Page 7 of Beau and the Beast

"Maybe," Noah said. "I think it's like... some weird animal though."

"Either way, what's it doing in the penthouse hallway at 330 West?"

Noah nodded and then pushed away from his computer. When he turned to face Beau, the scarred ridges on his face were bright white against his flushed skin.

"Exactly my point," Noah said. "Something strange is going on up there and I have a feeling the penthouse tenant would happily pay any price to make sure nobody knows about it."

"Why do you say that?"

"Their security system is locked down like craaazy," Noah said, stretching the word out so that it sounded likecruh-hay-zee. "I mean, billionaires are odd ducks to begin with, but I'veneverseen a place under lock and key like this—not even for politicians with gross secrets."

Beau didn’t like where this conversation with his brother was headed.

"What's your plan?"

"Blackmail."

"Seriously? You don't even know what you have," Beau pointed out.

"Maybe not, but I knowtheydon't want me to have it."

Beau massaged the back of his neck as he frowned at Noah. His hacker brother had worse ideas than this in the past, but this plot seemed a little too simple to work.

"You really think they're just going to hand over the money?"

Noah shrugged. "I didn't ask for much."

Beau’s mouth dropped open.

"Didn’t… ask? Jesus Noah, you already did this?" Beau asked. "You said you were going to talk to me from now on before you did dumb shit like this."

Noah half-smiled. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?"

* * *

Wolfram had been walkingin his sleep.

At first, none of them worried about it much. But when he actually exited the penthouse one night to wander around in the hallway outside, the matter became one of potential life and death for the man and his staff. If he’d have gotten much further than the doorway, his heart would’ve shut down the same way it did for the rest of them. He could’ve died in that hallway and they would not have even known to go looking for him.

Violet called a staff meeting. It seemed like the right thing to do.

All of their reactions were absolutely typical. Geoffrey balked and said that if Wolfram wanted to get himself killed, that was his prerogative. James was just as concerned as Violet but absolutely didn't want to talk about confronting their friend. Alfie shrugged it off like it wasn't his problem and Song wanted to know why they didn't just call a doctor.

"What are we supposed to do—lock him in at night?" Geoffrey asked. "He'lllovethat idea. Good luck not getting your head torn off when you deliver the news."

"I don't know what we're supposed to do, Geoffrey, but we need to talk about this," Violet insisted.

She rarely pushed matters. When she did, people listened—including Wolfram's staff.

"We could get one of the docs to write him a script for sleeping pills," Song suggested.

"I was thinking that too," James shot in, "but how do we convince one to write a dose that's high enough to actually put him down?"

They all thought on that a moment.

"Two different docs prescribing for two different 200-lb men ought to work," Song said. "Neither doc needs to know that he's prescribing for the same person. Different docs, different pharmacies. We could get it done."

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "If we could just buy street drugs, you realize this would be ten times easier, right?"

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