Death In The Family

Chapter 15

"They've been accusing him of moving towards a dictatorship for months and there are those in his own cabinet calling for his resignation," Mrs. Marceau's strong, smoky voice and echoed off the sleek marble walls of the dining room as she paced the length of the table.

The high-ranking members turned in their seats to follow her as she paced. She looked toward none of them, orating almost to herself. Leif watched out the window, having to turn his neck far to see the trees swaying in the storm outside as his torso and legs were bound to his chair.

"They are not aware of our agents acting within the resistance or within parliament. They suspect that the US is funding the opposition to fuel dissent, which is fortuitously correct and therefore all the more convenient as a smokescreen. They'll be looking for involvement from other political entities and that is why they will never find us."

He could almost hear the leaves rustling in the wind, just as they did as he lied under the canopy of ancient maples with his darling girl sprawled halfway atop him. He could kill everyone in this room with the wineglass in front of him. Lock the doors, let them run screaming as he tore through them one by one, make an example of those who put up a fight. He could remind them they were all made of the same soft, delicate stuff. Slice them open, let their bowels tumble out in a splatter on the marble floor, let them slip in each other's blood as they tried to outrun their deaths. Well, he could do that if he weren't tied to the chair. The distant marching of many feet heralded the imminence of supper, anyway.

"As we enter stage eighteen, we will disclose to the media the court's intentions to nullify any movement made by parliament, shifting the dictatorship rhetoric to the court. According to the projections, we should have their government secured in less than a year after stage eighteen has been implemented. You will find a fully detailed timeline in the dossiers. Refer to it before posing your questions."

Mrs. Marceau sat down at the head of the table just as the servants arrived in uniform fashion to deposit the steaming silver plates on the table before each guest. Leif didn't have to look at the display of thinly sliced meat fanned out beneath the dark drizzle of a tomato and wine reduction to know what it was. He was already laughing when the scent of braised cow tongue had entered the room with the servants.

Simone scrolled through the settings menu on the cell phone Anders had given her before he left for work, still utterly astonished that he had gifted her something that held so much power and meaning to her as though it were simply expected that she has it. He had no idea what this meant to her. He had no idea what being disconnected from the world had done to her, how lonely and isolated she had been, how lost and ignorant she was. She didn't realize how much she had taken for granted in being able to find the information she needed with just a few keywords until she found herself floundering in frustration at not knowing and having no one able or willing to explain. Every curiosity she'd had, each question that had haunted her, every time she had struggled to understand, missing some vital piece of information, clogged back into her mind all at once. Her thumbs hovered over the touchscreen as the cursor in the search bar blinked, paralyzed in indecision of what she needed to know first.

She typed a few words only to delete them before hitting Search. "International serial killer network". "Marceau serial killer murderer". "Symptoms vomiting fever paranoia shaking". "Sexual attraction father daughter causes". Her hands gripped the sides of the phone tightly, her palms sweating and fogging the edges of the screen. She typed the next line without trying to think, just to get through this ridiculous anxiety that prevented her from committing to any of her queries, and hit Search before she could delete this one. The results for "Leif Valstad" popped up with top stories from major news networks and, for some reason, TMZ, as well as his own Wikipedia page. She scrolled up and down the first page of results repeatedly, just reading the headlines and the snippets, her eyes snagging on pictures of him and of the house in Vermont.