Small bowls filled the center of the table, holding everything from grated cheese and pico de gallo to guacamole. Soft-taco night. I refrained from cheering, grabbed an apron out of the kitchen drawer, put it on, and landed in a chair next to Grandma. There was no way I could get stains on my hideously expensive suit, and taking it off and changing into casual clothes would’ve taken too long. I was too hungry.
“And the hunter home from the hill,” Bern announced.
I squinted at him. “Decided to take British Literature after all?”
“It was the lesser of two evils. The next semester will try my patience.” Bern wolfed down his food and reached for another taco. Over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, most of it bone and muscle, Bern went to judo twice a week and ate with all the appetite of a bear preparing to hibernate for winter.
I pulled a warm soft-taco shell out and began filling it with delicious things. I’d had to bust my butt to get through college as fast as I could, because I was the primary breadwinner. But now the business was making money. We weren’t rich—we probably barely scraped the bottom of the middle class—but we could afford for Bernard to take his time with his education. I wanted him to have the whole college experience. Instead he took every opportunity to pile more course work on himself.
I eyed my mom’s plate. One lone taco. Where Grandma Frida was naturally thin, with a cloud of platinum-white curls and big blue eyes, my mother used to be muscular and athletic, built with strength and endurance in mind. That was before the war left her with a permanent limp. She was softer now, rounder around the edges. It bothered her. She’d been eating less and less and a couple of weeks ago we realized she’d begun skipping dinner altogether.
“This is my third one,” Mom said. “Stop staring.”
“It is,” Grandma Frida confirmed, poking at her taco salad. “I watched her eat two.”
“I’m just making sure all of our business assets are in fighting condition.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “Can’t have you passing out from hunger on the job. Any news on Senator Garza’s thing?”
“Nope,” Grandma Frida said.
“It’s all harebrained conjecture at this point,” Mom said. “The talking heads are trying to drum up hysteria, saying it was a Prime who had to have done it.”
Senator Timothy Garza died on Saturday in front of his cousin’s house. His security detail died with him. The story was so sensational it even pushed Jeff Caldwell’s arrest onto the back burner. The police weren’t releasing any information connected to the senator’s murder, which caused the news media to froth at the mouth in outrage. Without any data, they were forced to marinate in their own speculation, and the theories were getting wilder by the minute. If a Prime had been involved, I wouldn’t be surprised. Garza had run on a platform of limiting the influence of the Houses, which didn’t exactly make him the darling of Texas magic elite. The debates during his election campaign had turned ugly fast.
“What have you been up to?” Mom asked.
I stuffed a chunk of soft taco into my mouth and chewed to buy some time. I would have to come clean. I swallowed. “I took a high-risk job.”
“How high-risk?” Mom asked.
I opened the folder and slid the ME’s report toward her. She read it. Her eyebrows furrowed. “We’re solving murders now?”
“Who got murdered?” Grandma Frida asked.
“Do you remember the animal mage I told you about? The one with a raccoon who was bringing juice to his daughter in a sippy cup?”
“Cornelius Harrison,” Bern said.
“Yes. His wife.”
My mother’s expression was growing grimmer by the second. She passed the ME report to Grandma.
Grandma glanced at the report and whistled.
“This is above our pay grade,” my mother said.
“I know,” I told her.
“Why would you take this?”
Because he’d sat in my office and cried, and I’d felt awful for him. “Because she’s dead and nobody cares. And he’s paying us very well.”
“We don’t need the money that badly,” my mother said.
“According to my sisters, we do.” I slid the photograph with dollar signs toward her.
Mom swung toward Grandma Frida. “Mom!”
Grandma Frida’s eyes got really big. “What? Don’t look at me!”
“You started this.”
Ha! Attack deflected and redirected.
“I did no such thing. I’m innocent. You always blame me for everything.”
“You started it and you encouraged it. Now look, she’s taking on murders because you’re guilt-tripping her to put food on the table. And what kind of message does this send?”
“A true-love kind of message.” Grandma Frida grinned.
Bern got up and leaned to me. “You want me to run the background on everyone?”
“Yes, please. I sent you an email. I’m going to the Assembly tomorrow, so something on Matthias Forsberg would be great.”
“Will do.” He took his plate to the sink.
“Your granddaughters don’t need a rich Prime to pay for their college!” my mom said. “That’s why their sister, their mother, and their grandmother work long hours. We pay our own way in this family.”
“Oh, come on, Penelope, you know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Well, how did you mean it exactly, Mother?”
Grandma Frida waved her hands. “I meant it to be funny! Nevada’s been moping for two months now. She’s turned into that sad donkey from the cartoons, the one that always gets rained on.”
“I haven’t been moping. I told Rogan no and if I never see him again, it will be too soon.”
“Oh, please.” Grandma rolled her eyes.
“I mean it, Grandma. Let it go. It’s not like he’s beating down our door and proclaiming his undying love to me.”
And in my secret shameful moments I daydreamed that he would do just that. I had woken up in the middle of the night once, convinced that Rogan was outside. I almost ran out there in my nightshirt. Thankfully, nobody saw me before I came to my senses.
He’d never shown up. He’d never called. He’d never emailed. He hadn’t fought for me, not even a little bit. It hammered home the fact that I was right to turn him down when he stood in my garage, told me to pick a spot on the planet, and promised me he would take me there. Mad Rogan wanted a plaything. I said no and he moved on.
“He sent you those books!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Well, who else would?” Grandma Frida spread her arms.
“Maybe it was Augustine.” Yeah, hell would freeze over first. Augustine wouldn’t move a finger unless it helped his bottom line.
“You and Rogan aren’t done.” Grandma pointed her fork at me. “Just watch. Fate will throw you two together. One day you’ll just run right into him and boom! True love.”
“Well, if Fate ever does throw us together, I’ll be sure to punch her in the face.” I turned to my mother. “Are you with me on this case or not? Because if you want to fight with me some more, now is the time to do it.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Oh. I’d just raised my voice at my mother for no reason.
“I’m sorry.”
“You told me yourself, it’s your business.”
“Mom . . .”
“Of course we’re with you,” she said. “But I don’t have to tell you this is a professional hit. You need to be careful.”
“I will be.”
“We don’t know what kind of pot you’ll be stirring. They’ll come after both you and him. They might come after us as well. Does your client have any House support?”
“No. He chose to live with his wife and daughter in Royal Oaks. He was very proud of his independence.”
“Any security on his residence?”
“Not really.” Technically, Bunny counted as security, but there was only so much one dog could do against
killers with guns.
“Wife’s parents?”
“They’re not affiliated with any prominent families, as far as I know.”
“What’s your take on him?”
I grimaced. “He worshiped his wife. He’ll do anything for revenge.”
My mother nodded. “You may want to talk to him. His little girl will be safer here with us than with his grandparents.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She sighed. “It’s my job as a mother. I can’t make you stop doing something stupid but I can help you do it in the least dangerous way possible.”
I turned and headed toward the ladder leading to my room.
“Did you see how she got all hot under the collar?” Grandma Frida said in a theatrical whisper behind me. “She’s not over him.”
“I can hear you!” I climbed the ladder and pulled it back up after me. My little loft apartment greeted me—a large bedroom and a bathroom. When we’d originally moved into the warehouse, I really wanted my privacy, and the older I grew, the more I treasured it. I took off my suit, carefully put it in the garment bag, and hung it up in the back of my closet.
I wasn’t over Rogan.
When I kissed him inside the null space, I’d almost seen into him. For a few brief moments he wasn’t Mad Rogan. He wasn’t even a Prime. He was just . . . Connor. A man. And I wanted to know that man so badly. But he’d slammed that door shut as soon as he noticed it was cracked open.
I turned on the shower to let the water warm up, and stripped. Obsessing over something that would never be did me no good. Shower, clean clothes, sleep. I had a big day tomorrow and I’d need to do some research for it before bed.
Chapter 2
The morning brought rain and Cornelius, who arrived at exactly 6:55 a.m. in a silver BMW i8. The hybrid vehicle, sleek and ultramodern, looked slightly odd, its lines varying just enough from the established norms of the gasoline cars to draw attention.
Of course he would drive a hybrid car. He likely never bought bottled water either. Bern had run all of the usual checks on him yesterday. Aside from that new mortgage, Cornelius was debt-free. He had excellent credit history and no criminal record, and he generously donated to an animal charity. He also had been right about House Forsberg’s involvement in his wife’s death. The story was getting no press. Even with Garza’s murder flooding all available news channels, a brutal slaying of four people in a hotel downtown was at least worth a quick mention. It hadn’t received one, which meant someone somewhere was actively suppressing it. If House Forsberg truly had nothing to do with it, they’d have no reason to keep it quiet.
Cornelius stepped out of the car. He wore a white dress shirt open at the collar, with sleeves rolled up, dark brown pants, and scuffed-up brown shoes that looked ancient. Comfort clothes, I realized. He must’ve chosen the outfit on autopilot and his subconscious made him reach for something old and familiar.
A large reddish bird swooped down from the overcast sky and landed on the branch of a big oak tree across the parking lot.
“This is Talon,” Cornelius said. “He’s a red-tailed hawk, commonly known as a chicken hawk, although really it’s a misnomer. They hardly ever target adult chickens. The Assembly won’t permit me to bring in a dog. It won’t permit you to bring in a gun either. However, on the fourth floor there is a bathroom where the window has been altered so it doesn’t trip the security system. It’s frequently left open.”
“Is it the secret smoking bathroom?” I guessed.
Cornelius nodded. “It’s just far enough from the smoke detector that an open window lets them get away with it. Are you armed?”
“Yes.” Before Adam Pierce, I got away with carrying a Taser 90 percent of the time. Now I didn’t leave the house without a firearm and I practiced with my guns every week. My overtime at the gun range was making my mother very happy.
“Can I see it?”
I pulled my Glock 26 out of the holster under my jacket. It was accurate, relatively light weight, and made for concealed carry. I’d opted for one of my cheap pantsuits primarily because I could get away with the kind of shoes that let me run and because the jacket was loose enough to obscure my firearm. Besides, I seriously doubted they would let me into the Assembly building in my typical attire of old jeans, running shoes, and whatever top wasn’t too wrinkled after one of my sisters dumped my laundry on my bed to make space for her own load in the dryer. I’d have to clear an X-ray and a metal detector as well.
Cornelius examined the gun. “Why does it have this bright blue paint on this part?”
“It’s matte fingernail polish. The black on black sight makes it harder to hit dark targets and the fingernail polish fixes that problem and cuts down on the glare.”
“How much does it weigh?”
“About twenty-six ounces.” I’d stuck with the standard 10 round magazine, hollow point. And I carried a lot of extra ammo. My adventures with Rogan made me paranoid.
“Talon can carry it through the bathroom window for you.”
Okay, I had to nip this in the bud. It’s not that the idea of walking into a building filled with the top crust of Houston’s magic users unarmed wasn’t giving me anxiety. It was. My favorite strategy when confronted with danger was to run away. People who ran away survived and avoided costly medical bills, loss of work hours, and increases in insurance premiums. They also escaped being lectured by their entire family about taking unnecessary risks. I used a gun only when I had no choice. Confronting a Prime inside a building filled with other Primes would make running away very difficult, so going in armed was tempting. But bringing a firearm into the Texas Assembly was suicide. Might as well pin a target to my chest with the words Terrorist. Shoot Me.
“Why would I need to bring a gun into that building?”
“It might be useful,” Cornelius said quietly.
Right. “Cornelius, if we’re going to work together, we have to agree on full disclosure. You want me to bring the gun into the Assembly because you’re convinced that Forsberg killed your wife and you want me to shoot him.”
“When I talked to them yesterday before coming to see you, one of his security people suggested that Nari may have been having an affair with one or both of the other two lawyers. When I told him it was unlikely, his exact words were, ‘We don’t always know the people we marry. Who knows what the investigation will uncover? I’ve seen it all, embezzlement, sex addicts, drugs. Terrible what sometimes comes to light.’ They’re not simply content to ignore her death. They’re now actively distancing themselves from her and, if I keep making noise, they’re threatening to smear her name.”
“That’s awful of them. But it doesn’t tell us that Matthias Forsberg is guilty. It only indicates that Forsberg Investigative Services employs scumbags and they’re trying to cover their asses.”
Cornelius looked away.
“You came to me for the truth. I’ll get the truth for you. When I point out the guilty person to you, it won’t be because of a hunch or a feeling. It will be because I’ll present you with the evidence of their guilt, because accusing someone of murder should never be done lightly. You want to be sure, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. We need evidence. We’ll search for this evidence together and we’ll do it as safely and carefully as possible, so you can come home to Matilda. According to my research, the security at the Assembly is very tight. You can’t even get into the Allen Parkway parking lot without showing ID and having a reason to be there. If we were to follow your plan, and someone discovered that I carried a firearm into that building, the security wouldn’t detain me. They would shoot me and whoever I was with.”
His face told me he didn’t like it.
“What happens if Forsberg attacks?” he asked.
“On a crowded Assembly floor? In plain view of his peers, while we’re unarmed?”
Cornelius grimaced.
I smiled at him. “I think we should table the gun idea for now.
If he attacks, I’ll do my best to handle it.”
I wasn’t exactly defenseless. As long as I could get my hands on my attacker before he or she killed me, they would be in for one unpleasant surprise. The military had been employing more and more mages. Military service wasn’t exactly a stress-free environment, and the people in charge had quickly figured out that they needed a method for neutralizing magic users. That’s how the shockers came on the scene. Getting them installed involved a specialist who reached into the arcane realm, the place beyond our fabric of existence, pulled out a creature nobody fully understood, and implanted it into your arms. I’d had mine implanted when I was hunting Adam Pierce. You primed them with your magic, suffering through some pain, and if you grabbed your victim, that pain would hit them and blossom into a convulsion-inducing agony. The shockers were supposedly nonlethal, but I had too much magic. I could kill an Average magic user, and although I had used them on a Prime only once, barely, he’d definitely felt it.
“I’ll defer to your judgment.” Cornelius opened the door of his vehicle. “Please.”
“Let’s take my car,” I said, nodding at my minivan.
He glanced at the Mazda. His face turned carefully neutral. My aging champagne mom-minivan clearly failed to make the right impression.
I walked to the minivan and opened the passenger door. “Please.”
Cornelius opened the trunk of his car and lifted out a large plastic sack similar to one of those fifty-pound bags of cheap dog food, except this one was plain white and unmarked. He heaved it onto his shoulder and carried it over to the Mazda. I opened the trunk and let him slide it in there.