hawk & sable

CHAPTER FOURTEEN,

HAWK & SABLE | FOURTEEN

  THERE WAS A compartment underneath Jinyao's bedroom floor. Ciri's mind raced. "A lot of the older buildings here have these. They use it for storage, sometimes, but most people just leave it there. Buildings built on buildings. These would have been old roofs or ceilings."

"And it's been used here to hide evidence of treason," Laurence murmured, kneeling down and brushing the golden frame of one of the paintings before carefully hoisting it up. "The evidence would be gone, I think. Someone wiser would have burned or sold these long ago."

"How does Jinyao tie in all this?" Ciri demanded, more to herself than him. "She wouldn't have money to buy these. It makes no sense to use paintings to smuggle messages."

"This was what the person was searching for. But they're not working with us, so why look for these? The messages are surely gone. Why kill her?"

"This was done after the murder. Did they come to look for these themselves because she refused to tell them where it was? How didn't they find this? It's not that well-hidden."

"They had to be in a rush. They spent their sweet, sweet time moving the furniture and didn't notice anything else."

"We'll carry these out. One of us should ride back first, ask for an Iron Wolf to be sent out, maybe, to guard this place. Just in case." Ciri rubbed her forehead. "I'll go prepare the carriage."

"I'll stay here," he confirmed. "Be fast."

With help from the driver, they loaded all the paintings onto the carriage. There were three in total, which made both of them frown. There should be a lot more than three. Had the mole scattered them all? Did that point to a major information network hiding right under their noses?

Laurence returned to the apartment once they were done, where he'd stay until she returned. With a nod to the driver, they started making the journey back to the Scarlet Palace.

Irina and Ryan were both waiting near the entrance. Ciri hopped off the carriage. "We found three Norman Hightower paintings on the floorboard. Laurence is still there, just in case. The apartment was already searched. They were looking for the paintings, but I don't think they found them."

Irina was stony faced. No clue what she was thinking of all this. "What do you want us to do?"

"We'd suggest sending someone— a Wolf, probably— to watch over the apartment in case they come back. Listen. There were only three paintings there. Hightower sent out at least a dozen, so—"

"They're scattered. There's either multiple moles, or the mole somehow managed to convince people to hide the paintings for him." Ryan nodded. "The people hiding the paintings won't be as careful, but if he's killing them off one by one..."

"We can use that to guess who it is. But there'd be a lot of unnecessary deaths, which would raise questions that are awkward to answer." Irina turned to Myrina, who stood closely behind, eyes lowered, the portrait of submissive demureness. "Myrina, can you go get one of the Wolves still around the Treasury headquarters? Ah, send for the Crow. He and... the Cobra, maybe, they can take turns guarding the place. Leave Bear there. No use sending a crew to ask questions now."

"Of course." Myrina gave a small bob of the head and a curtsy and went on her way. Irina always used the countess as a messenger, and she could never quite understand why. But the woman was fast, she'd give her that, so Ciri never said anything about it. You don't use countesses as messengers. But Irina was a princess, so maybe she did.

Ryan watched the woman leave before turning back to Ciri, eyebrows raised. "Any ideas?"

"My money is on unwitting accomplice," Ciri murmured. "But I admit to inherent bias." When reporting to a superior, you always wanted to make that clear. It was nothing to be ashamed of, and it helped avoid mistakes.