Chapter 16
“Lexa?”
“Anya called you, didn’t she?”
Lexa didn’t turn around, when she heard Clarke approaching. She knew exactly who it was.
“Yes.”
Clarke stopped right next to her.
“Did she tell you that you would find me here?”
“No, I thought of that myself.”
Clarke looked at the headstone. It was gray natural stone, nothing fancy, solid.
“Costia DeWitt” was engraved in beautiful lettering.
“Are you going to tell me to let it go?”
Lexa still wouldn’t look at her.
“No.”
That did the trick. Lexa turned her head and gave her a confused glance.
“No?”
Clarke was still looking at the headstone.
“Would it do any good? Me telling you not to pursue this? Would it change anything?”
Lexa blinked.
“No.”
“I thought so. So why would I try to make you change your mind? It would only add to your problems. You would feel guilty about doing something against my will and I don’t want that.
I want you to know that you can talk to me. Not matter what.”
She bit her lower lip.
“You loved her.”
“Clarke, I …”
“Please, let me finish. … I know you love me, too, but I also know that it doesn’t negate what you had with her. Do I like the idea of you risking your life again after we finally found some peace? No!”
She gave her a sad chuckle.
“But I understand it. Also if the ones who tampered with the breaks targeted you and Anya I want you to find them. Who says they’re not going to try again?”
Clarke sighed.
“But please, for the love of God, Lexa, don’t keep me out of this. I need to know what you’re doing. You owe me that much, don’t you think?”
She turned to face Lexa and saw her grind her teeth in the failed effort to keep her tears at bay. She reached for her hand and sighed again, this time relieved, when Lexa fully turned around and pulled her into an embrace.
“I am sorry, Clarke. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to take you out. I had everything planned …”
“That’s not important, Lex. Don’t beat yourself up about that. It’s not your fault.”
She felt Lexa’s tears warm and wet on the collar of her coat and suddenly she realized that they weren’t about their anniversary.
“Nothing of this is your fault. You couldn’t have known about the car. Anya couldn’t have known. This is not your fault. Costia’s death is not your fault.”
“But she died … because of me …”
Lexa was slowly unravelling, clinging onto Clarke and Clarke knew she would have to be strong enough for the both of them.
“No, Lexa, she died, because some asshole tampered with the breaks of the car. If it hadn’t been her in it, it might have been Anya. Would that have made a difference?”
Lexa sniffled and looked at her.
“No.”
“So you don’t think Anya had it coming even if she’s involved in whatever this is as much as you or probably even more?”
“No.”
“Than I guess that means that you wouldn’t have deserved to die in that car either. Do you see where I am getting at?”
Lexa crunched her brows.
“I guess.”
“’I guess’ isn’t good enough, Woods. I need you here. With both feet on the ground. Ready to face whatever this is. You’re no good to Costia if you think, even for one minute, that you deserve to lie here. In this grave. Do you understand?”
Clarke had taken a step back, holding Lexa away from her at arms length, her eyes focused on Lexa’s. Lexa couldn’t help, but think that this was a side of Clarke she hadn’t seen before. Protective, but also fiercely pointing her in the direction of danger, knowing that they would be stronger if they faced it together. She took a deep breath and stood tall.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?
“Okay, Clarke. You are right. Anya and me … neither of us would have deserved to die either.”
Clarke lifted an eyebrow like she was questioning the sincerity of her answer.
“I mean it, Clarke. I promise I will go about this the smart way. No suicide mission, no drinking. You are right. We have to find out who did this. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again …”
There was an audible silence at the end and Clarke new exactly what it meant.
“But you cannot promise me what will happen, when you find the one who is responsible.”
Lexa tilted her head trying to assess Clarke’s reaction, but Clarke’s expression was unreadable. She looked at Lexa for a long while, before she answered.
“We will cross that bridge when we get to it.”
–
“What’s going on?”
Bellamy ignored the chair he was offered and stood in the middle of Anya’s office. Lincoln did the same and glanced at Clarke who sat on the couch that Anya kept for business meetings. Lexa was leaning on one of the windows, looking outside.
Anya waited for another second before she answered.
“We have a … situation.”
Nobody answered so she kept going.
“You guys didn’t know Costia, Lexa’s fiancée.”
She looked at her sister’s back, but Lexa didn’t react.
“You do know that she died in a car crash however. … Well, it wasn’t an accident.”
Bellamy looked at Lexa and frowned when she still didn’t move.
“How long have you known?”
Anya sat down on her chair.
“Shortly after.”
“And you didn’t tell Lexa?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He was confused. He heard Lincoln move beside him.
“Yes, why?”
“I don’t think …”
Anya started to talk, but stopped when Lexa turned around.
“She had her reasons and we are not going to talk about them. That’s not why we’re here.”
Both men looked at her with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
Bellamy was the first to speak again.
“Why are we here then?”
“We are here, because Anya has a lead. We are also here, because now that I know I will not stop until I find the person responsible.”
Clarke watched her. Lexa looked tough, but she didn’t fool her. She knew she would have to take care of her. She knew Lexa was hellbent on finding Costia’s killer and she would forget about everything else. The only thing she could do was help her stay focused so all of this was over sooner rather than later.
“I take it you think Costia’s death is related to the company?”
Bellamy was in business mode already. Clarke smiled. She knew she could count on him.
Anya nodded.
“Yes. We had a few cases at that time, but one stood out. Does the name Azgeda Corp. mean anything to you?”
Clarke saw Lincoln stir.
“Big multinational company. Mostly import and export.”
“Yes, that one. Only that import and export sounds a little to clean for what they do. They import drugs and export weapons.”
Bellamy looked at her.
“I take it we don’t have proof of that?”
Anya shook her head.
“Not enough anyway. But we were close.”
“Why were you investigating them in the first place? Last time I checked this firm was about security.”
Lexa looked at her sister and then at Bellamy.
“We were hired to find someone. The daughter of a long-time client. She had been to a club, her friends said she went to the bathroom after what appeared to be a few drinks too many and she wasn’t seen again after that.”
“What happened?”
“Well, we found out that the ‘few drinks too many’ was in fact one drugged drink. The security camera of the club showed a guy in a suit flirting with her and pouring something in her drink when she wasn’t looking. None of her friends saw his face, but we had our people sift through hours and hours of additional video and surely enough they found him. He had done the same thing before. The girl who vanished that night is still missing.”
“So, a serial killer?”
Anya tilted her head.
“That was one possibility, but as soon as we realized who the guy was, things got even more interesting.”
She went for the dramatic pause.
“Roan Queen.”
Bellamy shifted on his feet.
“As in Nia Queens’ son?”
“The one and only.”
“Nia Queens’ son is a serial killer?”
“Well, we thought so at first, but then I had Monty take a closer look at him. We soon realized that he had a little … business … of his own. There was money coming in from strange places.”
“Are you telling me the bastard sells those women?”
“It all pointed to that.”
Anya nodded.
“We kept digging and then two things happened. They found the body of our client’s daughter in a lake in Ontario, far, far away from any Azgeda property.”
She looked at Lexa.
“And Costia died.”
Bellamy saw Lexa flinch if only for a split second. He looked at Anya.
“It was your car. They tried to kill you as a warning for Lexa?”
“That is my best guess.”
They all fell silent as the men processed the information.
“You didn’t proceed with the investigation after that?”
Lincoln looked at Anya who gave him a tiny smile.
“Oh, I did. I just made sure that it would be under the radar. Unfortunately we didn’t come up with much. It was this Detective Miller who set things in motion again. He started to snoop around and somehow people got nervous.”
“How so?”
“We had Roan under surveillance and he got very busy suddenly. He made a lot of calls, there were meetings in the dead of night, money exchanged hands …”
“Any sight of the girls?”
Anya shook her head.
“Not yet, but I am positive that we will find them if our best people work on it …”
She looked at Lincoln.
“Are you already regretting that you took my job offer?”
He grinned.
“I am married now. I need to feed my wife. I am working with my friends. My answer to that is ‘no’.”
He looked at Lexa.
“How are you holding up?”
Lexa took her time with the answer. She looked at Clarke and then back at Lincoln.
“I sincerely don’t know how to answer that. I feel mad and devastated and guilty and then mad again. I want to get them. I want to get whoever killed Costia and make them hurt. I want to make sure that Clarke is safe, that Anya is safe. I don’t want you guys to get hurt. It’s a lot to deal with and I am still processing …”
She chewed on her bottom lip.
“I am sorry, I should be more of a leader right now.”
Lincoln shook his head.
“Don’t ever apologize to me for being human, Lexa. You’ve been through so much it’s a miracle you didn’t crack. I know you had a hard time and I know you were close to giving up a few times, but you always had our backs anyway.”
He looked at Bellamy who nodded.
“Let us have yours this time. … What do you need us to do?”
Lexa looked from one to the other and smiled.
“Funny you should ask …”