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Celesse hunched over her laptop in the waiting room of the hospital.
Her fingers moved furiously as she searched for Bartholomew Dyer.
She wasn’t going to stop until she found everything about him.
He didn’t have social media accounts. His phone number had been disconnected. She found newspaper articles that mentioned him as pro-governor.
BARTHOLOMEW DYER, A RESIDENT OF BOGVILLE, WAS RELUCTANT TO SPEAK AT THE ELVEN TOWN HALL MEETING, BUT WHEN HE DID, HE EXPRESSED SUPPORT FOR GOVERNOR GRIMOIRE.
The date was before Lucan announced his candidacy, but it was enough.
Pro-governor. Elven. Bogville resident. Bogville was normally a stronghold for the governor—many of them were direct descendants of elves that died in the exodus ranches. The governor drew his support from the traditionalists.
The exodus. Why hadn’t she thought of it?
She searched a database of exodus descendants that she had used once to locate potential donors for Lucan’s campaign. The website was calm, in a granite hue that reminded her of an epitaph.
Dyer.
She found four matches. A man and a woman, aged seventy-two. A pair of grandparents, aged ninety-four. Their profiles were accompanied by sullen photographs of elves dressed in black robes like elders with sad, jewel-tone eyes. Their faces were austere and even though the elves were dead they still gave her a chill. She took screenshots of the profiles and closed the window quickly, unable to look them in the eye.
“This is perfect,” she whispered.
She found a statement from Bartholomew, from an interview conducted with exodus survivors.
THE YOUNG ELVEN MAN REPORTS THAT A TEACHER HELD HIM BACK FROM ATTENDING THE EXODUS, AGAINST HIS FAMILY’S WISHES. HE TRIED TO ESCAPE HIS TEACHER’S HOME, BUT HIS PARENTS’ BOAT HAD ALREADY SET SAIL TO FOUR PALM ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DRACONIAN SEA. THE YOUNG BOY RECALLS HAVING TO ID HIS MOTHER, HIS FATHER, AND GRANDPARENTS. HIS TEACHER ATTEMPTED TO ADOPT HIM, BUT HE RAN AWAY, WAS EVENTUALLY PULLED INTO THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM BUT EMERGED AS AN INDUSTRIOUS CITIZEN, WORKING ON THE PRODUCTION LINE IN MAGICAL PRODUCTION FACILITIES.…
“Even better,” Celesse said.
She kept searching, and she found an image of Bartholomew, burly and unsmiling as he leaned against a truck. Tony sat inside, squinting at the camera. The sun must have been bright that day.
She searched his address and arrived at a photo. A tea parlor in town square with an apartment above. A strong, masonry building. With a quick keystroke she took a screenshot of the photo, invoking a shutter sound from her laptop.
She pulled up her email client and typed in a message: KILLER WAS PRO-GOVERNOR. ALSO AN EXODUS KID AND IT LOOKS TO HAVE MESSED HIM UP. TWO ARRESTS FOR PUBLIC INTOXICATION BUT NO INDICATION OF A HABIT. YET.
She attached the photos she’d taken and emailed it to her fact checker. She needed as much ammo as she could to help Lucan fight back. All she needed to do was give a small trickle to the press and they would take care of the rest. It would also make her look good; campaign manager girlfriend, on the warpath because of the shooting. Good quality for a First Lady to have.
Not that she was faking it. But she had a limited window to make the most of the news cycle, and since Bartholomew was dead and couldn’t defend himself, she had no problem exploiting his image.
She shifted her focus to Tony. He was still out there somewhere. Probably in hiding.
She found several matches to his name, including several social media pages that were locked.
But they all said he attended Magic Hope University.
How had she forgotten that?
She found a number to the registrar’s office and confirmed that he was still a student there. The clerk could not tell her any more.
She held his address in her hand and a photo of Tony on her phone. Tony had a stressed look on his face, like a teenager going through turmoil.
She hated him, from his elven ears to his blood. Sure, he hadn’t tried to kill the man she loved, but he was just as much to blame.
She had to find him before he started talking.
- Writer
