"You're positive this Sterling will know who owns Corbell Laboratories?"
"Sterling is the outside counsel for Corbell," Malcolm replied as he stopped at the crosswalk with her. He felt Sorcha's gaze on him but his remained fixed on the building sitting across the street from them. The fact that the man his mother called The Devil represented a man who could oust Lucifer from Hell wasn't lost on him. "Sterling will definitely know who owns it."
"Will he tell you is the thing."
Malcolm blew out a heavy breath. That question had been plaguing him since leaving Edrisa.
"Willingly? No."
It'd be easier to get blood from a turnip than a lawyer like Sterling. Sorcha shifted closer and dropped her voice to a conspirator's whisper.
"You're hoping to trip him up enough to get him to indicate that Endicott owns part or all of Corbell Laboratories, aren't you?"
"Either that," he said, sending her a small smile, "or someone we can connect to Endicott."
She was, Malcolm noted, concerned and anxious. Understandably so.
"This is a dangerous game we're playing, Mal."
"I know it is." His fingers bumped hers. Silently offering comfort. And asking for it. "What other choice do we have, though?"
"I don't like you going in there alone." Her fingers slid between his. "You don't have Gil or Dani or JT to back you up here. You don't even have a weapon to protect yourself should you find yourself in trouble."
"I won't get into any trouble."
Sorcha's snort said she didn't believe him. Rightfully so, he realized as a messenger on a bicycle stopped next to him.
"Let me call Uncle Jamie," she offered. "His precinct is only a block away."
"If you call him, he will have to come and arrest me for breaking house arrest." He smiled at her sigh. "And then he'd arrest you as my accomplice."
"Fine," she grumbled. "Let me call Uncle Hoyt then."
"I'd like to keep our list of accomplices to a minimum." They were already more than he intended. "If possible."
"Any one of us will willingly go to jail if it means keeping you from being prosecuted for a murder you didn't commit."
"I'll be..." he broke off, grimaced. "It's better this way," he said, instead. "Trust me."
Sorcha hummed a soft laugh.
"Learning about how that fine word doesn't work finally, are we?"
"Yes." The light changed. Malcolm let the messenger cross, first. "It doesn't sound as good out loud as it does inside my head."
"No, it doesn't," she agreed as she started across the street with him. "Least of all with how dangerous this is." Her fingers trembled against his own. A sign of how nervous she was. "Endicott is coming at you with everything he has. I wouldn't put it past him to hire a contract killer to kill you."
"I don't think he wants me dead."
"What do you think he wants?"
"I don't know." He moved out of the way of a group of businessmen hurrying in the opposite direction. "There's more to this than we know, though. A deeper purpose. Something we're missing that explains why Endicott has done everything he has."
"He's trying to prevent his serial killer ring from being exposed."
"His serial killer ring?" Malcolm stopped and turned to her, one brow arched. "What are you talking about?"
"I told Gil I'd tell you about this..." Sorcha grimaced and pulled him over to a quiet corner. "I just figured it was something we could talk about after we got back to your mother's."
Panic and dread curdled in his already sour stomach. Mingled with the bite of betrayal that burned in his blood. Malcolm ordered himself to calm down, be patient, give Sorcha a chance to tell him what she already told Gil.
"Tell me about what?"
Indecision warred with uncertainty on her face. Malcolm was about to ask her again when she blew out a breath and said, "My father was working with Ian Turner before his death."
Malcolm's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. That, he realized as he stared into her dark, expressive eyes, isn't what I expected her to tell me.
"He was working with Ian Turner..." he said slowly. "Why?"
"Dad always believed your father had more than twenty-three victims."
"I know he did." He and Ian Corbin had talked many times about there being more than twenty-three bodies to the Surgeon's name. "He and I talked about it a lot after I graduated Quantico. You and I talked about it."
"Yes, but what I didn't know was that Ian Turner asked my father to join him on his investigation into the Surgeon's victims."
"Turner was trying to uncover who the rest of my father's victims were?"
"That," she said with a small nod, "and they were looking into Martin Whitly having a partner."
"Which we now know was John Watkins."
"Correct." Sorcha shifted closer to Malcolm and dropped her voice an octave. "However, Dad may have uncovered that your father and Watkins were part of a serial killer ring operating here in New York."
"A serial killer ring? Operating here in New York?" Excitement drummed in Malcolm's veins as more of the pieces started to come together inside his mind. "Are you sure?"
"Turner's letter was pretty specific about how they had isolated a serial killer ring to here in New York."
"What else did his letter say?"
"That Dad linked twenty serial killers operating in the 70s, 80's, 90's and early 2000's to this ring."
Malcolm was floored.
Not that Ian Corbin worked a case despite his cancer prognosis. That was the type of man he was.
No, what astounded him was how he never told anyone about what he uncovered.
"Why didn't he turn what he found out over to the bureau?"
"Because he gave his files to Ian Turner so he could continue gathering information." She blew out a breath. "My guess is Ian Turner figured out the man behind the serial killer ring when he connected the Junkyard Killer to your father."
"Meaning Endicott had him murdered by Watkins to keep him from revealing his involvement in this ring."
"That's what I'm thinking, yes."
"Where are your father's files? They weren't in that storage shed that Owen Shannon took me too."
Where they discovered Paul Lazar was John Watkins.
A man they tracked to his grandmother's house.
Where Owen Shannon got his throat slit and Malcolm kidnapped and tortured. The area where Watkins stabbed him throbbed as memories of those twelve hours he spent in the dungeon Watkins and his father took their victims too played through his mind. Only Sorcha's hand in his kept him from spiraling back into that deep, dark web.
"Well, the files weren't in the shed because Turner knew they wouldn't be safe there."
"He was right," Malcolm said as a group of people exited Sterling's building. "They wouldn't have been safe in that shed. Endicott would have sent someone to investigate it soon as he became aware of its existence."
"I'm pretty sure Endicott knows about Dad's files."
"How?"
"I don't know how," she admitted with a tiny sigh. "I just have a feeling he does based on the warning Turner put in his letter to me."
"Wait." Malcolm's eyes popped wide as realization dawned, brighter and hotter than the sun shining down on them. "Turner left your father's files to you?"
"Yes, he did." A delivery man entered the building, momentarily distracting them. Danger was all around them. Being cautious, trusting nobody outside their immediate circle, suspecting strangers of working for Nicholas Endicott was the only way they'd stay alive. "There's just one problem."
"You don't have the files," Malcolm guessed with a small sigh. "Right?"
"No." Frustration simmered in that solitary word. "Turner says he put them somewhere safe."
"And you have no idea where that could be."
"Not a one." Her mouth turned down at the corners. "All I have is a clue as to where the files might be."
"What's the clue?"
"The files are somewhere only I would be able to figure out because of the connection it has to you, me, and Dad."
One place jumped out at Malcolm immediately.
"Your parent's house upstate."
Sorcha shook her head, though.
"Sean and I were there last week to make some repairs and paint. The files are not there."
Malcolm pondered places Ian Turner could have hidden those files as an ambulance went screaming by.
"What about that beach house your Dad rented every summer in Long Island?"
Some of his favorite memories came from the weeks spent at that beach house. Even his mother relaxed and allowed herself to enjoy being away from the headaches of Manhattan and high society.
Nobody cared they were the Whitly's there on Long Island. Nobody associated them with the Surgeon or his twenty-three victims. They were just a family looking to get away from the city for a few weeks.
"Uncle Hoyt suggested that when I text him earlier."
A grin tugged at Malcolm's lips.
"Did he also tell you to go back to my mother's house?"
"No, he said I'm as hardheaded as Dad, and wouldn't listen, anyway, so I'm to be careful." Malcolm's heart lightened at seeing the stress lines around her eyes and lips soften. The last few weeks hadn't been easy for either of them. Her regaining some of that spark he loved eased the tension creeping along the back of his neck. "He also told me to tell you to call for backup and wait for backup to actually arrive."
"Gil needs to stop talking with your family."
"Your propensity to not call or wait for backup is well known, Mal."
"Especially after what happened with Watkins." Malcolm grimaced. "Gil still doesn't let me forget about that one."
"Or going and getting electroshock therapy without telling anyone."
Malcolm made a face. "That's you who won't let me forget about that."
"With good reason." Sorcha rest her forehead against his. "I happen to like your brain un-fried."
Immediately, the hauntingly familiar mix of orchids and jasmine rose up to envelope him in its floral web. Malcolm allowed himself to drift on that floral wave, allowed it to soothe away his anxiety and nerves. To chase back the dark things that taunted and tormented him every moment of his life.
"I don't know why you put up with me."
"I don't put up with you." Sorcha's eyes stared into his. Open. Honest. Soft with things he had never thought to see again. "I love you, you danger prone dumbass." She slid her other hand into his. "I always have, and I always will."
The words were on the tip of Malcolm's tongue.
He wanted to say them to her.
He ached to tell her what was in his heart.
Something kept him from doing so.
Him, Malcolm realized, fingers quaking in hers. He prevented himself from telling her he loved her.
He always loved her.
He would always love her.
Instead, he said, "I should go see Sterling."
"Kay." Sorcha pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"It's me, remember?"
"Exactly my point."
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!
I just want to send a special thank you to Rookblonkorules for their lovely reviews!