The True One

Chapter 20

Alek

Verity pulled me inside her apartment. "You'll never guess who was here."

My heart thumped in my chest, partly because I liked the way she'd twisted her finger in my t-shirt to yank me closer to her, and partly because I was imagining who she'd just spent alone time with. The prospects weren't good.

"Was it Chip?"

"What? God no." She sniffed at my collar. "Why do you smell like the time my father forgot he'd put a pizza in the oven and nearly started the house on fire?"

No use in beating around the bush.

"Someone burned down the archives." I eyed the dim interior of her apartment, wanting to inch my way further inside, but not if it meant she'd have to release me from her grip.

"Holy shit." To my disappointment, she pulled her hand free of my shirt, then gestured with it towards the living room. "I told you it was dangerous to go back there. Are you alright?"

"The fire was already underway by the time I arrived. I saw it, and then I got the hell out of there." I took a seat on her couch.

"All those documents." Her shoulders slumped. "All our potential answers... just gone!"

"Maybe. My guess is they went in and pulled whatever they really needed before setting the fire. Or maybe they thought it was safer just to destroy everything." That last thought was the scariest, that we were onto something so big, they felt the need to destroy all record of it.

"Any idea where they would have moved everything?"

"No clue." I shrugged. "So, who was here?"

"Oh, just my father."

The tension in my chest eased. "Why?"

"He was in the neighborhood. Anyways, I took the opportunity to ask him some questions. Talking to him about my mom is never easy unless I stick to completely mundane subjects."

"Which I take it you didn't do."

"I asked him about her death." She sat next to me. Like, brushing up against me next to me. Close enough that my skin tingled, along with a few key organs. She placed a hand on my thigh. "And now I'm going to ask you about it too. What do you know that you're not telling me?"

"I...um." If her aim was to distract me so that I was caught off guard by her question, mission accomplished. "I was only six, Verity."

"I didn't ask you what you remember firsthand. I asked what you know right now. Because my father did remember something. Something I'm guessing you are aware of."

I focused on her hand. If she moved it over, just a bit, I wouldn't be thinking about the day I became an orphan anymore. "What did your father say?"

"According to him, my mom was receiving treatments for psychosis from an experimental clinic. He said the word clinic, but I'm guessing that clinic is actually the lab listed on our intake form. AV Laboratory. Such a generic name. I didn't connect it to you at first. AV. Aurum Venari."

I kept my face as passive as possible, but I wasn't hiding anything from her. Not anymore. It was all going to come out now. "What about it?"

"Treasure Adventures. Your treasure hunting business. I saw the invoice. It's owned by Aurum Venari LLC."

"Verity—"

"It gets better," she continued. "My dad mentioned the name of one of the doctors running the clinic. Can you guess what that doctor's name was?"