“We caught a lucky break with it,” Ozias inserted. “But it was luck created by this nifty bugger.” He elbowed Fox in the ribs, an innocuous but wholly flirtatious move in one. Under any other circumstances, Brick would’ve been tagging himself as the weird third wheel on this bizarre Louvre date, but there wasn’t time for that luxury. There was deeper information to get to.
“Hit me with it, crafty Fox,” he prompted. “Brag about your brilliance.”
“No brilliance,” the Arcadian protested. “If that was the case, that sneaky little preesh would not have cut me out of the second half of the plan, leaving me to hunt for her on security feed files instead of guiding her safely out of the palais. She also would have remembered that I was ready to face His Majesty Evrest’s wrath for it. Samsyn’s and Shiraz’s, as well. They cannot continue to keep shielding her like this. She is a grown woman, deserving of the truth—her truth—and overdue for their respect about what she wants to do with it.”
Ozias gave his main guy another quick shoulder bump. “You’re still a hero, babe. Sneaking into the king’s office and copying those evidence files for her took some mighty clangers.”
Fox snorted. “Clangers that’ll be in a steel bowl, cut straight from my scrotum, if my king ever learns what I did.”
A rumble rolled up Oz’s throat. “No one’s getting near your scrotum without my say-so.”
“And I say that’s more than enough scrot talk for the day,” Brick ordered before focusing directly on Fox. “Files that contained what, exactly?” he pressed. “The intel had to have bled some good juice, or you wouldn’t be standing here dreading the wrong end of a prostate exam.”
Unbelievably, the Arcadian’s stance tautened even more. “The name of her real father,” he muttered.
Brick’s nostrils pinched as he sucked in sharp air. “Well, there’s some healthy platelets.”
Ozias continued the explanation. “It was couched in an audio recording from years ago. Xaria Cimarron admitted the affair to a woman who was once a close friend.” He huffed. “Obviously, the queen didn’t know she was being spied on, and even led by some questions.”
Brick’s exhalation was heavy. “Revealing stuff?”
“Enough to be incriminating.”
“Define enough.”
“Her Highness talks about her husband’s continuing indiscretions before revealing that she found someone special for herself. He was an artist, commissioned to work on a custom piece in the palais. There was a great deal of that going on since the king father Ardent had just added a new wing of the palais. And since Queen Xaria has taken to her bed and refuses to speak to anyone about the matter now, some deductive reasoning had to take place before identifying the lucky fellow.”
Brick narrowed his stare. “She didn’t just name him in the recorded exchange?”
“Now where would be the good time in that?” Oz tossed out, clearly enjoying the comment more than his others.
Fox was nowhere near that jovial bandwagon.
Brick was no sooner finished with his what-am-I-missing gawk than the Arcadian swiveled with a sour glare.
“Oz is amused that I had to read a transcript of the queen mother Xaria in full swoon about a man who could paint poetry all over her body.”
“All right. That at least narrows it down a little, right?” Brick, feeling at once for the guy, opted for sticking strictly to business. “Now you know he might have been an artist.”
“Yes,” Fox concurred, still flinging a fierce glance toward Oz. “But of course, the Pura deduced that too.”
“Which means what?”
Oz quelled his mirth as quickly as he’d enacted it. “Only that once they figured it out, they dived right in on the follow-up research and then included all those details in the report they submitted to Evrest.” He gave in to a small smirk. “Flamin’ galahs led us right to the mother lode of intel—including the fact that Jayd’s real papa has likely resettled here in Paris.”
“An artist in Paris,” Brick gibed. “So original.”
“His name is Louis LaBarre,” Fox stated. “And right now, that is only our educated guess, based on more of the transcripts from the queen mother’s conversation with her friend.”
“The one from over twenty years ago?” Somebody had to get it out there, so Brick took the initiative.
“That is correct,” Fox said. “But we have reason to believe he remained here after departing Arcadia. The dossier also contained a string of aliases the man has used, though all are traceable back to the same apartment address in Oberkampf.”
“Ah. An artist who wants to be near wild nightclubs.” Brick almost rolled his eyes. “There’s more originality.”
“Those rave crowds might work in our favor soon,” Oz asserted. “Because if the Pura beat us to finding LaBarre, and Jayd either shows up or is already there, the skirmish won’t be pretty. But with civilians as part of the equation, less lead will fly.”
“Good point,” Brick conceded. “But why are you so sure the Pura are as close as you? If the palais press office is still keeping this a tight secret, then those bastards are probably still wanking off back on Arcadia.”
Fox thinned his lips. “They have their ways of learning things.”
“And millions in financial clout,” Oz added. “They’ve had some hefty foreign funding over the years and love saving it for ideal occasions—as well as the right palais voices to bribe.”
“Zealots with deep pockets.” Brick shook his head. “The deadliest enemy to have.”
“And this time, they will not stop in their endeavors,” Fox declared.
“Agreed,” Oz issued. “This is their Holy Grail. Finding Jayd Cimarron and getting her wedded and bedded by Carris translates to a huge chunk of political clout.”
“No,” Fox grumbled. “Clout is only the tip of this ice cream.”
Oz pursed his lips. “Baby, I think the term is iceberg.”
“And I think Brick already understands the scope of this issue.”
Brick flashed a grin. “The Arcadian for the point, man. You know it too, Oz. Carris doesn’t want to expose anything about Jayd Cimarron except her womb to his dick. The sooner that happens, the closer he is to the inside track at the palais.”
Ozias took the point with scary ease—until Brick watched him lean against a pillar like a surfer relaxing on a palm tree. “So you do see it our way.”
“Dude, I’ve been seeing it your way since the start of this tea party. That’s not the issue here.” He scraped a hand up the side of his neck and started rubbing at his nape. “Why the hell are you inviting me to your cake cart?”
Oz maintained his casual slump, though his gaze got incisive. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with the Reece Richards cake course.”
“That gig was protection only, not extraction.” Most importantly, it was in a new hotel in one of Paris’s most elegant areas, not a terrorist cave beneath a squalid sci-fi landscape. “And it sure as hell wasn’t an investigation. Not to the tune of finding a very determined woman in a very big city.”