SWNOVELS White Hot: 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.
We got into my car and buckled up. I drove out of the parking lot and turned right, heading to Blalock Road. Anything to avoid the hell that was the 290. Cornelius’ face was a grim mask. He didn’t trust me yet. Trust took time.
“May I ask, why your car?”
“Because I’m familiar with the way it handles and we may have to drive very fast. In addition, this type of car blends into traffic, while your vehicle stands out.” Also because my grandmother made some modifications to the engine and installed bulletproof windows after my Adam Pierce adventure, but he didn’t need to know that. “What’s in that bag?”
“It’s a private matter, unrelated to our visit to the Assembly.”
Okay. Fair enough. But now, of course, I was dying to figure out what was in there.
“Do you smoke?” I asked.
“No.”
“How do you know about the smoking bathroom?” Here’s hoping he hadn’t shared with anyone that we were planning to visit.
“My brother is deeply offended by its existence. He’s asthmatic.”
True. So far he hadn’t lied to me.
“My turn,” Cornelius said. “What do you hope to gain by speaking with Forsberg? He won’t admit any guilt.”
“I have a lot of experience with watching people, and I can usually tell when they’re lying.”
And we ran into roadwork. Of course. Now I would have to merge onto Katy Freeway.
“Curiously, that’s almost exactly what Augustine told me about you,” Cornelius said.
Augustine had kept my secret. Primes didn’t do anything without some ulterior motive. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what he was planning.
“Are you having second thoughts? It’s not too late. We can turn around and I’ll refund your retainer.”
“No.” Cornelius looked out the window. “When I woke up this morning, I thought of kidnapping Forsberg and torturing him until he told me everything he knew.”
Homicidal fantasies were never a good sign. “That would be a terrible idea. First, it’s illegal. Second, we don’t know if Forsberg is involved. If he isn’t, you would’ve tortured an innocent man. Third, my cousin ran the background on House Forsberg. While they are not the wealthiest House in Houston, their net worth is substantial and so is their private security force. If you were to kidnap Forsberg and not die in the attempt, you would be hunted down and eventually killed.”
Cornelius didn’t answer.
Bern and I had stayed up way too late with House Forsberg’s file. Matthias Milton Forsberg, fifty-two years old, was a fourth-generation Texan and very proud of it—so proud that he’d gone to the University of Texas instead of the usual Ivy League schools. He’d become the head of his House twelve years ago, when his father retired. He was married, with two adult children, Sam Houston Forsberg and Stephen Austin Forsberg, which made me laugh a little last night while drinking coffee. It was good that he’d stopped at two, because nobody was quite sure which man Dallas was named after. Matthias had never been arrested, never served in the military, and never declared bankruptcy. He did own a lot of houses.
Magically he was a hopper. Hoppers compressed the space around them, propelling themselves or others through it. Usually their hops were short-range, topping out at thirty yards. Still, they could cover short distances very quickly and were hard to target while hopping, which made them highly sought after by the military. I’d never encountered one before, so I had watched some YouTube videos. Most of them consisted of guys between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five launching things at walls with their magic, such as watermelons, pumpkins, cans of paint, and in one particular extra-stupid video, a gallon of gasoline with a lighted fuse made out of a long sock. That went about as well as you would expect. Most of them tried to throw each other or themselves as well, but none had enough power. The best they could do was stagger their friends a few feet. According to Bern, the mass and size of the object were a factor.
The internet claimed that Prime-rank hoppers could pass through solid walls if they timed their jumps right. If that was true, Forsberg’s reputation for flirting with corporate espionage made perfect sense.
Public records and YouTube videos weren’t much to go on, but unlike me, Cornelius had access to the House database and he’d probably met Forsberg.
“What can you tell me about Matthias Forsberg?” I asked.
“He’s a typical Houston Prime; he safeguards the family wealth, he has firm ideas of what is and isn’t proper for a person of his social standing, and he avoids public scrutiny. He considers very few people his equals and treats the rest with contempt.”
“Can he hop through walls?”
“Yes. Could you take the next exit, please?”
I pulled off the freeway.
“Make a right and park, please.”
We made a right and stopped before a construction site. The steel bones of the building were beginning to take shape, wrapped in scaffolding. Cornelius got out, took the sack out of the trunk, and walked down the road between the buildings, disappearing from view. Talon swooped down, following him.
What could be in the sack? It was plastic, reinforced with mesh. He could have body parts in there and I would never know.
I drummed my fingers on the dashboard and turned on the radio. “. . . no updates on Senator Garza’s murder investigation. The police department remains . . .”
I turned it off.
It couldn’t be body parts. They would’ve made bulges. The sack seemed uniform, so unless he’d minced the body parts into mush . . . Okay, this was just morbid. Four months ago it wouldn’t even occur to me that there might be body parts in the sack.
Cornelius reappeared, carrying an empty sack. If it had been filled with something nasty, I would smell it when he put it back in the car.
He folded the sack carefully and put it in the trunk. Nope, no weird smells. No suspicious dripping.
“Thank you,” he said. “We can be on our way now.”
The Assembly occupied the America Tower, a graceful skyscraper on the corner of Waugh Drive and Allen Parkway. The forty-two stories of pale concrete and dark windows rose in elegant curves to almost six hundred feet above Houston’s midtown. This December had brought endless rain, complete with floods, and a perpetually gloomy overcast sky. The America Tower stood out against this dark backdrop as if some wizard’s mystical spire had escaped its legend and appeared in the middle of Houston. It was filled with mages, except this kind of mage wouldn’t sing songs in a bumbling, adorable way or send you on a heroic quest. They would murder you in an instant and then their lawyers would make any hints of a criminal investigation disappear.
We cleared a security booth, where Cornelius had to show his ID, then parked and stepped out of the car. Talon dived over us and took off, flying past a large dandelion-shaped fountain wrapped in a white fuzz of mist to the trees on the side.
We walked past the perfectly manicured emerald-green lawn toward the glass entrance. I missed the weight of my gun, but the Glock had to stay in the car.
“How does your magic work?” I asked softly. “Are you telepathically controlling Talon? Could you see through his eyes?”
“No.” Cornelius shook his head. “He’s his own bird. I give him food, shelter, and affection, and in return, when I ask for a favor, he answers.”
Talon wasn’t just a bird, he was a pet. That probably meant that Bunny was also a pet. If any of his animals got hurt, Cornelius would react very strongly. I would have to keep it in mind.
We were almost to the doors.
“Forsberg probably won’t dignify any of my questions with an answer,” I said.
“I agree.”
“You may have to do the asking. I want you to be blunt. Yes-or-no questions are best.”
“So you need me to walk up to him and ask him if he’s responsible for Nari’s death?”
“No, that’s too broad a term. He may have had nothing to do with it, but he may feel guilty or upset because of what happened to her. We know that he himself didn’t do it, because at the time of the murder, he was photographed by about fifty people at the Firemen’s Annual Fundraiser Dinner. Ask him if he ordered her killed. No matter what he answers, your second question should be ‘Do you know who did?’ We need to see his reaction. Keep your questions short and to the point and don’t elaborate so he doesn’t have a way to weasel out of it. Silence puts people under a lot of pressure and they’ll try to respond. If I think he’s lying, I’ll nod.”
Cornelius held the door open for me and we walked into the lobby. The blast of air-conditioning after the rain made me shiver. The temperature outside hovered around the low seventies, but inside it must’ve been barely above sixty degrees. The floor, high-gloss sandy-brown marble, gleamed like a mirror. Logic said they had to have installed it in tiles, but I couldn’t even see the grout lines. The same marble sheathed the walls. In the center of the floor, three banks of elevators offered access to upstairs. Four guards, dressed in crisp white shirts and black pants and armed with Remington tactical shotguns, stood at the strategic points near the walls. Three more manned the desk in front of the metal detector. The Assembly’s guards weren’t playing. Prime or not, a tactical shotgun would make me reconsider any mischief really fast.
If I pointed a gun in their direction, they would fire without a second thought and whoever was in the immediate vicinity would be caught in that blast.
“You were right,” Cornelius said quietly.
“Thank you.”
We reached the desk, where Cornelius got a “Welcome, Mr. Harrison. We’re glad to see you again.” I got to pull out two forms of ID and fill out a three-page questionnaire that included my blood type and medical-insurance provider before they eventually issued me a one-day pass.
Finally, we made our way to the elevators. According to Cornelius, Forsberg would be on the twenty-fifth floor. I pushed the appropriate button and the elevator rose. The doors opened on the fourth floor and a man in a hooded robe strode in. The robe was jet black, split on the sides like the tabard of some medieval knight, and equipped with a deep hood that hid its owner’s face. Only his chin with a carefully trimmed red beard was visible. A dark green stole draped his shoulders, shining with silver embroidery. Underneath the robe the man wore black pants tucked into soft black boots that came halfway up his ankle, and a black shirt. He looked frightening, almost menacing, like a mage ready for war.
I took a step to the side, giving him room.
The man pushed the button for the tenth floor. A moment later the doors opened and he stepped out.
Another robed person, a woman this time judging by the braid of dark hair spilling from the hood, walked up to him before the doors closed, hiding them from view.
“Why are they dressed that way?” I murmured.
“It’s tradition. The Assembly has a Lower Chamber, where every Prime and Significant of a qualified House can vote, and the Upper Chamber, where only Prime heads of Houses can vote. The robes mean they belong to the Upper Chamber.”
The elevator stopped three floors later and another robed man got in, his stole gold embroidered with black.
“Cornelius!”
The mage pulled back his hood, revealing the handsome face of a man in his early sixties, with bold features, a broad forehead, and smart hazel eyes caught in the network of wrinkles. A short beard, black and sprinkled with silver, hugged his jaw. His hair, once probably dark with some white, but now mostly white with some dark, was brushed away from his face. He looked like your favorite uncle who lived somewhere in Italy, owned a vineyard, laughed easily, and hugged you when you came to visit. Right now his face showed concern, and his eyes were saddened.
“My boy, I just heard.” The man hugged Cornelius. “I’m so sorry.”
His regret was genuine. How about that?
“Thank you.”
“Words can’t express . . .” The man fell silent. “You, the young, you’re not supposed to die. Old men like me, we come to terms with our own death. We’ve lived full lives. But this . . . this is an outrage. What is Forsberg doing about it?”
“Nothing,” Cornelius said.
The man drew back. His deep, resonant voice rose. “Nari was an employee of his House. What do you mean he’s doing nothing? It’s his duty. The honor of his House is at stake.”
“I don’t believe he cares,” Cornelius said.
“This would’ve never happened under his father. There are certain things that the head of a House simply does. Let me see what I can do. My voice may not be as loud as it once was, but people still listen to it. If you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.”
True. A sincere Prime who actually showed compassion.
“Thank you.”
The man got off on the twentieth floor.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Linus Duncan,” Cornelius said. “Very old, very powerful House. He used to be the Speaker of the Upper Chamber. The most powerful man in Houston. Until they drove him out.”
“Why?”
“Because he was honest and he tried to change the Assembly for the better,” Cornelius said.
It didn’t surprise me. Houses feared change like it was a rabid tiger.
The elevator chimed, announcing our floor. We stepped off and turned right. Near the middle of the long hallway, by an open door, three men stood together discussing something, all dark-haired, middle-aged, and wearing black robes with their hoods down. One of them was Matthias Forsberg. Of average height but with the broad, sturdy frame of an aging football player, Forsberg stood out. His shoulders were wide and heavy, his stance direct. He planted his feet as if he expected to be run over. His face, with dark eyes, wide eyebrows that angled down without any hint of an arch, and a hint of softness around the chin, didn’t match his body.
Cornelius sped up, heading toward the men. I chased after him. Forsberg raised his head, glancing in our direction. His expression changed from tense to alarmed. The two other men looked in our direction and moved to the other end of the hallway, leaving Forsberg alone.
“Harrison,” Forsberg said, looking like he just found some rotten potatoes in his pantry. “My condolences.”
“Did you order the death of my wife?” Cornelius asked. His voice rang out. People looked in our direction. Smart. Forsberg would have to respond now and it was clear he wasn’t used to backing down.
“Are you out of your mind?” Forsberg growled.
“Yes or no, Matthias.”
“No!”
Truth.
“Do you know who did?”
“Of course not.”
My magic buzzed, an angry invisible mosquito. Lie. I nodded.
“If I did, I’d take action.”
Lie.
“Was her death connected to the business of your house?”
“No.”
Lie.
Cornelius looked at me. I nodded again.
“Tell me who killed my wife,” Cornelius ground out through his teeth.
Argh. Wrong question.
“You’re delusional and grieving,” Forsberg said. His expression hardened. “This is the only reason you’re still breathing. I’m going to give you one chance to get out of this building . . .”
His gaze snagged on something behind me. His eyes opened wide and I saw fear ignite in their depths. It was so at odds with the bullheaded arrogance he projected, I almost did a double take.
I looked over my shoulder.
A tall man was striding from the far end of the hallway. He wore the black robe and it flared around him, the wings of a raven about to take flight. He walked like he owned the building and he’d spotted an intruder in his domain. Magic boiled around him, vicious and lethal, so potent I could feel it from thirty yards away. He wasn’t a man, he was an elemental force, a thunderstorm clad in black about to unleash its fury. People flattened themselves against the walls, trying to get out of his way. I saw his face and recoiled. Chiseled chin, strong nose, and blue eyes blazing with power under dark slashes of eyebrows.
Mad Rogan.
My heart hammered so fast; my chest was about to explode.
He was coming toward me.
Our stares connected. I clamped all my thoughts into a steel fist, trying to keep my reaction under control.
His expression softened and for a fraction of a second I saw him looking at me with a mix of surprise and relief. Then the gaze of those furious eyes fixed on Forsberg with predatory focus. I knew that expression. It said, “Murder.”
I whipped around. Panic drowned Forsberg’s face. Magic contracted around him, compressing in on itself like a spring coiling under pressure. The hallway around me stretched back as if marble and metal suddenly became elastic.
I shoved Cornelius out of the way.
The hallway compacted like an aluminum can flattened by pressure and suddenly I was airborne. I hurtled through the air, straight at Mad Rogan.
Fate threw us at each other. I could never tell Grandma.
I crashed into Rogan. Strong arms caught me. The impact spun us around, and I landed upright on the floor to the right of him. Before my feet touched the marble, Rogan hurled a handful of quarters in the air. The coins streaked at Forsberg, flattened bullets driven by Rogan’s power, dodging random people in the hallway as they shot toward their target.
The air around Forsberg shimmered. The coins collided with the shimmer and fell to the ground, bouncing from an invincible barrier. Forsberg blurred, landing twenty yards back from where he’d been.
“Shoot him,” Rogan said, his voice clipped.
“No gun.”
Forsberg looked scared to death. People who panicked didn’t think; they ran. I dashed toward the elevator. We had to beat him to the lobby.
Forsberg jumped straight up, blurred, and then fell through the floor. I caught myself on the corner of the short hallway leading to the elevator, slid on the marble floor, and mashed the button going down. Rogan was only a step behind me.
The elevator doors slid open and we rushed inside. I hit the button for the lobby. The door began to slide closed and Cornelius squeezed through the gap at the last moment, causing them to reopen. Rogan jerked the animal mage off his feet, slamming him against the elevator wall, his forearm pressed against the blond man’s throat. Cornelius groaned, his feet above the ground, all of his weight pushing his neck against Rogan’s forearm.
“Drop my client!” I barked.
Rogan pressed harder. Cornelius’ face turned red. I’d seen what Rogan could do with his bare hands to a person. If I didn’t pry Cornelius away from him, Rogan would crush his windpipe.
“Rogan! He’s a . . . he’s a civilian!”
Rogan stepped back as if I’d thrown a switch. Cornelius dropped to the floor, gulping air. Apparently I’d said the magic word.
“Try that again and I’ll shock you into oblivion,” I ground out.
The elevator doors opened. Twelfth floor. Rogan pushed the button, forcing the doors to close, and peered at Cornelius. “Is this my replacement?”
What? “I didn’t replace you!”
“Of course not. I’m irreplaceable.”
Cornelius finally managed to squeeze out a word. “Rogan? The Butcher of Merida? Mad Rogan?”
“Yes,” Rogan and I said in unison.
“Is this the R on the dress?” Cornelius’ eyes were wide.
Think of clouds, think of bunnies, don’t think about the wedding-gown pictures . Rogan claimed he wasn’t telepathic, but he could project images, which meant he could probably pick up impressions if I concentrated on things too much.
“Dress? What dress?” Rogan asked, honing in on the word like a shark sensing blood in the water.
“Never mind,” I told him. “Cornelius, not another word or I walk.”
Rogan’s eyes narrowed. He’d recognized the name. He was involved in this thing with Forsberg up to his elbows. Just my luck.
Number two above us blinked. Almost there.
Rogan tossed the coins in the air and the quarters hung around him motionless. His magic brushed past me, a raging, terrible beast. Shivers ran down my spine. Suddenly the past two months of normal life tore apart, like fragile paper, and I was right back next to Rogan, about to charge into a fight. And it felt right. It felt like I’d been sleepwalking and had suddenly woken up.
I had to get away from him as soon as I could. He was bad for me on every level.
“Alive!” I told him. “I need Forsberg alive.”
The doors chimed and opened. We burst into the lobby to a wall of shotguns pointed in our direction. Behind the security, Forsberg lay on the floor on his back. A puddle of red slowly spread from his head. His eyes were gone. In their place two blood-filled holes gaped at the ceiling.
Rogan swore.
Normally it would’ve taken me days to extricate myself from the clutches of the Assembly’s security. With Rogan emanating menace and Cornelius explaining things in a calm, patient tone one normally used with small children, we walked out of the building in twenty minutes. They stuck to the truth: Forsberg attacked Rogan without provocation. Cornelius and I just happened to be in the way, and there were a dozen witnesses who would confirm it. When one of the security people asked if Rogan had threatened Forsberg, the Scourge of Mexico looked at him for a moment and condescended to explain that he hadn’t threatened anyone. He had been moving though the hallway with a purpose because he had someplace to be and if they had a problem identifying the difference between that and him actually threatening someone, he would be happy to demonstrate. They decided not to question him further after that.
Outside, Rogan raised his head and squinted at the sun that broke through the overcast sky. The robes were really too much. He needed some crimson banners and a glowing staff and he’d be all set.
His face was tight. He was pissed off. I was pissed off too. We’d lost Forsberg and we had no idea how he’d died, let alone any clues as to who might have helped him on his way. House Forsberg would circle the wagons and hunker down now. Everything about this investigation had just become a lot harder.
“Since when did you stop carrying your gun?” Rogan asked.
“Mr. Rogan . . .”
“Oh no.” Rogan glanced at Cornelius. “We’re back to formal ground. I’m clearly out of favor.”
“Mr. Rogan . . .”
“Why are you mad at me?”
I made a heroic effort to keep my voice calm and measured. “You panicked the witness I was interrogating, causing him to throw me around like a rag doll, hop his way through the floors, and get himself killed, which really complicates my life and robs my client of an opportunity to discover why his wife was murdered, and then you almost strangled said client in an elevator.”
“It does sound bad when you put it that way, Ms. Baylor.”
His words were meant to sound light, but his eyes remained dark and grim. Something bad had happened to Rogan. I almost reached out, then caught myself. No.
No.
The man was a disease and I couldn’t get rid of the infection as it was. I so didn’t need another outbreak of Rogan fever.
Two Range Rovers pulled up, one gunmetal grey, the other white, both with familiar thick and tinted windows. Rogan owned a fleet of VR9 armored cars. They were state-of-the-art custom vehicles, built to be armored from the ground up while looking perfectly normal and blending into traffic, and they handled like a dream. I’d ridden in one just before Adam Pierce blew it up.
An athletic man in his twenties, with short blond hair and military bearing, jumped out of the grey Range Rover and brought the keys to Rogan. “Sir. Ms. Baylor.”
“Hello, Troy.” I was there when Troy had his job interview and was hired. He was ex-military and Rogan had saved him from a foreclosure. Today Troy wore a hip holster, full and in plain view.
“How is being an evil henchman treating you?”
“Can’t complain, ma’am. It’s a good gig if you can get it.”
Of course. Complaining wouldn’t be evil-henchman-like. Rogan’s people worshiped the ground he walked on. If Troy was any indication, he found them at the lowest point of their lives and offered them a chance to be somebody. To matter, to have a well-paying job they would be really good at, and to provide for their families. A pack of hounds raised from puppies couldn’t be more devoted. I just wasn’t sure he ever saw them as anything more than assets at his disposal.
Rogan turned to me. “Come with me to my house. I have some information you’ll want.”
Enter my lair, said the dragon. I have shiny treasure for you to play with, I’ll keep you warm and safe, and if it suits my purpose, I’ll chain you to the floor and kill your client by throwing quarters at him with my magic. Been there, done that.
“I don’t think so. But I’ll be happy to discuss things with you in daylight in a very public place. Would you like my card?”
When I was in college, one of my professors liked creative descriptions, and whenever he had to indicate that some historical figure was in a moment of monumental rage, he’d say he had thunder on his brow and lightning in his eye. I never understood what that phrase meant until Rogan’s face demonstrated it for me.
Cornelius took a careful step back. Troy backed up too. Yes, I did just tell Mad Rogan no, and look, the planet was still turning.
“Your card?” Rogan said, his voice very calm and quiet.
“It’s a little piece of paper that has my phone number, email address, and other contact information on it.” I waited to see if his head would explode. I shouldn’t have taunted him, but I was really pissed off. We’d had Forsberg until he butted in.
Rogan pivoted to Cornelius. “My condolences on your loss. It would be my honor to have you as my guest tonight. Permit me a chance to make up for our earlier misunderstanding.”
How nicely put. “You mean the part where you almost choked the life out of him?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t get into his car,” I told Cornelius. “He’s dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Thank you,” Rogan said.
“Your life means absolutely nothing to him,” I continued. “When he doesn’t like somebody, he hits them with a bus.”
“I have no desire to start a feud with House Harrison,” Rogan said.
Truth.
“I guarantee your safety.”
Also truth.
“And I have a recording of your wife’s final moments,” Rogan said.
Bastard.
Cornelius glanced at me.
“He isn’t lying,” I told him. “But if you get into that car, I don’t know if he’ll let you leave. Please don’t do this.”
Cornelius squared his shoulders. “I’d be delighted to accept your invitation.”
Damn it. Why don’t people ever listen to me?
Rogan opened the back passenger door of the Range Rover. Cornelius got in. Rogan leaned over the open door to look at Cornelius.
“Would you mind if your employee joined us?”
“Of course not,” Cornelius said.
Rogan turned to me. “See? Your employer doesn’t mind. If I’m such a villain, why don’t you tag along to ensure his safety?”
He was insufferable. That was the long and short of it. And getting into the same car with him was out of the question. The more distance between us, the better. Except now he had my client in his claws.
“I’ll follow you in my car. Cornelius, he also projects, so try not to think about anything you don’t want him to pick up.”
Rogan stepped close to me. Too close. I wished my body would stop betraying me every time he shortened the distance.
His voice was intimate. “I’m not one to judge, but it seems to me that you’re not taking me seriously as a threat. I could kill him en route.”
I crossed my arms on my chest. “Really? You’re actually going to stoop to direct threats now?”
“You think the worst of me, and you know how I hate to disappoint. Troy will be happy to drive your vehicle.”
Okay, something was definitely off with him. The Rogan I remembered was direct, but he could also be subtle. This wasn’t even remotely subtle. He had another car following him and usually he preferred to travel alone. He was twisting my arm trying to get me into his armored vehicle. The cars had parked so their bulk blocked us from anyone entering the parking lot. Troy wore his sidearm in plain view. This wasn’t about abducting Cornelius or forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do. This was about safety. Both Cornelius and I would be much safer in a state-of-the-art armored vehicle than in my minivan.
As much as I wanted to be away from Rogan, if he was concerned about safety, I’d be an idiot not to take it seriously.
I handed the keys to Troy. “Mazda van over there. She handles light.”
Troy nodded and jogged around the cars.
I walked up to Rogan’s Range Rover, sat in the front passenger seat, and buckled my seat belt. I’d just have to endure and not think of him sitting next to me.
You’d think two months of not seeing him would’ve made a difference, and it had. It made whatever was pulling me to him worse. Yeah, do you remember how you woke and ran downstairs, because you thought you saw him, and when you opened the door, nobody was there?
He shut my door and got into the driver’s seat, scanning the parking lot in front of us with a thousand-yard stare. “There is a Sig in the glove compartment.”
I opened the glove compartment, took out the Sig, checked it, and put it on my lap.
“What happened?” I asked quietly.
“I lost some people,” he said. There was an awful finality in his voice.
I hadn’t thought he cared. I’d thought he viewed his people as tools and took care of them because tools had to be kept in good repair, but this sounded like genuine grief—that complicated cocktail of guilt, regret, and overwhelming sadness you felt when someone close to you died. It broke you and made you feel helpless. Helpless wasn’t even in Rogan’s vocabulary. Maybe I’d been wrong then or maybe I was wrong now. Time would tell one way or the other.
I closed my mouth and watched Houston slide by outside the window, searching the warm winter day for something I might have to shoot.