Chapter 44
“Oh, I’m so excited! I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. A real case. But what happened to your poor face this time?”
I followed Astrida into her apartment, but all I could think about was Jackie Cole. She’d been so good at lying to me that I had believed her on purpose, even when all the evidence and all common sense was against her. And I had paid the price for it. I would never give away my trust like that again. The evidence suggested that Astrida was connected to Elementum de Chao, and to this increasingly bizarre and horrifying plot of Father’s.
She turned around in her living room and tried to put her arms around me, but I didn’t reciprocate. She tried to lean in and press her lips to mine, but I did not lean in toward her.
“What is it, Gavin? Don’t
