Broken Prince: A New Adult Romance Novel (13 page)

It was a photo of my mother. No, not my mother. My mother's body.  I understood now what Csilla's mom had meant by her words to me.

When you see the documents, you'll understand.

This was not a normal death by drowning.

No, the killer had not just murdered my mother. In the picture, she was lying on the morgue table, already cold. The blood had been washed away in the river Danube. But the cuts remained.

Hundreds and hundreds of small cuts, all over her body. Mutilating her skin. A sob rose into my throat and I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The rest of the room seemed to grow darker as I peered down at the photograph, and into my sorrow twisted a fierce anger. Hot tears wetted my cheeks but I ignored them. Curiosity had led me down into this place. Why?
Why
?

I had found peace at my mother's grave. Why had I come back here? What had I hoped to find?

I slammed the file shut before my tears could smear the photograph. I stood quickly, and went to the door. Locked. Right. I pushed the call button on the wall. My fingers tapped against the glass impatiently. I peered back over my shoulder at the box, as though the file itself had teeth and was ready to bite. I pushed the button again and turned, my body pressed back against the glass, a cornered animal of prey. Csilla's mom finally answered.

"Brynn? Are you finished?"

"Let me out," I whispered, my voice a moment away from cracking. "Let me out of here."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Eliot

“If there's no struggle, there's no progress.”

Frederick Douglass

Eliot worked at his desk, racking his mind for ideas. He'd been forced to abandon the idea of using transformation matrices to represent the equations. None of the paths he tried led to success, and by the time the afternoon sun came filtering in through the window, he was lying back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

"No..." he murmured, contemplating the way the crack in one of the ceiling rafters disappeared under the plaster walls. "That wouldn't work either."

Lucky jumped up on his chest and stared at him. Eliot stared back. Normally the kitten only came to get petted when Eliot was at his desk. Now, looking at each other in mute concentration, they faced off.

"Who will win the battle of wills?" Eliot whispered. Lucky's nose twitched, but he continued staring down at the human underneath him. Eliot stared back and stuck his tongue out at the small cat. Lucky tilted his head slightly, confused.

"Okay, you win," Eliot said. He reached out and stroked the diamond of white fur on top of Lucky's head. Lucky rubbed against his hand and then flopped down in triumph on top of Eliot's chest. His paws batted at one of Eliot's shirt buttons. The little plastic button held fast.

"I don't suppose you know another way to represent this set of equations, do you?" Eliot said, scratching the kitten under the chin. Lucky purred and then bit softly at Eliot's finger.

"Silly little thing," Eliot said, stroking Lucky's back. Since he'd never grown a beard, Eliot thought that maybe stroking a cat's fur would be equivalent, at least when it came to inspiration. Lucky didn't want to be petted, though; he wanted to play. The kitten rolled onto his back and kicked at Eliot's hand, then licked it.

"You don't know a damn thing about transformation functions, do you? Do you, you  little rascal?" Eliot dangled his pen over Lucky's belly. Lucky was at once distracted by the pen, gnawing on the cap with gusto.

"You don't even know what a number is! Or a shape! Brynn is going to have so much to teach you..."

Eliot's words trailed off as he looked at his window. The light coming through illuminated the streaks left behind by Brynn's finger, and he saw the outline of a snowflake.

In his mind echoed her words about the snowflake's paradox.

We're just thinking in the wrong dimension.

The wrong dimension.

Eliot bolted upright, and Lucky jumped off of his chest, meowing in consternation. Eliot ignored him, moving quickly to sit down at his desk. The cat twined itself around Eliot's ankles, but Eliot's pen was already flying across the page.

Would it work? If the equations were generalized out as matrices...

He lost himself in the numbers. Lucky sat on his feet but his mind had already disappeared into abstraction. There it was. No, not possible. But yes, the substitutions worked out, and the inductive step held. He checked his work, then rechecked it, unwilling to accept that the proof had come together so quickly.

"That's it," Eliot said. It was a sketch of a proof, to be sure. There was still work to be done at the end, cleaning up all the loose ends. But that was the key.

He sat back and brought the page up to his eyes, scanning the crucial step. Lucky jumped up onto his lap and butted his head under the paper, crinkling the work.

"Lucky, thank you," Eliot said. "You're a lifesaver! We have to tell Brynn!" He hugged the kitten close.

Lucky, unsure of what to do with this newfound affection, bit Eliot's ear. And Eliot didn't even mind.

That night would be a celebration. Eliot booked a table at the fanciest restaurant in Budapest, a swanky little place downtown overlooking the river. He left a message telling Brynn to  have her hair done and get dressed up, and that he would be by to pick her up later. Then he went to Otto's barber to get a haircut and a shave.

Perfect. Everything was perfect. His mood lifted, and he didn't even take any mind of the people on the sidewalks who swiveled their heads to watch him pass. Let them watch. Let them all watch and be envious. Eliot had a beautiful woman to take out tonight and a new theorem to his name! Budapest seemed bright and warm with activity, and Eliot soaked in all of it.

Brynn seemed quiet when Eliot picked her up at the house. She was gorgeous, wearing a light blue dress that came down to her knees. Her hair was pinned up in a loose bun, strands of it falling around her neck in gossamer ornamentation.

"You're beautiful," he said, and kissed her. She smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

"Did you get the money sent to your grandmother?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, her eyelashes fluttering on her cheeks. "She's very grateful. Thank you."

"Of course," he said, and kissed the top of her head. She did not say any more, and Eliot changed the subject to something lighter. He chatted until they reached the restaurant, keeping the silences between them to a minimum. Perhaps she would warm up after she heard what he had done with the proof.

"Would you like to know what we're celebrating?" he asked, once they had been seated. The champagne he'd ordered sat on the table, and he popped the cork himself, pouring them both a glass. The bubbles rose in the golden liquid and broke at the surface.

"What are we celebrating?" Brynn asked. She smiled tightly.

"The proof," Eliot said, beaming. "I thought I wasn't making any headway on it, but you gave me an idea. Looking at the equations as matrices, with an extra dimension added in."

"That would increase the variable set," Brynn said, a crease between her eyebrows forming. "Wouldn't that make the induction harder?"

"Only at first," Eliot said, excitement pumping through him. "It all simplifies out."

He pulled out the folded paper from his pocket and showed it to Brynn. She looked through the proof, her eyes moving sharply from one line to the next. Occasionally she stopped to reread a piece of the mathematics. But she read silently. Eliot was close to bursting with anticipation by the time she had finished reading it. She didn't look up; she merely folded the paper back up and let it dangle in between her hands. Her eyes watched the paper move as though it was a snowflake, with no sign of comprehension in them.

"Isn't it incredible?" Eliot asked. "It's so close to being
finished
!"

"Incredible," Brynn murmured. She let the paper flutter down to the white tablecloth. Eliot could see a smudge of ink on her forearm. He leaned to wipe it off and she recoiled, her chair scratching the floor. Two women at a nearby table turned to see who had made the noise.

"What's the matter?" Eliot asked. "Why are you—"

"I'm sorry," Brynn said. She waved her hand toward the scenic view of the Danube." I can't think with the river..."

"The river?" Eliot didn't understand.

"It's right there." Her hand waved out to the windows of the restaurant.

"Brynn..." Eliot trailed off before remembering where she'd come from. "Did you see something at the police station today? What happened?"

"It's nothing," she said, her fingers pressed underneath her lower eyelids, as though she could dam up the tears. She'd been crying more and more lately, and Eliot was never certain he knew the reason why. "I didn't want to bring it up."

"Then why did you bring it up?" Eliot asked, more than a little irritated. The irritation must have shown to Brynn, whose face fell even further.

"I didn't
mean
to," Brynn said, the stresses on her words growing more pointed. "But you brought me here—"

"Here? This is the nicest restaurant in Budapest, according to—"

"Where I can see the river," Brynn said.

"The river goes through the whole city," Eliot countered. "All of the best places are here. It's right next to the Academy, for God's sake!"

"Today has been hard for me, Eliot."

"Every day is hard for you."

The words came out before he even knew what he was saying. He was lashing out because he was upset that she didn't care at all about the proof, didn't care about how excited he was. Didn't care about him, in other words. For the first time, he thought that Brynn might be staying with him out of some desperate need for money. Because her grandmother needed it—what could be a better reason than that? And she had pulled away from him physically...

The thought hit him in the gut, and he lifted his glass of champagne to his lips to hide his sudden doubt. But Brynn's eyes were as sharp as an eagle's, and she caught the expression. The taste of the champagne was cloying, more fizz than anything else. He put his glass back down on the table and pressed his lips together. One finger slid around the rim of the champagne glass as he sat there, unsure of what to say to repair the damage. Unsure even whether the crack was fixable, or had split the foundation.

"I'm sorry, Eliot," Brynn said suddenly. "I can't stay here."

"It's alright," Eliot said. "I understand perfectly."

He pulled her chair out and helped her with her coat. The other dining room patrons watched them with a surreptitious curiosity: the couple in the newspapers, the ones everyone was talking about. They came to dinner and did not eat a thing, only drank champagne. How strange. It would be gossip later.

The world around Eliot came burgeoning into his mind as an unwelcome drifting of paranoid, self-conscious thought. He was numb to happiness, he realized. He did not even know if Brynn loved him. Perhaps she only needed the money. He would give her the money, then, and also give her a choice. It would be her decision to stay or go, based on nothing else.

Brynn was silent as they walked toward the restaurant's exit. She wiped at her eyes resolutely and did not look anywhere but at the space directly in front of her feet. Her jaw was locked firmly shut, her lips pursed. The sidewalk outside was lighted all along the blocks with signage, so much so that the stars were invisible overhead. Eliot held the door open for her, because he was a gentleman and because there was nothing else that he could do.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Brynn

Budapest had turned into a hell for me. Whenever I went to the Academy to study, I saw the Danube on my way and could not breathe. At night I could not erase the image from my mind of my mother's body, mutilated. Eliot asked me what was wrong, and I did not know how to tell him. How could I describe the way her limbs bent back in the photograph? How every inch of her skin was cut, carved up by someone who might still be walking around the city?

I couldn't tell him this, because once you tell a story once, it exists forever, and I was afraid that mentioning the killer might set him upon me. Putting words out into the world is a dangerous act, and I was not ready for it. Or maybe I was ready, and I just wasn't brave enough.

Eliot did not put his arm around me last night, though I leaned against his shoulder. My breast pressed into his arm and I thought his breathing came faster, but he did not open his eyes and I knew that he was angry.

Two days later, after a hushed breakfast of pancakes and syrup, I got a call from Csilla.

"You want her attention? You have it."

She hung up.

"Who was that?" Eliot asked."

"Wrong number, probably," I said. I tucked the phone into my pocket and excused myself from breakfast. In the bathroom, I called Csilla back but she didn't answer. Her voicemail sounded especially smug, but I might have been imagining it.

Ten minutes later, the phone lit up again.

"Hello?"

"Brynn?"

"Yes?"

"This is Mrs. Deveny. There's been another murder."

"A murder?" For a moment, I was completely confused. Why was I being informed about this? Csilla's mom answered my unspoken question.

"They think it's the man who killed your mother. It was the same...the same method he used."

"Method?" Was that how she described it? The cuts down her arms and legs in staccato succession? I opened the window shutter and blinked into the early morning light, the phone held tight against my ear.

"Brynn, I hate to ask this of you, but can you come down to the station?"

"When? Right now?".

"You're the last person to review the case. With such a coincidence, there are a few people who want to talk to you."

A flash of realization lit up inside me, and I stepped back from the window.

"Am I... am I being questioned?"

"No," Csilla's mom said, although her voice was hesitant. "Well, in a way. We only want to know who you talked with about this."