One flight and a short drive later, and Alex was at Bittermoss School. It was an elegant brick building in the heart of Boston, with a generous greenhouse and massive gymnasium, and a reputation as an excellent prep school for Ivy League ambitions. A nice, sedate hedge wound around both the parking lot and the border of the school's landscaping, and massive old-growth oaks framed the entry. The red tones of the brick were offset by the happy bunting, Welcome to the Best School Ever! This drew the eye to the playground, its equipment elaborate and shaded with springtime pastels. There was even a small moss garden and water feature, seated in the middle of the best butterfly flowerbed Alex had ever seen. It was, in fact, the most cheerfully elegant place he'd ever been. If he had a kid and Kaiser's kind of money, he'd already be halfway sold on Bittermoss on the landscaping alone.

So this was Naomi Studdard’s baby. He walked down the path to the entry. The door had many construction paper sunshine faces on it, with children's names and ages printed carefully on each one. The drawings were fairly good for even an adult. Most of the ages were frighteningly young. Four, five, six year olds had drawn these, and the six-year-old's work was a very realistic human face inside of the sun.

Gifted and Talented, Alex thought. That didn't cover the half of it.

He went through the metal detector, which loomed over all like a row of headstones, signed in at the front desk, then turned to the rather fluffy haired girl behind it. Her nametag read "Tiffany Adams" and holy hell, but she looked every inch of it. Very blond and fluffy, with a perfect smile. Her veneers gleamed as she smiled. “Can I help you?”

"Hi." He said. "My name is Alex West. I'd really like a chance to speak with Mrs. Studdard."

Tiffany blinked. "She's the owner of the school."

He stepped her competency down by a couple floors. "Yes. I know that. But I need to ask her some questions about her husband. You can tell her that Kaiser sent me. He was supposed to call ahead and let her know I was coming."

Tiffany stood up. She was elegantly dressed—that seemed to be the key word for this place—in a perfectly modest skirt and vest combo, a white striped blouse beneath, and fairly expensive designer jewelry. He was pretty sure that necklace and earring combo came from Tiffany Co., making it a nice play on her name. He wondered if she'd done that intentionally, or if designer things were part of the work uniform in this place. He really hoped it paid its teachers a living wage.

Tiffany reappeared a few moments later, her face wreathed in a tight, stressed smile. Naomi Studdard followed behind her. This was always an interesting moment for Alex, when somebody he'd read up on sprang to life in front of him. Edgar Studdard's wife was a perfect vision of mature femininity. 50-something, but there wasn't a trace of gray in her auburn hair and only the most minimal wrinkles had been permitted in her skin. Unlike most botox patients, Alex could barely tell she'd had injections done. It was mostly a tightness to the forehead, and the paralysis of her eyebrows that gave it away. But these had been tooled, plucked, and drawn in an expression of permanent good cheer. Her clothing was straight up Neman Marcus, very well made and, he thought, retailored to fit her exquisitely. She wore a navy-blue set rather like Tiffany's, but hers made that poor child's outfit look like burlap. The scent of Baccarat Rouge was both her herald and her farewell. She'd applied just the right amount of it, and of makeup. In fact, Alex was willing to state that this woman was the nearest thing to flawless he'd ever seen in a human being. He was intimidated, certainly.

"You must be Alisdair West," Naomi said, and offered a hand with the most perfect mauve manicure.

"And you're Mrs. Naomi Studdard. Thank you for agreeing to see me."

"Yes,” she said. “Tiffany, please tell Arthur and David that that our meeting in the greenhouse today will be delayed by a few minutes. No, I know you don't know what I'm talking about. It's alright. They'll know what I mean." Naomi smiled mirthlessly at the girl, then turned to Alex. "I thought we could have this conversation there. It's one of the better indoor gardens in Boston. We have a full aquaponics system, and our 4H club keeps their rabbits and chickens in there. Our gardening club is so proud, and flowers tend to make...difficult conversations easier."

"That sounds like a plan," Alex said. Paused. “You know, then—”

“That my husband is a fugitive. And by your metrics, a murderer several hundred times over. I got Kaiser’s phone call, Mr. West. I know why you’re here. I want to help you, but difficult is the best I can provide.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He said, though his dander was up and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just her. Flawless people made him antsy. It could have been something more, however. Those little nagging feelings that something isn’t right usually exist for a reason.

Still, he had no good excuse to back out of this interview—why did he immediately jump to canceling it? After all the work he’d done to get here? It didn’t make sense—so they walked, together, Naomi and Alex, down a hallway lined with both lockers and children's artwork. They didn’t make it twenty feet before Alex felt overwhelmed by the potential on the walls. "I have to say, this is a most impressive school."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Yes," and Naomi's words were muted.

"I didn't expect someone of your social standing to choose to be this deeply involved in a school," Alex said. Sighed. "Kaiser told you why I'm here."

Their footsteps echoed for a few minutes, and he was worried he'd already pushed too far. But Naomi sighed, emotion in her voice. "He did. Kaiser also told me that you are something of a con-artist, Mr. West." She said. "That I should be careful with what I say. You might take me for all I'm worth."

"I'm Reformed, but yes. I did my fair share of jobs. I'm currently working as a PI, when I'm not helping my wife with her work."

"What made you choose to give up such an exciting lifestyle? I would think being able to get what you want with minimal effort…why would anyone walk away from that?"

He interrupted Naomi. "Nah. There was always effort. I worked harder on some of the jobs I did with my father than I ever have on a case--with less of a payout, now that I think of it. But there’s an easy answer for you: It was my wife. She's a good person, Mrs. Studdard. She makes me want to be a better man than I am."

Those words seemed to catch Naomi. Her eyes flared and wettened, threatening tears. He nodded to himself. Either she and Studdard had a troubled marriage, or something more recent had driven a wedge between the billionaire and his wife.

But she caught herself with an iron will. Not one tear escaped her eyes. Instead, she rallied and shifted the subject. "A PI? Then you would have read up on me and my family before you arrived. I’m surprised you didn’t come with Amelie's obituary."

"No. I wouldn’t do that. I can’t say that I know how you feel, because I’ve never been a father, and I’ve never lost a child. But I'm very sorry for your loss, just the same."

They continued walking a few minutes in silence. Her heels clicked over the linoleum, the universal sound of refinement and grace. Her head was bowed. They must have been nearing the greenhouse because the world was suddenly vibrant with paper mâché flowers, roses made of tissue paper, sunflowers drawn on huge sheets of poster board. The enthusiasm for green and growing things in this hallway was catching.

Finally, Naomi began to speak. "Edgar wanted it kept quiet. Her death...it hit him harder than I. But he'd been through so much that year...He had a lot of grief, and he wanted time to experience it privately. A handful of magazines, People among them, tried to run a story. We quashed it, he and I. My daughter was a dear, and a bleeding heart, and not meant for this world, and the least I can do is keep the vultures away from her memory."

"Indeed." Now the hair was standing up on the back of his head. She was saying all the right things…but they didn’t quite touch her stellar blue eyes. And now they had reached the Greenhouse, and her stricken look grew stronger. "Look, Mrs. Studdard—"

"Naomi. Please." Naomi said.

"Naomi. I know that you've suffered a great loss. I know that you're grieving. But I also know that you understand what your husband is doing—"

"Is morally wrong?" She said. They'd reached the doors of the greenhouse. "Killing hundreds of people—possibly thousands, once we get the full death toll from this Event—fits that definition to the letter, doesn't it? Morally wrong." And her disdain dripped from those last words.

Now they were inside the greenhouse, and it was more than just a veritable orgy of vegetation, green and growing and blooming like its own living entity. Everything Alex could think of was here: Magenta bougainvillea, white honesty and basil and mint, roses everywhere, lilacs and honeysuckle and hollyhocks. There was even a pedestrian vegetable garden with corn, tomatoes, peppers. A whole flat of strawberries, a pot with a massive blackberry vine. Even the floor was impressive. It seemed they'd made it out of glass tiles. Thick, tempered glass, but glass, none-the-less. And the tiles were big. He didn’t see a single seam anywhere on the floor.

But there was something...off about the whole thing. Something that bothered him greatly, that had started the moment he'd seen this place outside. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was. Maybe it was the veg. It clashed with the riotous glory of the flowers. Mrs. Studdard--Naomi--lead him in that direction.

Which was when he saw the fish. "Tilapia?" He said. They were swimming in a large tank near the corn. Tubes ran from the fish tank to the veggie garden, pouring fish water across plant roots before returning it to the tank. A natural filter, he thought, and a great way to grow corn. He was a little awed by it, if he were honest.

"Our 4H club is working on an aquaponics grow system. And if you look over here, you'll see their saltwater and freshwater ecosystem tanks. We only need to do water changes once a month, and even that might be unnecessary. Our children have an understanding of plants and ecosystems that is...quite remarkable. There's also rabbits to the left...and these."

Naomi laid her hand on a large bell jar. Alex had never seen a setup like it, so it took him a minute to recognize that it had been set up as a formicarium, with little ledges to give the contents something to hang from. But then he saw the ants, dangling from the ceiling of each chamber, their gasters full and round with nectar.

Honeypots. An enormous, established, healthy colony of the things. They were gold colored, so it must have been the bigger ones, Mexi-something, that Hawk had tried to start twice.

And that was when he realized what had bothered him about the greenhouse. It only had three sides...and the floor, as he'd seen, was glass.

But maybe it wasn’t glass. Maybe it was crystal…the kind you make into Prisms.

Things began to fall into place, like a cascade of shattered He turned around and looked at Naomi. Her perfect designer clothes. Her lovely, false smile. Over her flawless updo, the lines of a Prism rose overhead, gathering at the peak, disguised by only the weathervane at the tip.

If he’d had the time and the space to risk it, he’d have kicked himself. He'd missed it, goddamn it, until it was almost too late.

"I have to say, ma’am, I am impressed. Everyone in the world thinks that your husband is behind it all." Alex said. "You must be proud. Especially of this giant Prism."

And for the first time, he saw her really smile. Softly. Gently. With a superiority that reminded him a great deal of Kaiser.