Charlotte Dory hadn’t stopped crying since she, Haley and Luce entered her father’s private suite in Virtue.
She’d first dabbed her inner eye, then wiped a few quiet tears as she sat on the couch. As they waited the tears turned into full shaking sobs.
Jean Dory had quickly come to sit beside her, reassuring her nothing bad was going to happen to her.
They waited nearly an hour for Rias to arrive, Minnow Dory trailing behind him with her jaw tight.
Haley felt like he didn’t belong here, but he stayed beside Luce—who stood in the corner---and tried to blend in.
“It’s true ?,” Minnow asks, sitting on Charlotte’s other side.
Charlotte nods and then looks over at Luce, wiping her eyes.
“How did you find out ?”
Luce doesn’t look like he takes any joy in this.
“We got a hold of the chats between Linz and her mother,” Luce explains. “Linz told her Mom about every high end restaurant she went to when she was meeting with the Feds. She told her mother they were dates. The last restaurant she went to before she was killed was Le Cirque. She had a late lunch there. Just like you do.”
Charlotte looks down, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Why, darling ? Why would you to do something like this ?,”Jean asks. “You should have told me what she was a narc I would have handled it.”
“Because I didn’t want her dead! I didn't...I didn't mean to kill her,” Charlotte cries. “I saw her with the agent at Le Cirque so I confronted her that night after I saw Isla had left the appointment early. Linz told me she’d been working with the Federation from the day she was hired as a bartender. She’s the reason we’ve been getting all these regulators breathing down our necks--”
“Classic,” Minnow sighs. "If the G-men figured out how the money goes in and out of Virtue they could bring us all down.”
“She said Jean was going to prison soon and I should become an informant,” Charlotte continues. “Or else I was going to prison too. We fought for a while and I….I just pushed her and she tripped and fell into the bathtub hard and…stopped breathing. There was no blood or anything she was just…gone”
“So then you…just stabbed her ?,” Minnow asks in a pinched voice.
“I…I didn’t want anyone to know what I did. I tried to make it look like a Mjollner hit like Veronica’s so I went downstairs and got a knife out of the kitchen. I thought everyone would think the Mjollner did it but--”
“But you didn’t know about the star and scythe drawn on the wall,” Luce adds. “Where did you get the mimic software to keep up her chat sessions ?”
Charlotte pulls a syndicate out of her pocket that wasn’t her own.
“Even though Linz never bothered to get to know me, I knew her,” she says. “We were friends for 9 years. I’ve been using her syndicate to be her to her friends and family. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up.”
“Oh, Charlotte. This isn't you. Why would you do this to yourself ?,” Minnow asks
“She was going to put everything at risk!” Charlotte says loudly, almost hysterically. “I work hard here… I like it here….I didn’t want to lose….I didn’t want anyone to go to prison--”
“So you killed your best friend for the cartel ?,” Rias asks quietly, examining her from his folded arm stance.
“She wasn’t my friend,” Charlotte spits. “She used me when we were teenagers because she had a thing for Luce and thought I could get her drugs. When she asked me for a job at the club I thought I was helping her, that we were real friends but she was just using me Again. This time to feed information to the feds. I’m sorry, Haley…I didn’t know they’d blame Isla. I should have spoken up but…I couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” Haley says. “How come no one saw you do any of this ?”
“They did,” Charlotte says, smiling nervously into her hands. “A regular client saw me go into her room, Stasia saw me run downstairs to get the knife, Luce saw me taking the dirty knife to the Dumpster, Jean’s guard saw me standing by the room with her syndicate in my hand. Everyone saw me. But around here no one ever sees me…they never have…it finally came in handy.”
Rias turns sharply to Minnow.
“Have Alan carve a scythe and star in Linz’s body, dump her in Mjollner territory and then put in an anonymous tip into the blueboys,” he orders.
Minnow nods and looks up into her syndicate.
Rias takes a step forward to Charlotte and takes her balled up fist, pulling her up from her seated position. They were the same height and stood nearly eye to eye. He removes the silk square from his pocket and gives it to her to wipe her eyes.
He puts an awkward hand behind Charlottes' back and she leans into the one-armed hug.
“I see you,” he says to her. “I see someone who sacrificed her morals to save the integrity of the cartel. I see your loyalty. I see your remorse. I’ll make sure we protect you.”