The Last Orphan
Chapter 22

A TikTok video in selfie mode. Lens jerking, terrible lighting, sound muffled as the phone camera shifted about.

The first thing that struck Evan about the young woman recording herself was how evident her grief was, resting right there on the surface of her face.

The account handle was @rubyanne, and the bio read: 19, she/her/hers, don’t DM me unless u’ve got mad Mr. Darcy skillz.

Evan sheltered in a porte cochere across the street from Echo’s place. The building was grand, sandstone uplit to a golden glow, cobblestone drive, doorman in full regalia who’d sized Evan up, deemed him sufficiently well-heeled, and let him be. The rain had picked up, annoying flecks that pelted him sideways. He had to use a hand to shield the RoamZone’s screen.

Aragón’s jet waited for him at Teterboro Airport, and he was eager to board, sip on something clean, and arrow back toward Los Angeles.

But first he had to watch this year-old TikTok of a random nineteen-year-old.

“I’m coming on here because there’s nowhere else to go. My brother, Johnny Seabrook, was murdered last week, and his”—a hitch in her breath—“body was dumped with someone else’s, a woman named Angela Buford, who I don’t think he even knew.” Ruby was sorrow-stricken, but there was no shortage of anger behind her words. “And he literally wrote a clue on his shoe. Tartarus. You know what that is? I mean beyond the f*****g Milton look-how-clever shit. It’s the name of a mansion in the Hamptons for this big a*****e hedge-funder who has crazy Jeffrey Epstein parties and stuff. And guess what happens when you talk to the cops, the FBI—anyone—about looking into it? Nothing. It goes up the chain and then just … disappears.”

She swiped a forearm across her nose, index-fingered the pale pink lower rims of her eyes. “Because if you’re super rich, you don’t have to answer for anything. I guess I was privileged enough not to ever have to know that. Before now. But when you see it, I mean really get it, it’s terrifying. To be shown you’re not important enough, your brother’s not important enough to matter? That there’s this other class of people who can do whatever the f**k they want? And to them my brother was nothing. I’m nothing. And no one—” Her features seized, a paroxysm of bone-deep pain—lips tugged in an upside-down U, forehead contorted, chin turned to a walnut. She jerked in a breath, forced out the words. “No one will help us. I hope this never happens to any of you, because the way it hurts …” Her face tensed and reddened further, trembling.

The TikTok ended abruptly.

He reviewed it several times more, trying to convince himself that it was not something worth looking into further.

It was the last post that Ruby Anne Seabrook had made, a year ago almost to the day. He scrolled through her preceding videos, struck by how seismic her transformation had been after her brother’s murder. He’d seen it time and again, grief snatching someone up in its jaws, shaking them like prey.

Before, Ruby had been pert with an evident excess of intelligence. No makeup, rare for her age, but she’d known how to approach the camera as well as her contemporaries, dishwater-blond hair to one side, dipped chin, lens angled slightly downward.

He watched a clip of her with her brother, a mindless loop of him sitting next to her and then suddenly lunging to snort in her neck. She feigned annoyance, but her smile was bright as she pushed him away and gave a little shriek of delight. In contrast to her flanneled brother, she wore a yellow cable-knit sweater, fitted tightly to her torso, flared sleeves adding a touch of flourish. She looked expensive.

Johnny had been an unreasonably handsome kid with kind, affable features—a rare combination.

The raindrops had grown so tiny they felt aerosoled against Evan’s cheeks, his neck, his hands. He thought of the Cirrus Vision Jet awaiting him, how his friend had ensured that the cabin was stocked with the proper caliber of vodka. He thought about the needle going into his shoulder, the burn of the tranquilizing agent, the way the choke chain had pinched his windpipe, and how little he wanted to tread back into the web the government had spun to ensnare him.

He thumbed back to Ruby’s final plea: No one will help us.

He muttered, “Goddamn it.”

The doorman cleared his throat pointedly. It was time for Evan to move on. When he glanced up, he noticed the man he’d seen dozing beneath a thermal blanket next door to Echo’s place. But he’d moved over to another building with a less sheltered stoop, one with a better sight line to Evan. He stretched languidly and yawned, the shiny blanket shifting to give Evan a clear look at his face.

Bram Folgore, one of Derek Tenpenny’s crew of six charged with the private security of Luke Devine.

Joey’s dossier had included a photo of Folgore snoozing amid civilian bodies stacked like firewood in the village near Kandahar. While his squadmates had vamped for the camera, Folgore had lain in the dirt, head resting on one corpse, armored helmet tipped over his eyes. His boots, crossed at the shins, were propped up on the chest of a teenage boy. To him they were a pillow, a footrest.

Of all the poses in the trophy photos, Folgore’s had been the most grotesque. Devoid of bloodlust or excitement. The situation not significant enough for him to keep his eyes open.

Reclining lazily on the stoop across the way, Folgore laced his hands, flipped them inside out to stretch his shoulders. He looked over at Evan as if to say, Let’s get to it.

Evan grimaced, dreams of jetliner leisure evanescing in the hard gray air.

With a nod to the doorman, he stepped out from beneath the porte cochere. Folgore shed his space blanket and rose, pawing to cover another yawn.

They made and broke eye contact once more.

Evan walked past the brimming trash cans into the dark alley.

Folgore followed him.

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