Ramsey lets out an involuntary hiss after shoving his hands under a stream of water. Small jagged pain pulses from the cuts on his knuckles. He bites his bottom lip and breathes through his nose while scrubbing his hands with soap.
He got carried away questioning one of the prisoners in the Elysian dungeon. Compared to Ramsey’s knuckles, the man’s face fared far worse. His nose will now forever be crooked, and he’ll never get those teeth back, but he’s alive. It was pointless questioning. Ramsey learned nothing helpful.
It appears none of Eric’s most loyal men know anything about Johnson and his bosses.
Back at his house, Ramsey locks himself in his office, punches in the safe’s password, and pulls out the stack of Midnight Files. He flips through them until landing on Warner Golden’s profile. Most of the committee members’ files are filled with the typical bullshit: affairs, drugs, mysterious deaths, proof of abuse, bank statements, tax fraud, and more boring blackmail material.
Golden’s file is different. Nearly every inch is dedicated to anything that might tell Eric where Harlow was hiding. That’s not what Ramsey is interested in, though. He studies its early pages, created several days before Gideon and Eli died. Ramsey doesn’t know if that means Gideon started the Midnight Files and Eric took them over after killing his brother, or if Eric started collecting information long before he was owner of the Registration. There are four photos of Warner Golden with Paul D’Angelo and one with Lincoln D’Angelo. Most committee chairs avoided the D’Angelos back then, but Golden seemed to have been working with them.
There’s also pictures of three bank transfers. One is fifty-thousand dollars from Golden to an unknown account made twenty-eight years ago. The second is fifteen-thousand dollars from an unknown account to Golden’s twenty-five years ago. The last is hours after the second, fifteen-thousand dollars from Golden to Elizabeth Crane. Ramsey had wondered how Elizabeth could afford buying Lynell a Registration. Now, he knows. But he still hasn’t figured out who sent the money to Golden to send to Elizabeth.
At the bottom of the page, Ramsey writes, First time Eric thought Eli might have another child. It’s the only thing he learned during the questioning. Eric discovered this wire transfer and became obsessed with finding Elizabeth Crane and her possible child. While interesting, it’s not helpful for Mrs. Elysian’s current predicament.
Ramsey returns the file, pulling out Macgill’s. He practically has these files memorized, but he reads through each of the oligarchs’ again, looking for a hint of their plans with Mrs. Elysian. It’s not until Sutton’s file that he finds something interesting that puts a new light to Harlow’s information.
There’s the blurry photo of Sutton exiting a building, Ellery Klein slightly visible behind him. Before, Ramsey didn’t think much about it. The picture is one of dozens, Sutton with a different activist or rebel in each.
Written after the photos is, Sutton digging into Elysian and D’Angelo secrets—high surveillance. Ramsey dismissed the sentence the first time he read it. Sutton hasn’t proven a threat to Mrs. Elysian, and she was a child when these photos were taken, unconnected to the Elysian name.
The image is becoming clearer with what Harlow shared: that Sawyer wants to give Ellery’s speech, which Harlow believes Sutton might have helped Ellery write. If Sutton had Elysian secrets and helped Ellery write a speech, there’s no telling what it might contain.
Ramsey already doubled security for Friday’s conference, but perhaps he should add more. One oligarch already derailed plans by taking Anna. He won’t let another ruin things further because of his earlier failures in rebellion.