with a woman named Rose.”

“The woman you were hunting?”

“I wasn’t hunting her.”

“Call a spade a spade, boy. Are you in jail?”

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