Page 27 of Liar's Heart
Ender
Ok. Those bathrooms are kind of small. Check my study if you want to grab them now. I think in the file cabinet to the left of my desk. If not, we can look for them tonight.
I can see if I can find them. I need to stretch my legs anyway.
Ender
There’s a fingerprint scanner on the wall next to the door. You’re already coded in, so just scan, and the door should unlock for you. Let me know if it gives you any trouble.
Shaking my head, I read the last message again, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. “Turns out I’ve had access to the study this whole fucking time? Somehow. I don’t want to know how or why he has my fingerprints.”
Jules laughs, clearly more amused by this developmentthan I am. “Nice. Go. I’ll text you when I’ve taken care of the cameras. But you should go now.”
She’s right. My story will line up best if I go now, so I close her into our office and head down the hall, taking the familiar path until I’m in front of the study. I flip up the cover on the fingerprint scanner and slot my left index finger onto the green-black screen. Seconds later, the red light next to the scanner turns green, and the distinct click of a metal lock disengaging sounds through the quiet hall. When I push down on the handle, it gives way, and the door swings open, letting me inside. I close the door behind me and listen to the lock reengage, brows furrowed in bewilderment that it really was that easy.
Despite Ender’s pretty speech yesterday, I'm still surprised it actually worked. It just shouldn’t be so easy to access this room unattended. Unless there’s nothing worth protecting in here. But if that’s the case, why keep the door locked at all? Most of the other rooms in the house aren’t kept locked.
Where else would he bury his secrets? Somewhere else in the house, right? The only other place he goes with any sort of consistency is his office, but it’s riskier to keep anything incriminating in a building where so many other people have access. No, the house is the better choice. Fewer people come and go here, and it’s easier to watch. Easier to check on without people wondering what you’re doing there or seeing you moving things in and out.
I wonder if the blueprints I’m looking for are even real or if they’re the altered copies conveniently missing some rooms. There’s no such thing as a Society member’s house without the kind of rooms two people walk into and only one walks out of. Hell, my house has plenty of secrets in the basement, and the Lockwoods aren’t known for violence the same way the Sinclairs are. But before I can rummage through those rooms, I have to locate them, figure out how they’re monitored and secured, and come up with a solid alibi in case I getcaught. I might as well take my time combing through this space first.
Pausing at the door, I take in the layout of the elusive room. Muted sunlight passes through curtains hanging in large, arched windows, making it dim but not unmanageable. It smells like Ender in here, though not as pronounced as our bedroom. The smoke and orange scent is cut with the musty paper of old books, leather, and cold steel. I find a light switch near me and flip it, bathing the room in soft amber light from a few different lamps and revealing a space that looks like it’d be better suited tucked into a gothic castle-turned-college waiting for its professor to return from afternoon lectures. The style reminds me of my house, surprisingly enough. Dark wood runs throughout the space, from the heavy desk at one end to the mantle above the fireplace at the other. A leather couch and wingback chairs create a conversation area near bookcases filled with old, leather-bound books.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket and check my texts. Jules hasn’t given me the all-clear yet, so I locate the filing cabinet Ender indicated and start to slowly work my way through it to buy time. The top drawer yields nothing exciting. Employment records for the staff, some account information from former vendors, and college transcripts.
The only notable thing about this stuff is that it exists at all. Why would the owner and operator of a multimillion-dollar security tech firm keep paper records of anything? The obvious answer is that paper records aren't hackable, but who is he worried will get this information? The filing cabinet wasn't even locked, and, sure, the door has biometric access on it, but if someone wanted in here badly enough, they could find a way in. What the hell does he have these for? Staff payroll and management are all handled electronically. I know this for a fact because I’ve been through those records myself. A cursory pass through them shows nothing oddcompared to the electronic files, but it’s hard to tell without sitting and going through them all individually.
Drawer number two contains more of the same minutia: copies of vehicle titles, receipts for random home goods and furniture, and some legal documents. Pausing to rifle through the legal documents, I feel my phone vibrating in my hand, lighting up with an incoming text from Jules of the thumbs-up emoji. Perfect. I pull the entire folder out of the drawer and set it on the desk to dig through later.
The third drawer is where I start to find more property-related things. Deeds and assessments for the house, his office building, a few other properties in the city, and secondary residences—all assets I already knew about. There is one address listed on a deed that I don’t recognize at all in a completely different city. But when I type it into a search engine, it comes back as a completely undeveloped plot of land in the middle of nowhere, about an hour’s drive from here. Probably their dump site, so it’s not odd it hasn’t come up before in disclosures.
It shouldn’t turn me on that he owns property specifically to dump bodies on. Should it? Then again, the reason it turns me on is because I’m also a walking red flag, so maybe it's best not to question it too much.
Finally, I find the blueprints in question, which join the other papers on the desk. I'm not worried about getting caught with those files. As far as I'm concerned, anything in that cabinet is fair game since Ender directed me to it. If he didn't want me to see it, he would have made sure I didn't. And while that could also be said about everything else in this room, there are some cards I still want to keep close to my chest for a little longer.
Scanning the room, I take in the finer details of the space while trying to decide where to go next. The wall opposite the desk houses the fireplace framed by a dark walnut mantle. Two paintings hang above it, side by side. The one on the leftis of a Cerberus, the massive black dog sitting proudly against a night sky. One head looks over its shoulder, teeth bared at an unseen threat, while another gazes down at its paws. The central head, though, is the most striking. That one is thrown back, eyes closed, as it howls into the night sky. Maybe he's calling home lost souls to the gates he guards. Or he’s releasing a war cry as he readies himself to defend his domain. Maybe he’s keening, overwhelmed with grief only the stars can hold. I wish I knew which one it was. Maybe it’s all three simultaneously, despair and rage and longing so big it needs a monster with three faces to hold it all.
A sphinx occupies the canvas on the right. Another night scene, and she’s bathed in moonlight, making her feel lighter than her neighbor. Like she revels in the darkness instead of being made from it. Huge, white wings stretch behind her, feathers ruffling in the breeze that tugs her long, black hair in front of her, partially obscuring her face and breasts. She's leaning forward, halfway to standing, like she's trying to get a better look at something of interest. Feline curiosity radiates from the tentative press of her front paws to her half-unfurled tail. I wonder if she’s spotted someone and is slinking over to challenge them to solve her riddle. Slinking, but not stalking. I get the sense that she’s not on the hunt, hoping her challenger will fail so she can devour them, but rather that she’s curious about what will happen next. Maybe this one will solve the riddle. Maybe she wants them to.
Two different guardians sit side by side, and one of them, my husband has inked into his skin twice over. I fucked up when I didn’t ask about them yesterday. I see that now. Not that I didn’t have plans to ask, but I should have prioritized them over the others. How hard would it be to get him to circle back to that conversation and continue mapping out the stories on his skin? Probably not very, especially if we find ourselves tangled up in each other, drunk on the oxytocin and dopamine flooding our brains from orgasms.
My chest constricts at the thought. It hurts knowing I allowed that very thing last night. Not the sex, but the bonding. The comfort and affection.
It hurts thinking about never doing it again just as much. Maybe even more.
I’ve wandered into the middle of the room, compelled to move closer to the paintings, but now that I’m here, something else tugs at my attention. The exterior wall features two large, arched windows at the far ends of the room, perfect for spilling light onto the desk and the seating area near the fireplace. Between those two windows, though, is what I can only describe as a gallery wall of blades. Knives and swords of varying styles and formality pattern themselves from floor to ceiling. There are even a few axes and pikes for good measure. I knew Ender to be a collector, but seeing the collection on display has a completely different impact than flipping through auction records and insurance inventories.
Katanas mingle with dirks. A gladius rests near an ivory-handled haladie. Oiled Damascus steel ripples in the lamplight, drawing attention to some of the more ceremonial pieces. One longsword has a giant ruby set into the pommel like a dragon’s egg. Another knife has a curved blade resembling a claw, meant to disembowel. A claymore near the window has a gilded lion embedded into the ricasso. Everywhere you look, there’s more and more steel. Elegant violence.
Just like him.
Just like me too.
It takes me a minute, but when I spot my wedding present, I can’t help but smile and move toward it. He’s mounted it in the center of the wall at eye level, a clear focal point. I run my fingers along the hilt, feeling the cold facets on the sapphires for the first time since the ceremony.
We’ve only been married a little over a month, and I already feel infinitely removed from the woman whocommissioned this dagger. When I polished this blade and nestled it in its bed of silk, getting it ready to give to my groom, I thought of it as a quiet warning. He would see a beautiful addition to his hoard, proof that I paid attention and cared about pleasing him. But I saw a weapon, beautiful and therefore underestimated, but deadly all the same.
Now I know better. Ender doesn’t underestimate the violence it's capable of just because it's delivered in a pretty package. He admires that both coexist within the same weapon, neither diminishing the other.
