But Lila had no intention of selling her toys.
“It was part of the test,” she told her commander.
“I thought you wished to test thermal?”
“I did.” She grinned, giving Sutton another half-truth. She had tested the thermal, just not on Randolph property.
“None of our patrols caught you snooping around the compound tonight. I suppose you’ve beaten the whole damn lot of us again.”
“It’s not a question of winning and losing. We can’t protect against every threat, commander. We’d drive ourselves mad trying.”
Sutton nodded. “Well, we’re at changeover. No one will notice if you come through. You don’t even need to use your jammer, and I’d be grateful if you didn’t. You might spook Captain McKinley, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I’m not going to alert Captain McKinley, commander. Tonight is a blackout. The militia does not need to know about this test of our defenses.”
“I said I was old, not senile or infirm.”
Lila did not apologize, though she felt bad for reminding the woman how to do her job when it was unnecessary. At twenty-eight years old, Lila might outrank the older woman, but Commander Sutton had been her superior officer for most of her militia career. When Lila had been promoted to chief of security nearly three years before, Sutton had been the first name on her list as her replacement. Sutton had proven time and time again how much she deserved the promotion. It was a pity that no one else had recognized her potential.
As commander, Sutton ran security for the New Bristol estate, having the last word unless Lila overruled her, which Lila rarely did. She needed someone like Sutton, someone she could trust with such responsibility, for Lila’s time was split among a dozen other commanders and properties in Saxony. The family compound was merely the crown jewel.
An image of the empty hotel entered Lila’s mind, and her regard for Sutton rose. The commander would never do anything like that to Lila, to the family, nor to the estate. Not only was Sutton good at her job, but her adopted mother had been an heir once, one of the fifteen women in each generation who might become the family’s chairwoman by birthright. Even though there was no hope of the frail Edith Randolph ever becoming the chairwoman now—short of a particularly fatal epidemic or an ill-advised murder spree—the woman’s wealth and position made it very unlikely that Sutton would ever betray their matron.
That and her temperament. If the commander suspected what Lila had really been up to that night, she would have dragged her in handcuffs to Chief Shaw’s office herself. Sutton’s brain was composed of laws and codes; no gray permeated her heart. It made her predictable. Lila could bend that trait to her advantage, and she frequently did.
“Your people looked good tonight, commander. You’ve done well with them,” Lila said as they kept to the shadows and skirted around the estate’s mail facility.
Beyond the structure, Lila spied the Randolph family’s great house, a sprawling mansion that housed the chairwoman’s family and assorted staff members assigned to their security or care. Elegant and palatial, the neoclassical building boasted a fountain out front, commissioned from the great artist Frederic Batholdi. Four gray wolves sprang out from the center, impatient to conquer from all sides, similar to the family’s coat of arms. The fountain and the building, called Villanueva House after its architect, were the first things anyone saw when entering the estate from the south entrance. That and the security office. Both were intended to overwhelm, rather than welcome.
The pair saw little of the famous building. Instead, Commander Sutton passed a keycard through a security panel. The dog’s claws clicked against the linoleum floor as they entered the mail facility’s back entrance and shuffled down a hallway. The group soon passed through another locked door, descended a staircase, and crossed into the basement level, gaining entry into the extensive tunnel system below the estate.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without an officer’s uniform, Commander Sutton. Not in my entire life, except on nights like this.” Lila’s voice echoed against the concrete, competing with the jingle of the dog’s leash. The group stepped through the tunnels, the air smelling of soil and grease, the constant plink of dripping water surrounded them as they walked. Lila had always liked the tunnels despite the smell and noise. She found them restful, perhaps because she had spent so much time getting lost in them and finding her way out again as a child.
“Well, I rarely see you in the clothes of a workborn, except on nights like this.”
Lila smoothed the breast of her peacoat, the absence of her family’s coat of arms tugging at her once again. It was as if someone used to slumbering under thick blankets had been given only a dirty sheet to pass the night. At least the coat of arms had not been on her when the sergeant had begun his arrest. Every single man under his command would have known instantly that she was a Randolph and a highborn on sight.
That wasn’t her only worry. Did Zephyr have proof of her actions in the BIRD? Would the snoop figure out Prolix’s true identity? Had she destroyed the DNA pen quickly enough, or was Bullstow matching her DNA at that very moment? Were government blackcoats already on the way to intercept her and throw her into a holding cell? Had her client heard about the explosion yet? Were Tristan and his people laughing at how they had used her as a distraction?
It would be a long day finding out the answers.
“How about this weather? Shouldn’t be so cold in October,” Sutton said suddenly, tugging uncomfortably at her collar.
“This is New Bristol, commander. If you don’t like the weather, just wait fifteen minutes. I’m sure we’ll be back to sweating by the weekend. Unless it decides to rain.”
Sutton nodded.
The pair walked down another stretch of tunnel in silence.
“Is everything okay, chief?”
Lila realized that she had said nothing for most of their journey. Usually, she filled all interactions on the estate with militia chatter, endless questions of protocol and procedure, double-checking arrangements for whatever security nightmare the matron had planned next. Lila typically had a thousand things to do and only ten minutes to do them, and Sutton bore the brunt of such attention. “Everything is fine, commander. I’m just tired.”
The commander unlocked the door into the dim basement of the great house, and Lila retrieved her own set of keys from behind a stack of boxes. “Enjoy your day off, chief.” Sutton bowed slightly, concern evident in every wrinkle.
Lila pulled off her thermal hood and slipped through the scullery and into the kitchen. A stout, middle-aged woman stood at the counter, wearing a flour-dusted apron. She skipped through her pop music playlist, too busy to notice when Lila skulked through the room behind her. The muffled warbling of some overpaid and autotuned singer, desperate to make a hit, leaked from around Chef’s earphones. The smell of bacon hung in the air.
Chef was up early, and Lila didn’t know what it meant.