Chapter 8: The Offer

The call came at noon, from a number I didn't know.

I was alone in the loft kitchen with a mug of tea.

Jude was downstairs with Ollie, and the bookkeeper, a thin gray man in his fifties, was washing cups at the sink.

"Miss Hallett," Crowe said, warm as a bath. "Merritt. I hope I'm not disturbing you."

I put the phone on speaker, set it on the counter, and thumbed the voice memo on a second phone from my bag.

Bree had shown me that trick two years ago, for a patient who kept lying about his pills.

"You're not," I said.

"I wanted to thank you for last night. You've got spirit. I haven't seen a woman handle a room like that in years."

"What do you want?"

"I like it when people get to the point."

He laughed.

"Half a million dollars, Miss Hallett. A clean account, a new start for you and your father somewhere warm."

"For what?"

"A phone call. When he's at his weakest."

"The night he can't stand, the night the fever's up. You'd know before anyone. You sleep down the hall."

I looked at the bookkeeper.

He had turned the tap off.

"I don't sleep down the hall," I said.

"No," Crowe said gently. "I heard that. Pity."

My hand went cold around the mug.

He kept talking, soft as milk.

"I'm sending a picture. Look at it, think it over."

The phone buzzed.

It was a photograph of a hospital corridor.

Door 412, with a small white card on it that said HALLETT, W.

"Your father's in a lovely room," Crowe said. "Lots of doors, a man could walk through."

I heard the thin ring in my own ears.

"Say it again," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The night he can't stand. You want me to call you."

"You'll pay half a million, and you'll leave my father alone. Say it again so I understand."

There was a small pause.

"The night the Alpha falls, Miss Hallett," Crowe said. "Yes. That's all."

"Thank you," I said. "I'll think about it."

I ended the call.

I stopped the recording.

The bookkeeper dried his hands on a dish towel, folded it, and walked out of the kitchen faster than I'd ever seen him walk.

He didn't look at me.

I picked up both phones and took the stairs down two at a time.

Jude was at the copper still with a clipboard.

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