Chapter Seventeen
I wait until midafternoon before venturing out again. Outside the room there’s a landing with a wide balcony and curving stairs. I follow the scent of roasting chicken, my mouth watering in anticipation. Whatever dish is being prepared in the kitchen, it will probably end up on a beautiful tray outside my door.
Who’s cooking it? And why have I never met that person?
Maybe it’s not an important mystery in context, but it pulls me in.
As I get closer to the kitchen I hear strains of classical music coming from the speakers perched in the corner of the dining room. It’s soft enough that I can still hear a faint clatter of metal pots inside.
I push open the swinging door, struck silent by what I see.
Damon Scott, his white shirt sleeves rolled up, his jacket and vest draped over a barstool, stirring something as it simmers on a professional stainless steel cooktop. Proof is tucked into every corner—the fresh parsley chopped on a board, a homemade broth defrosting on the counter.
“What are you doing?” I ask, proving how very little IQ points actually count for anything.
He doesn’t turn to face me. “You don’t like chicken masala?”
“You’re the one who’s been cooking. The French toast. That was you?”
A quiet laugh. “You finished it off, so I assumed it was to your liking.”
The fact that this man can cook at all seems strange. This man who once roasted fish he caught from a lake with only dirt and stones and twigs to help him. Then again maybe that’s exactly why he knows how to cook. Because he makes himself delicious food without any help at all.
“I thought you’d have a chef. Maybe someone famous. With a few cookbooks published, that kind of thing.”
“No chefs. I could never trust one enough to eat what they make.”
That’s some intense paranoia. Then again, knowing the city and its vagaries, it might be a valid fear. “You could hire a tester,” I say, cautiously walking into the room. The whole place seems strange to me, even though I’ve worked in diners and the Emerald’s kitchen for years now. The diner had surly cooks. The Emerald, somewhat snooty chefs. I have no idea how to quantify Damon as a creator of comfort and art. It goes against all my experiences of cooking. He seems… relaxed.
“Poison isn’t always immediate,” he says to my tester idea. “Besides, what if he did drop dead? How would I ever find someone to replace him?”
I scrunch my nose at Damon, scooting onto one of the empty barstools that circle the island. “I guess that’s kind of morbid, the whole idea of a tester.”
“Not any more morbid than a bodyguard. They’re putting their life on the line.”
“Bodyguards like Hiro.”
He glances at me. “You met her.”
“She seems competent. And a little bit scary.”
“Those are the actual job requirements for her position.”
“Do you really think I need security? Isn’t the Den secure?”
“Yes, but there’s someone working for me who I don’t trust.”
“Who?” Realization hits me before the word fully leaves my mouth. “Oh.”
“Yes,” he says. “Your father had access to the Den, to my businesses. Access to me. And that makes him a liability now that he’s gone missing.”
Unease stirs in my stomach. “Something could have happened to him. The same way something could have happened to Avery.”
Damon sends me a dark look. “Do you really believe that? That your father is kidnapped in some basement, at the whim of a sexual predator?”
Tears sting my eyes, imagining Avery that way. “No.”
“I don’t think so either,” he says, a little softer.
“But even if my father started gambling again, how would that mean I’m in danger?”
Damon takes his time about answering, seasoning the sauce that he’s working on. After a moment I realize he might not answer at all. Then he dips a wooden spoon into the pot and carries it to me.
“Blow,” he murmurs.
I blow a stream of air over the steaming spoon. When he pushes the spoon closer I open my lips and take a sip. Spice blooms on my tongue, making me close my eyes. “God, that’s good.”
When I open my eyes again Damon is looking at me with a strange intensity. “I meant what I said before. The problem with someone gambling isn’t about the money. It’s about the addiction.”
“I know,” I say, remembering every card game, every cheat.
Every desperate win so that we could eat that night.
Damon takes a sip from the same spoon, in the same place that I did. “He used you before, Penny. He used you to count cards. To clean up his mess. What’s to say he won’t use you again?”
My chest constricts. “He wouldn’t.”
Except that’s a lie, and both of us know it. Hiro isn’t here to protect me from the city in general. She isn’t even here to protect me from Jonathan Scott, who’s locked up in some psychiatric facility. She’s here to protect me from my own father.
The man I came back to the city to find.
And where does that leave Avery?
“I solved part of the code.” The words come out before I’ve planned them.
Damon turns to face me, his expression blank. “You did.”
“It says COME ALONE. There’s still a bottom row of numbers I haven’t figured out yet. It doesn’t conform to the polynomial curve like the top part.”
“I see.”
“COME ALONE. What do you think it means? I mean, I guess it’s obvious what it means. That we should come alone.” I’m babbling now, my wits scattered thinking about Avery at the mercy of this mysterious code-maker. “But who do you think sent it?”
“No idea,” he says, but with shadowy insight I realize it’s a lie. He knows more than he’s telling me. About my father. About Avery. He knows things that might even help solve the rest of the code, but he lets me scribble away in the dark.