Page 91 of The Wicked

Was I? Really? I hadn’t remembered anything useful at all.

“Your mom said to burn something,” Blue prompted. “Burn them?”

“I don’t know who or what ‘them’ was.”

“Can you remember the rest of her words?”

“They made no sense. She told me that she loved me, and then it was just random words and numbers.”

“Tell me.”

I screwed my eyes shut again. “Third-floor window. Pipes. Fires. Dust. Eight sixteen. Burn them.”

She’d repeated the first part twice, the words punctuated by her rasping breath, by my sobs and the creaking and ticking of the car. By rain pounding on the roof. By the ominous rumbles of thunder.

“How many floors did your house in Virginia have?” Blue asked.

“Only one.”

It had been a pretty blue ranch-style home with a cosy kitchen and a yard full of flowers. Dad used to sit on the deck and paint them in the summer. In watercolour, mainly, but sometimes he used oils.

“What about her office?”

“At the Capitol? I don’t know. I went there maybe twice? There was an elevator, so I’d guess more than two.”

“Blue, you can’t get into a congressional office,” Luca warned.

“Why would we need to do that?” I asked.

“A woman isn’t going to waste her last words. When you were under attack this morning, what was going through your head?”

“How does that freaking help?”

“Just take a deep breath, stop, and think. In and out, that’s it.”

I did as she instructed and tried to put myself back in the bathroom. The last place I wanted to be.

“I was…I was scared for Garrett.” That traitorous bastard. “And then I heard footsteps, soft ones coming across the portico and into the living room, and I hoped with every atom in me that Luca would catch whoever was out there and make them pay.”

“Your mom probably had the same thoughts. She told you that she loved you, and she wanted justice. So she gave you a message.”

“A message? But it was gibberish.”

“I bet it means something; we just need to work out what. How many floors at The Lookout?”

“Two. Unless you count the attic, but nobody ever goes up there.” My eyes flew open. “Wait, you don’t think…?”

“Does it have windows?”

“Small ones.”

Blue grinned. “Who wants to drive?”

31

SARA

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day?”

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