Page 119 of Crown of the Fae King

“Speaking of calls,” I said. “Did Brooks say there’ve been any calls from him?”

Wickham nodded.

My heart jumped.

“How many?”

“Some.”

“How many is some?”

“Twenty-two in the last forty-eight hours. After the first few, he stopped answering them. But the message is always the same.”

“Okay, okay. Then what’s the message.”

With a sour face, Wickham warned me I didn’t want to know.

“It’s alright. I can handle it. I’m positive they can’t be any worse than I’ve imagined.”

He sighed, then pulled out his phone, touched it a few times, then laid it on the table. “These are the first half-dozen.”

“Please ask Lennon to contact me.”

“Please ask Wickham to contact me.”

“Sir, this is an emergency. Please contact Wickham and tell him I must speak to her. And if he won’t allow it, then I must speak to him.”

“If you would kindly pass along this message to Lennon, I understand you were trying to warn me. But now we need to talk. It doesn’t matter what happened, I need to know the truth.”

“Mr. Brooks, if you don’t convince Wickham to call me, I’ll come get my answers from you.”

Wickham reached for the phone.“You tell those witches—"He cut off the recording. “They alternate after that. Pleading, then threatening, then pleading again. He must believe the messages would be passed on.”

I remembered to breathe. “Well, he was right. But like I said, nothing worse than what I expected.” It was the deep voice that shook me to my toes, not the words, and I wondered if there was some spell behind it. Maybe that’s why I always told him more than I wanted to.

But not this time.

“Do they plan to arrest me?”

“Brooks didn’t think so. Even if they have footage of ye in his taxi, there is no proof ye did anything to the man. They can only question ye.”

“Unless it’s Orion.”

“Right. But Brooks thinks ye can show up at a random police station, make a statement, and leave again before they have time to make a fuss. If they demand ye present yerself for arrest, they’ll have to contact Brooks first. But since ye didnae kill anyone, there cannae be enough proof to hold ye.”

“Make a statement? In and out? Can we do it all in daylight?”

“Aye, but why?”

“Carew can’t fly into a city unless its dark.”

“Fine, then. We’ll get ye out whilst the sun is high.”

“Just one more thing to decide, then.”

“Aye?”

“Just what am I going to say happened in that taxi?”

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