Radu stared at her, unflinching. “Why do you tell me this?”
“I’m not after your throne, but others are.”
“Others are always after my throne.”
She glanced at Ben. “We all see what we want to see, Radu. If we take a step back, sometimes the picture becomes clear.”
26
He flipped his pencil in the air, end over point. “Who are the two most likely culprits?”
“Based on what we know so far?” Tenzin was playing some app on her tablet with a rubber-tipped stylus. “Madina and Fynn.”
“Not Darius?”
“Not Darius. I told you, no ambition.”
“I really want it to be René,” he muttered. “Are you sure it’s not René?”
“Yes, Benjamin. Very sure.”
“Why?”
It had been a week since he’d joined the Dawn Caravan, and Ben felt no closer to understanding the dynamics at play. He was confident that Tenzin didn’t have the goblet, but that left Madina, Darius, Fynn, René, and Tatyana as suspects. He wasn’t ruling anyone out.
“René is as confused by all this as we are,” Tenzin said. “I can read him well enough to know. Kezia invited him like she invited me, but she’s more interested in seducing you now, and René’s more than a little put out. He doesn’t like you either.”
“Shocker.” Ben drummed his fingers on the table. “Not that I don’t love the idea of spoiling René’s party, but I really don’t think Kezia is into me.” He was staring at the makeshift board they’d created on his cupboards.
“She is.” Tenzin looked around the trailer. “Do you have a printer?”
“Yes.” He pointed to the corner.
“Good.”
The machine started to hum, but Ben reached for the tennis ball again and started tossing it up and down. “So if Madina and Fynn are the most likely suspects, we need to break into their trailers.”
Tenzin looked up, her eyes dancing. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
She clapped. “I thought you were going to be honorable, but I agree. We really do need to break in.” She hopped to her feet and walked to the printer.
“Day isn’t an option for me anymore, so we have to find a way to distract them as a group, and then the two of us can slip away.”
And have sex!
No. Nooooope. Ben had managed to wrangle his libido under control, but spending every night pretending to be Tenzin’s partner was exhausting. She was as openly affectionate as she’d been before everything went to shit, which meant Ben had to be equally affectionate. And then as soon as they got behind closed doors, the tension was nearly unbearable.
Still, his amnis was happy. His amnis was happy just being in the same room as Tenzin.
Tenzin walked to the cupboards and put three sketches on top of their suspect board.
“Why are you putting pictures of Radu, Kezia, and that weird Poshani guard up? What do they call them? The Hazar?”
Tenzin pivoted to Ben and pointed to the guard. “You think this is a Poshani guard?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled a little. “That’s not a Poshani guard. That’s Radu and Kezia’s brother, Vano.”
“What?” Ben sat up straight. “That guy is the mysterious brother?”
“Yes. Why did you think he was a guard?”
“He was acting like one in Kashgar, standing behind Kezia while she watched me. It was odd, but I assumed he was her guard. He’s kind of…”
“Nondescript?”
“Yes. Then I saw him in Bucharest at Radu’s club—”
“Because it belongs to both of them,” Tenzin said. “Vano is based in Ukraine, but he has invested with Radu in several properties. He’s been here longer than we have.”
“Weird.” This meant something. “What does this mean? What am I missing?”
Tenzin raised an eyebrow. “You can’t tell which vampires are in charge and which ones are guards?”
“No, no, no…”
My sister knows something was stolen—she’s the one who helped me test you—but she does not know all the details. My brother knows nothing, and it must remain that way.
Ben stood. “Vano knows. Radu thinks Vano doesn’t know anything about the goblet being stolen, but he was in Kashgar with Kezia, looking for me.”
“So Vano knows something is up?”
“If he knows what we do, he has to have figured out that Radu lost something important.”
“The icon?”
“Possibly.” Ben started to pace. “But if we were still looking for the icon, then why would I be here?”
“Kezia is wondering that herself. She’s the one who set up the icon theft.” Tenzin used air quotes around the word theft.
“What do you mean?”
Tenzin frowned; then she looked a little embarrassed. “I did forget to tell you.”
“Tenzin!”
“What?” She motioned between them. “There’s been quite a bit of tension if you hadn’t noticed. Kezia’s picture was in that Renaissance triptych I spotted in the chapel.”
“She was a patron?”
“That was her chapel. Farkas is her human.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open. “Farkas is her—”
“I’m guessing a former lover? Current lover? He’s not that old. Or maybe he was just her errand boy, gathering pretty objects as she happened upon them.”
“So the house did belong to a vampire.”
“Oh yes.” Tenzin hovered in the air, sitting cross-legged as she floated in front of the sketches she’d made. “I’d guess the house belongs to her.”
“So Kezia knows about the icon.”
“Yes. She set up the job with Radu to test you,” Tenzin said. “But does she know about the goblet theft?”
“Not according to Radu.” Ben paced in front of the pictures. “She does know something is missing.”
“She might suspect the goblet since the ceremony is coming up.”
“And if she confided in Vano, she might have told him about the goblet.”
“Possibly.”
Kezia and Vano.
Radu and Kezia.
Kezia and Farkas.
Farkas with a vampire.
Was everyone scheming behind everyone else’s back?
Click, click, click.
“I know what’s bugging me. I know what’s not right.” He spun toward her. “I really do think faster now; Beatrice wasn’t lying.”
“Of course she wasn’t. What is going on?”
He walked to the board. He took down Fynn, René, Darius, Tenzin, and Tatyana’s pictures.
“What are you doing? I’m not a suspect anymore?”
Was she disappointed? Ben tossed the pictures over his shoulder and stared at the three portraits Tenzin had drawn. “I know what’s been bugging me about this whole job.”
“The fact that it’s too cozy?”
“No, the tension.” He spun around. “Can’t you feel it?”