The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (20 page)

Olivia stared at her long and hard. She tapped her fingers on her knee. A middle-aged man with a terrible comb-over shifted as if he was going to speak. Olivia turned a stony gaze on him and he froze. She swung her gaze back to Missus Edison. And then she blew out a stream of air. “Do you have input on their contracts?” She indicated the people in the room.

“No,” Missus Edison shot back primly, but when Olivia scoffed and sharpened her glare, Missus Edison shrunk. “Yes,” she admitted.

“Binding elementals for churches isn’t prestigious.”

“Serving the Three and Three is―”

Olivia turned to Chris. “Do you still have the receipts?” she asked. “Or your notes on them?”

Both had been left on his desk at the office. Chris shook his head. Olivia growled. She turned back to the room.

“Which of you have served at―” She growled and turned back to Chris. “Which Church was hers, again?” she asked. “Georgiana’s? I swear, four different murder scenes, four different victims, four different families, and four months of separation―it’s going to drive me mad!”

“Murder?” One of the spiritbinders whispered and Chris winced.

“Georgie served at the Sanctum of the Father,” he replied quietly and Olivia nodded, turning back to the room. Her anger seemed to be fading a bit, and there was a furrow in her brow.

“Who here did binding at the Sanctum of the Father recently?” she asked.

Slowly, every single hand began to climb up. Each member of the group looked at the others as if they’d all gone mad.

“Stop that!” Missus Edison demanded, her voice shrill. “Lower your hands! And it’s quite impossible that every single one of you went to the Sanctum of the Father. You’re misremembering the names!”

“I ain’t!” Miss Pye snapped. “That’s the church your girl got herself sent to you told me―you said it was a job, twenty extra royals outta your pocket, if I checked on her and didn’t say a word to the rest.”

The colour drained from Missus Edison’s face as the room erupted. Several of the spiritbinders rose to their feet, shaking fingers at Missus Edison. Others turned on one another, instead. Olivia craned her neck in Chris’s direction. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I think I
may
have unexpectedly ruined Theresa Edison’s attempt to create a new spiritbinding utopia.” But she didn’t sound particularly upset. In fact, she sounded… almost happy. She met Missus Edison’s eyes. Raised an eyebrow.

Missus Edison shook her head. “I encouraged my people to accept as much work at churches as they could,” she said, primly, “because the church never reneges on payment, and they always have money. We needed to build up a respectable monetary base.” And then she looked away. “And after we started doing rebindings after fatal accidents, I sent them to see Sister Georgia―to see my daughter. They were at her church, anyway. There was a great deal of work to do, there. They may as well…” She sighed.

Olivia smiled.

“Well,” she said, almost cheerily, as two ‘binders leaped to their feet and began screaming into one another’s faces. “It would seem that I’ve disrupted some of your group’s unity.”

“Theresa!” Miss Pye shrilled. “Do something about this, you
said
that we were better than all the rest, you said―”

Missus Edison stood. She swept out of the room. Half the spiritbinders went quiet, watching her. The other didn’t even seem to notice she’d gone. Olivia stood and hurried after her, and Chris followed.

In the hallway, Missus Edison put the back of her hand to her forehead. The gesture was theatrical, overdramatic, and somehow still perfectly refined. “You have caused me
great
difficulty, Deathsniffer!” she exclaimed.

Olivia shrugged. “Your second child was just categorized as a spiritbinder. Don’t worry. These ugly, boring people will let you back into the club as soon as he finishes mandatory training, if they even have the stones to kick you out for
betraying the cause
to check on your own daughter.”

“Did Georgie know that she wasn’t truly disowned?” Chris interrupted. But he had to ask.

Missus Edison straightened. “Georgiana
was
truly disowned. She―this family is known for producing
spiritbinders
, and Georgie came back from Lowry with
nothing
? I couldn’t let that stand! It would lay our entire reputation to waste! I just…” She shook her head. “I just couldn’t completely abandon her. Those churches have so very many bindings and I know just how weak they are.” She glared in the direction of the parlour. “I just had to… to see how she was.”

“But did she
know
?” Chris pressed.

“…no.” Missus Edison looked away, her shoulders going limp. “I didn’t want her to think she could come back. She couldn’t, not ever, and she was having a difficult enough time adjusting to her life with her holy family even
knowing
her worldly one had no further use for her. And don’t―don’t you scold me, Christopher, don’t you look at me with your cursed mother’s benevolently judging eyes, don’t you
dare
. Because I―every day, I regret―she died never knowing that I―”

Chris sneered. “You always treated her like she wasn’t worthy of any of this.” He indicated all around them.

“Georgiana?” Missus Edison glanced up, confused.

“My
mother
,” Chris snapped.

Missus Edison’s gaze went hard. “Oh, I suppose you imagine your mother exactly one way,” she said, turning her face from him. “I suppose you don’t recall those looks she would give. When you’d have an unhappy thought or wish you could be somewhere else or long for your husband’s attention, Julia Buckley would turn and gaze at you with such pity―” She growled. “As if she was so much better off. As if your father was any kind of catch. As if she wasn’t just as unhappy as the rest of us were.”

“And so you treated her like―” Chris began, fury rising in him, but Olivia laid a hand on his forearm and squeezed hard. He slammed his mouth shut, but was tempted to turn and howl at his employer instead.

“I want information on all the spiritbinders you keep in your inner circle,” Olivia said briskly. “And―”

“I don’t think it’s exactly
my
inner circle anymore. As you said, I’ve betrayed the cause.”

“It
was
yours, and you have the information, and I want it,” Olivia barked. “None of them appeared at all four churches, but that doesn’t mean that the killer isn’t among them.”

“
Killer
?” Missus Edison squeaked.

“Deathsniffers don’t investigate closed accidental deaths,” Olivia grumbled. “Yes, killer. Your daughter was murdered, along with three other priests, by a spiritbinder. Don’t repeat this to the press.”

“Oh, Georgie…” Missus Edison breathed.

“I need Georgiana’s categorization papers,” Olivia continued. “Assuming that you didn’t burn them all in a fit of pique after you wrote her out of your family for not being good enough for you.”

“I didn’t―” Missus Edison stopped herself. She glanced over at Chris, and then shook her head. He found unexpected satisfaction in her inability to refute the gibe. “I have the papers,” she murmured. “The information on… on those fools”―she jerked her head in the direction of the parlour, where shouts were still rising in volume―“will take longer. I don’t have it compiled.”

“We can pick it up,” Olivia said mildly. “Tomorrow?”

“Make it Healfday,” Missus Edison said, hanging her head. “So I can hope Grandfather Healfdene will grant me the wisdom to know just what information will be useful to you. If―” She bit her lip. “If any of those people are responsible for what happened to Georgiana, I
swear
.”

Olivia smiled, so faint it was only half there, but sincere. “Don’t repeat this to the press,” she said again. “Georgiana’s death will need to stay an accident for now. Very well?”

“Very well,” Missus Edison agreed. “I’ll return shortly with the papers.”

When she’d disappeared around a corner, Chris looked at Olivia. “Do you think one of them did it?” he asked.

“No,” Olivia replied promptly. “I think they’re a gaggle of duff imbeciles and I doubt they could manage it.” As if to punctuate her point, someone―Miss Pye?―howled
you blinking bloody wanker
back in the parlour. “But they’re spiritbinders who are tied to the locations and at least one of the victims, which is a whole lot better than anything else we have.”

Chris hesitated. He closed the cover of his notebook, fairly certain that there would be nothing else worthy of transcription during this visit. “You were quite bent at Missus Edison, back there,” he murmured.

Olivia tensed. She studiously avoided looking at him. “I suppose I was,” she said, every word over-enunciated. And Chris remembered what she’d told him in the carriage.
I’m a very private woman, Christopher
. He heard the tone Olivia often took when she spoke of her mother, the little comments she made. There was something there. Something she considered no business of his.

“I―” he said, not sure what he would say, exactly, but Missus Edison reappeared with a file clasped in hand.

Moments later, after Missus Edison had swept back into the parlour to try and repair the remnants of her social circle, they were walking back down the front path. Olivia glanced about, taking in the statue of Richard Lowry, the trimmed hedges, the well-kept gardens. “Is it very different from what you remember?” she asked, too casual.

A sad smile tugged at his lips. “No,” he said. “I would say more that it’s exactly the same.”

Olivia turned a page in the file. “Mnn.” Her voice was barely audible as they passed the soundshield. “It’s always one or the other, isn’t it? It―” And she stopped like her boots had just grown roots into the sidewalk. The carriage was a foot away, and Olivia stared down at the pages, immobile.

“Olivia?” Chris asked, stepping away and looking down at her.

She stared at the bottom of the page. It looked to be the last in the file. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.” And she fairly launched herself at the carriage, throwing open the door and diving inside. As Chris climbed after her, he heard her rustling papers, saw her bent over at the waist, throwing aside pages, and then―

“Yes!
Finally
!” she crowed. Before he could ask what had her so enthused, she spun in the carriage, her skirts almost creating a little whirlwind, and she held up a page. Her finger pointed to the nearly illegible signature at the bottom of it.

“Olivia?” he asked, but she was already seizing another page. She pointed to the same spot.

Chris’s toes tingled.

“Is that the same report?” he asked.

“No!” Olivia squealed. She let the reports fall in a shower of paper ghosts and seized the other two at the same time, holding them up to his inspection. Both had the same signature scrawled at the bottom.

Chris stared at them. He knew his mouth was open, but he couldn’t seem to close it. He never would have drawn the connection, not with the name so illegible. Olivia had simply memorized the scribbles. “So―so all four dead priests were categorized by the
same
doctor?” He shook his head faintly. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Olivia grinned wildly, “that we
finally
have a real connection between all four victims. And do you know what’s even better?”

How did she always manage to draw him up in her excitement, no matter how inappropriate? Chris’s heart thumped. “What’s even better?” he asked.

“I think I recognize the name.” Before he could ask how she could even
read
the name, Olivia thumped on the carriage ceiling. “Cabbie!” she shouted. “I have a new destination for us!”

hris recognized the address Olivia shouted, but he couldn’t place from where. She sat across from him as the hackney rumbled along, nearly quivering with excitement. The tension hung thick and heavy in the air. The mood of the investigation had changed, like it always did when Olivia finally hit on something solid. It just didn’t usually take this long.