“What rules?”
“Didn’t I just tell you not to ask questions?”
I considered his condition. Again, my internal alarm bells were going off inside my head. The whole reason I was in this mess to begin with was because everyone involved had harbored an obsession with secrets, but here I was, bargaining with the unknown yet again.
I nodded. “Fine.”
He took a sip of tea. “First off, how deeply are you involved with the Black Raptor Society?”
I choked on a gulp of tea. It burned all the way down, scalding my throat. My eyes watering, I asked, “How do you—?”
Henry gave me a pointed look.
“Oh, come on,” I said, still nursing my blazing throat. “You cannot possibly confirm the existence of Waverly University’s most elite, notorious, and downright repugnant secret society with one throwaway question and then expect me not to ask how you discovered them.”
“I know a lot about the Raptors,” admitted Henry matter-of-factly. “I know that your father, Anthony Costello, was once a member. I know many names of the current members, including a few that you might be familiar with. I know that since the society’s inauguration, they have embezzled, extorted, thieved, and murdered. I know that the society’s leadership has changed hands from Orson Lockwood to Catherine Flynn, albeit unofficially. And I know that because of your mother’s history with your father, the Raptors would greatly rejoice in the termination of your life.”
My jaw had unhinged at some point during this short speech, and it was with no small effort that I managed to pick it up off the floor and reattach it to my face.
“I have an inside source,” Henry said with a nonchalant tip of his head, as if this simple fact excused his extensive knowledge of my current affairs. “And unlike your inside source, mine has been trained by experts to avoid discovery.”
“My inside source?”
He took another sip of tea. “Lauren Lockwood. Orson Lockwood’s twenty-year-old daughter. You and her teamed up to take down the society, did you not?”
“She didn’t agree with the route the Raptors were taking.”
“A Raptor with a conscience,” mused Henry. “I never thought I would see the day.”
“What do you mean she wasn’t trained to avoid discovery?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?” I pressed. My pulse quickened. This felt like bad news.
Henry sighed, setting his mug of tea firmly on the table. “The Raptors took Lauren Lockwood into custody. From my understanding, they finally got wind of what she was doing.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Oh, God.”
“She’s still alive,” Henry reassured me, and once again, the need to know where he got his information rose within me. “For how long, we don’t know.”
“You said that Catherine Flynn runs the Raptors now,” I said, ignoring the growing restlessness in the pit of my stomach. “An hour ago, I watched someone run Orson Lockwood over with a car. Is that what you meant?”
“Orson Lockwood was run down?”
Finally, I possessed a piece of information that Henry didn’t. “In a parking garage just north of the Waverly campus. Is that what you meant?” I repeated.
Henry shook his head. “Catherine Flynn has been moving in on her brother for a while now. Ever since she took the position as the dean of the history department, she’s been recruiting new Raptors to shape in her own image, much like she did when she was still attending school at Waverly. According to my source, a majority of the current Raptors now swear allegiance to Flynn rather than Lockwood.”
“I thought she only had a few devoted followers,” I said. “I’ve dealt with them on more than one occasion.”
“She has her favorites but has been instilling doubt in the more impressionable Raptors of Lockwood’s abilities to maintain the foundation of the society. However, she insisted that her Raptors maintain a united, devoted front in order to keep her brother ignorant and placid. It’s quite the clever ruse actually. No one ever said Catherine Flynn wasn’t devoted.”
“Oh, God,” I said again.
“The point is,” continued Henry, “I need to shut down the Raptors as quickly as possible. I have most of the puzzle put together, but there are a few missing pieces that I can’t move forward without. That’s where you come in.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, breathing deeply. “Honestly, Henry, I don’t know what you expect me to do. So far, I just seem to be making everything worse.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t ask you for much,” said Henry. “I just need you to come talk to your mother.”
I removed myself from my seat at the kitchen table so rapidly that my knee hit the underside of it. My mug tipped over, spilling tea across the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, but I barely processed it. My knee throbbing, I backed as far away from Henry as the quaint kitchen would allow.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Nicole, please understand—”
“Is this what you came here for?” My voice shook as I steadied myself against the kitchen counter. “You wanted my mother and I to have some kind of heartfelt reunion complete with hugs and kisses? It’s not going to happen! Don’t you get it? She is a ghost to me. Dead! If she wanted to meet me, she had thirty years to make it happen.”
“She’s hiding something, Nicole,” he announced over my emotional meltdown. “We’ve been married for nearly twenty years now and not once has she ever breathed a word about the Black Raptor Society. Nevertheless, I know that something is going on between her and Catherine Flynn. I see the patterns. Everything’s fine one day, and the next, she’s a nervous wreck. I know I shouldn’t, but I snoop. I’ve seen the phone calls. I’ve seen the emails. She is
