Page 48 of The Circle

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Because we love you.

I love you too, my dears. You may never know how much.

I don’t say it aloud because… I don’t know why. I just don’t. I already said it once today and I want to be careful about becoming the type of oke who expresses his emotions too freely. Not because I’m ashamed to, but because such a sudden shift in my overall affect might result in one thinking I’ve gone mad and confining me to a sanitorium.

I do love them though. And that’s why… well, that’s why my plan for our future is such as it is. I can dwell on that later. For now, I need to put some puzzle pieces together and see if it forms a picture I can understand. Despite Danny’s disapproval of my postulations, he can’t dictate my thoughts. So, I allow my wheels to turn.

It wasn’t Brasil Lynch. Insofar as he has not been, contrary to our beliefs, the mastermind behind this last bit of fuckery we’ve endured. Yes, he was holding onto a personal vendetta against Lars and Christine for offing his man, Daniel. Or David. Or whatever the fok his name was. And, yes, he admitted to doing the awful things he did to my brother as a result.

But he is not behind the abduction of Andra and her uncle Theo. And, as logic would now suggest, he is also not behind rescuing me and Lars from our tumble to the base of the falls and our subsequent convalescence in the country estate. The one where, some two years prior, I found myself in a situation with Eliza which resulted in a life for which I am at least partially responsible and to which I am decidedly accountable.

The late Brasil Lynch was, at best, a lackey. A diversion. A distraction of some kind. An unwitting pawn in whatever game is being played out now.

I flash to earlier and the rifle I saw pointed out the window of the building. The one I thought was aiming at me. It wasn’t. It was intended for Brasil all along, I must now conclude.

But why?

And who?

I’m searching my brain thinking of all the Austrians I’ve ever known, stolen from, or sold to. There are a few. None are particularly noteworthy. Certainly none I can think of who would have been capable of orchestrating a set of complications as vast and as seemingly random as the ones in which we find ourselves embroiled.

What was it that the laaitie Liam once said to me? That whoever was holding me in that country estate had issued orders to make sure that I was “proper cared for?”

Why?

Who?

“Alec?” Danny says, pulling my attention back to him.

“Yes?”

“What about Eliza?”

“What about her?”

“She’s expecting us to come back with Andra. She’s gonna flip the fuck out.”

“We’re coming back with info about her.”

“Are we?”

“What are we going to do, Danny? We have what we have. I’ve been shot. That should give Eliza at least a small bit of comfort.”

We’ll not have to wait long to find out. We pull up to the place from which we departed just over an hour ago, and I marvel over what can happen in an hour.

Danny pulls out his phone, presses a number, holds the phone to his ear.

“We’re here,” he says.

He hangs up and the large, metal warehouse door grinds open. We drive in, Charlie or Brenden closes the door behind us and we exit the truck. Eliza approaches us.

“What’s all this? What happened? Are you shot? Where the fuck’s Andra?”

I assume she wants those questions answered in reverse order.

“I have news about Andra—she’s fine,” I say, trying to get to the heart of the matter as swiftly as I can.