The fresh, deep smell of coffee brewing rolled over my senses and drew me on.
“Hacking?” Terric asked.
Jolie sat at the small table, three pieces of buttered toast stacked on the plate in front of her. Terric leaned against the counter by the coffee pot.
I opened the fridge, pulled out the homemade apricot jam my mother had given me a week ago. It was packaged with a fancy hand-crafted label. She was selling her homemade jams out of her restaurant and inn, and apparently couldn’t keep it on the shelf.
“Some hacking,” Jolie said. “Nothing illegal.”
“All hacking is illegal.”
“If you hack for the Feds it’s not,” she said.
I set the jam on the table in front of her. “Were you hacking for the Feds?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Who, Jolie?” Terric asked.
She tipped her head down and shoved toast in her mouth. “The Russians.”
“The Russian what?” Terric asked.
“Mob.”
I whistled and Terric cussed. “The fuck, Jolie? You’re hacking for the Russian mob?”
“Not any more, duh.”
“Do. Not,” Terric snapped.
Jolie studied him, glanced at me.
“He is pissed as hell at you right now,” I provided helpfully, crossing my arms over my chest.
Her eyebrows dipped and her gaze measured both of us. Out of the corner of my eye, Terric stood as a mirror reflection to me: arms crossed over his chest, feet spread.
Jesus. This connection between us had crept into everything we did.
I turned to the cupboard and drew out mugs.
“Explain.” Terric growled. When that man devolved down to one-word demands, he was more than pissed.
The dead plants on the window sill stirred as if a breeze had just blasted through the room. Which it hadn’t. He was letting Life magic slip.
That wasn’t good. That was never good.
Jolie glanced that way, startled.
“Leaky seal around the window,” I said. “I told you to fix that, Terric.”
He turned his gaze on me, and there was anger and magic burning there.
“That leaky window is really doing a job on those plants,” I said, pushing those words, and the intent behind them, through our connection and into his thick, angry, magic-muddled head.
“Window?” he asked.
I picked up his hand and used it to point at the window. I also sent a snap of Death magic at him.
“That window.”
“Ow. Oh,” he said. “Right. I’ll take care of it.”
He drew Life magic back under control and the plants stopped moving.
“So how deep is this shit pit you’ve dug yourself into?” I asked Jolie as I poured coffee.
“Deep.” She put her toast down and looked a little sick.
I offered her the coffee. Her hand shook as she took it.
“It would be best to be really, really clear about it,” I said. “We promise to hear you out. Won’t we, Terric?”
I stuck a coffee mug against his chest and stood so I was blocking his view of his sister.
Ice blue eyes ticked down to me. I raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to listen to the situation your sister got herself into and see if we can’t get her out of it, right?”
His mouth did that sour lemon thing.
“The mob,” he repeated.
“People make mistakes.”
“Not with the mob.”
“The mob are people too.”
His nostril’s flared, but he nodded shortly. “Out of the way, Shame.”
I dipped my head and stepped aside. He took the coffee out of my hand and sat at the table across from Jolie.
I gave her a wink from behind Terric’s back.
She still looked a little green: pink patches of heat on her cheeks and pale everywhere else.
She was scared. Terrified.
“Just take it slow and walk us through it,” I said over Mr. Brood and Silent’s head.
I leaned on the counter behind Terric and thought calm thoughts, because, hell, one of us ought to.
“I met this girl,” she started. “She was making money doing some computer work for a guy who was trying to get his business up and running.”
“Business?” I asked.
“Records. Vinyl, 8-tracks. Hipster shit.”
“Go on.”
“She said there was more work than she could handle. Offered to hook me up. I started working for him. Building basic inventory systems, tracking software. Stuff like that. He bought and sold in practically every country, so there were taxes, money conversions and a lot of paperwork. It was a pretty big job for a start up that didn’t even have a name or an outlet store. He did own a shitload of warehouses. All over the world.”
“Guns, drugs, or human trafficking?” I asked.
Her eyes ticked to the left for a moment. She was either lying, or didn’t like what she was about to tell me.
“All three, I think. I jumped ship as soon as I found proof that guns and drugs were involved.”
“Jumped ship?” I asked.
She gulped down some coffee, stared in her cup. From this angle, I could see the frightened ten-year-old in her. But when her eyes pulled back up to meet mine, she was not a frightened girl. She was a woman who intended to survive.
“I re-appropriated their funds.”
I tipped my head as if I hadn’t heard her. “Excuse me? You stole from the mob?”
“No. I funneled their funds into charitable organizations. A...lot of charitable organizations.”
“Hoo-lee shit.” I laughed. “What happens if the charitable organizations track where all that money is coming from?”
She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be hard to find the link. And then...well, some of the organizations would probably go to the police. Or the Feds.”
“How much money?” Terric-the-Silent finally asked.
“A lot. Like...a lot.”
“Do the Russians know you did it?” I asked.
“I didn’t stay to find out.”
I sucked air in through my teeth. “Ouch.”
“What?” she asked.
“It would have been better if you had stayed,” Terric said.
“Except I’d be dead by now.”
“Have you seen that kind of activity out of them?” I asked.
She tipped her eyes down again, drank coffee. “Megan’s missing.”
“Who?”
“My friend who got me the job.”
“And you think she’s dead?” Terric asked. “Jolie, do you have proof? College kids run off, drop out every day.”
“I don’t think she bailed. I think she’s...gone. And like you said, college kids drop out of sight all the time. Maybe the Russians will think that’s what I did.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you believed that,” I said.
“You still have contacts, don’t you?” she said to Terric. “All those years you worked for the Authority, you must have met people who can deal with this stuff.”
“Why do you think I worked for the Authority for years?”
“I’m curious. And smart. And quiet. People tend to ignore me. Especially when I was younger. So I did some digging.”
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“I figured it out when I was nine. You suddenly went away to go to school in Portland with some old man who said he’d take you in as a private student. I never believed you went off to learn graphic design.”
“I did, actually.”
That was the time I’d first met Terric. We’d both been about fourteen when we’d started training with Victor and the Authority along with Zayvion , and several others.
“But it wasn’t all you lea
rned from that man,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head once. “But you know that no one can use magic like we did...before...”
“Before?”
“Before the Authority went public with all the secret magic it was hiding,” I added over the top of my mug. “Before magic got shut down for good.”
“About that,” she said. “I’ve done a little digging into why magic isn’t accessible to everyone any more. Why it doesn’t work. Why it suddenly stopped working.”
“And?” I asked.
“Maybe you have a theory I should know about?” she asked.
“Global warming?”
She rolled her eyes.
Terric and I hadn’t told anyone we were to blame for locking magic up. I might be Death , but I’m not suicidal.
“How should I know?” I said. “Maybe magic just turns off every so many hundred years. It’s not like anyone has kept good records on it.”
“Except maybe the Authority?” she said.
No wonder she’d found out about the Authority when she was nine. She was more than curious, she was tenacious. That was a dangerous and, I admitted, an intriguing combination to be all wrapped up in her mostly - innocent looking package.
“If the Authority had records on that,” I said, dead serious, “we haven’t seen them. No one’s seen them. Not even the intelligence agencies that swooped down on the Authority’s twitching corpse and tore it apart, data bit by data bit.”
“You don’t think someone in the Authority destroyed the records before the intelligence agencies got there do you?”
“They were magic users,” Terric said quietly. “If they wanted something, anything, or anyone gone—that’s what happened. No matter the cost.”
“But you still have contacts, right?” she said. “People you could talk to. People who could help me disappear?”
“Jesus, Jolie,” Terric said. “You’re not going to disappear.”
“Aren’t I? I knew what I was doing, Terric. I knew how much it would piss them off. And unless you’re going to take on the entire Russian mob, big brother, I don’t see any other way out of this.”
“There’s always a way out,” he said.
“I’m open for suggestions.”
“I don’t have one. Yet. Until we figure it out, you’re staying here with us.”
I choked on my coffee. Was pretty sure we’d just decided the opposite of that.
“Really?” she said, all hopeful eyes and fast heartbeat.
“Of course, really.”
Looking at her, at that hope, I felt like a total heel for wanting to send her back home, send her far, far away from us and the current mess we were in.
“Terric?” I said. “A word?” I walked out of the kitchen. “What happened to ten minutes ago? Where we decided there was no way we were going to let her live in this very dangerous house?”
“Where else is she supposed to go?” he angry-whispered. “Who else but you and I can keep her safe?”
“Keep her safe while we deal with someone killing with magic?” I asked. “If that goes to hell and we don’t find out who’s doing that, the Russian mob’s going to look like fuzzy duckies compared to the fight we’re headed into.”
“I know.”
“Someone is killing people with magic,” I reminded him, as he had reminded me just a few hours ago. “Killing.”
He inhaled, exhaled, his worry and pain churning between us. “What do you want me to do, Shame? Where can we send her so she’ll be safe?”
I thought about the basement storage under Jak’s shop and knew even that wouldn’t keep her away from the mob for long. There wasn’t any place I could think of where she’d be safe.
“Fuck.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“So we what? Kill a few high-powered members of the mob? Let them know snuffing a few of their guys meant they got off easy? Tell them if they try to touch her we’ll tear them apart nuts to nails?”
“We can’t just meet them in an alley with guns,” he said.
“We wouldn’t need guns.”
“Then how would you kill them?” Jolie asked from where she was leaning on the doorway to the hall.
Terric stiffened, his gaze shooting up over my shoulder.
I turned so I could see her. “Really? How does you listening in on our private conversation in my house work?”
“I didn’t think it was that private.”
“We were whispering.”
“But you weren’t behind closed doors.”
“Terric, I’m going to throttle your sister.”
“Take a number, Flynn.”
The front door opened.
Terric and I shifted toward it. Jolie pressed against the wall, smaller than the shadow in the hall.
Chapter 6
“We’ve got another dead guy,” Dash said, back toward us as he kicked the door closed. “Same as the other two. Death by magi—” He spun our way, a pizza box in his hands. Took in Terric, me. Looked behind us, found Jolie.
“—it’s not a good time, is it?” he said.
“Never a bad time for pizza,” I said.
Jolie eased out from the shadows and stood there, one hand clasped against her elbow.
“Dash,” Terric said, “this is Y “
“Your sister, Jolie.” Dash finished for him.
“Yes,” Terric said, confused. “How did you know?”
“You had pictures of your family on your walls at your old place. You named them all off to me once.”
“Three years ago?”
He shrugged. “I have a good memory. Also, I see the family resemblance.” He handed Jolie the pizza box. “Hey. I’m Dash. Nice to meet you. Hope you like pepperoni.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“We’ll be at the table in a minute,” Terric said.
She feigned surprise. “Oh? I’m supposed to sit in the kitchen while you all talk about the dead guy and magic, right?”
“You came here for our help,” Terric said. “Stop getting in the way of us trying to do that.”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll just eat pizza while the men solve my problems.”
“Sarcasm,” I said. “I like it. As soon as we men figure out what resources we can throw at your problems, you’ll get a vote in how those resources are used. And no, we’re not going to let you in on our talk. Just because you think you know what’s been going on in our lives for the last decade doesn’t mean you do.”
“Well, I can’t help you help me if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Those are ground rules, Jolie. You’re family. But that doesn’t give you the right to use us any way you see fit.”
Her cheeks went a high color and her chin tipped up, eyes flashing dangerously. Every inch of her radiated the need to yell.
I waited for it. For her to scream about how unfair her life was, because, yes, I sympathized. Life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that we would have to make some decision about her life without her.
“I’m not a child,” she said evenly.
“I know. Believe me I know. You got this far on your own, kept your head above water. I respect the hell out of you for that. But you need to give us a few minutes to lower the lifeboat before you start shooting holes in it, okay?”
“Better be beer in the lifeboat,” she muttered.
I grinned. “Might manage a Bud.”
“Rogue Ale or don’t bother rowing home.”
She had good taste.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She walked off into the kitchen, shoulders straight, head held high.
Woman was full of spunk.
“Don’t know that I appreciate your tone with my little sister, Shame,” Terric said. “Or how you’re looking
at her.”
“I’m not looking at her.”
“You remember we’re connected? I know exactly how you’re looking at her.”
“Outside, gentlemen?” Dash suggested.
We took it outside. Closed the door and stood over by the cars where it would be practically impossible for Jolie to hear us.
“Why is your sister here?” Dash asked.
“She got herself mixed up with the Russian mob.”
“Oh, hell.”
Terric nodded.
“How bad?”
“Well,” Terric said, “the best plan we have so far is to go kill a few people until they understand they need to back off.”
“Is negotiation out of the question?”
“Don’t think they’ll want to talk.” I lit a cig, took a puff. “She funneled a crapload of their money into charity organizations.”
Dash grinned and ran his fingers back through thick hair. “You Conleys like to poke bears with sticks, don’t you?”
“She got tangled up in their business routing international drug and gun deals,” Terric said. “Bailed with her middle fingers flying.”
“Okay,” he said. “Who are we going to kill? And how is that not going to make her more of a target?”
“We haven’t figured that part out yet,” I said. “Terric and I could take a trip up to Seattle. Kick over some hives.”
“That will to take too long and leave a messy trail,” he said.
“True,” I said.
“She knows who she was working for,” Dash said. “Let’s get that info out of her, track it back to the boss’s boss, or however high up we have to go. Set up a meeting. Explain that we want this handled without bloodshed. Explain why it’s in their best interests to leave her alone before all the blood that gets shed is theirs.”
I sucked on the cigarette, considering it. My usual gut response to threat was to hit back hard, but Dash’s way might be better.
“Russians aren’t going to believe us without proof of what we can do to them,” Terric said.
“So you prove it to them,” Dash said. “That’s where the meeting comes in.”
“Prove, as in: kill them with magic?” I asked. “I’d rather not let the Russian mob in on that little secret.”
“You don’t have to show them how you kill. Just that you’re more than willing to do it. Maybe to someone they care about.”