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  “On Tuesday night my wife called at nine thirty to tell me she would be working late.” Cornelius’ voice lost all emotion. “At eleven, she and three other lawyers from her department walked into Hotel Sha Sha. They came out in body bags. There is an established way to handle matters when someone dies in the service of your House. When I approached House Forsberg this morning, I was told that my wife’s death is a private matter, unconnected to her job.”

  “What makes you think it was connected?” Hotel Sha Sha was an expensive boutique hotel, located on Main Street. It was small and private and just upscale enough to add glamor to a clandestine meeting without breaking the bank. I’d tailed more than one cheating spouse there.

  “I may not be a Prime, but I’m still a Significant and a member of a House. When I ask for information, I get it.” Cornelius reached into the folder and handed me a piece of paper. “Nari was shot twenty-two times. Her body”—his voice caught—“her body was riddled with bullets.”

  I scanned the ME report. Nari Harrison’s body showed bullet wounds from left and right sides. They had to have occurred simultaneously, because the trajectory of the projectiles would’ve changed once she fell. Two of the gunshot wounds were in her forehead. The ME noted that her face showed signs of gunfire stippling. In the margins of the report someone had scrawled notes in shorthand, as if writing something in hurry. HK 4.6 x 30 mm. Traces of HTSP. Stippling, twelve to eighteen inches.

  I had this terrible feeling in my chest, as if a heavy cold ball somehow formed just under my heart and was growing larger and heavier by the second. “Who made these notes?”

  “The leading detective. This is all he could give me and it took a lot to get that much.”

  “Did he explain this to you?”

  Cornelius shook his head.

  The woman he loved was dead. Now I would have to explain how she died. He was sitting right in front of me, a living, breathing human being. His daughter was in the next room.

  I took a deep breath to steady my voice. He’d come to me for professional advice. I had to give him my best opinion.

  “Your wife was hit by armor-piercing rounds from a Heckler & Koch MP7. It’s a vicious weapon developed for the German army and the counterterrorism division of the German police and designed specifically to penetrate body armor. It’s meant for military use. The pattern of the gunshot wounds indicates that your wife was in the center of two intersecting fields of fire.”

  I took a mug with a little kitten on it and set it in the center of the desk, grabbed two pens, and lined them up diagonally in front of the mug, one pointing to the left, the other to the right.

  “HTSP stands for High Tensile Strength Polyethylene. She was wearing a ballistic vest.”

  “That makes no sense.” Cornelius stared at me. “She had a bulletproof vest, but she died anyway.”

  “Yes. In fiction, vests stop everything. In reality, ballistic vests are only bullet resistant. They come in different levels of protection. Your wife was likely wearing a vest rated up to Level III, which means it would probably stop several 7.62mm rifle rounds. Even then, being shot in a bulletproof vest feels like taking a hammer to the body. In this case, your wife was shot multiple times by personal-defense-class military-grade firearms designed to pierce body armor. Death was instant.” At least I could offer him that.

  He didn’t seem to draw any comfort from it.

  I had to keep going. I’d started this; I had to finish. “The gunpowder stippling occurs when someone is shot at a close range and gunshot residue is deposited on the victim’s skin. This includes gunpowder burns, soot, and pitting and tearing of the top layers of the skin, if the gun discharged close enough.”

  He clenched his right fist. The knuckles of his hand went completely white. He was probably picturing Nari’s face in his head.

  “According to this report, after your wife was already dead and prone on the ground, someone pumped two bullets into her forehead. The lead detective estimated the range to be between a foot and a foot and a half.” Just about right for someone holding a Heckler & Koch straight down.

  “Why? She was already dead.”

  “Because the people who did this were well trained and thorough. If we get reports on the other three lawyers, it’s highly probable they were also shot in the head. A group of people ambushed your wife and her colleagues, killed them with military precision, and then lingered long enough to walk through the scene and put two bullets in the heads of those present to ensure there were no survivors. They did this in the middle of Houston, they made no effort to be subtle about it, and they got away clean. This wasn’t just a professional hit. This was a message.”

  “We’re stronger than you are. We can do this anytime, anywhere, to any of your people,” Cornelius said quietly.

  “Exactly.”

  He understood the House politics better than I. He’d had a front-row seat to them most of his life.

  “Mr. Harrison, you came to me for my opinion. Based on what you told me, I believe House Forsberg is involved. We don’t know if your wife . . .”

  “Nari,” he said. “Her name is Nari.”

  “We don’t know if Nari acted in the interests of the House or against them. We do know that House Forsberg is pretending that nothing happened, which either means that House Forsberg killed your wife and others as a warning to their people or that they got the message the killers sent and it scared them. My recommendation to you is to walk away.”

  All of the muscles in Cornelius’ face were clenched so hard that his skin looked too tight. “That’s not an option for me.”

  He wouldn’t survive this. I had to talk him out of it. I leaned forward. “This is a war between Houses. Last time we spoke, you told me you deliberately distanced yourself from yours. You said that you loved your family, but they used you and you didn’t enjoy being used.”

  “You have a good memory,” he said.

  “Has that situation changed? Will your House help you?”

  “No. Even if they were inclined to do so, their resources are limited. House Harrison isn’t without means, but my family is reluctant to engage in combat, especially on my behalf. I’m the youngest child and not a Prime. I’m not necessary for the future of the House. If it was my brother or sister, things might be different.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly. My family would do anything for me. If I was trapped in a burning house, every single one of them, my knucklehead sisters and cousins included, would run in there trying to save me. Cornelius’ wife was dead and his family would do nothing. It was so unfair.

  “It’s up to me,” he said.

  I lowered my voice. “You don’t have the resources to fight this war. Your daughter is sitting in the next room. She already lost her mother. Do you really want her to lose her father too? You are the only parent she has left. What will happen to her if you die? Who will take care of her?”

  “I could have an aneurysm in the next ten seconds. If that happens, Nari’s parents will raise Matilda. My sister hasn’t seen my daughter since she was a year old. My brother never met his niece. Neither of them is married. They wouldn’t be good caretakers.”

  “Cornelius . . .”

  “If you are planning on telling me that revenge doesn’t make one feel better . . .”

  “It depends on the revenge,” I said. “Punching Adam Pierce was one of the best moments of my life. Every time I think about it, it makes me smile. But revenge has a price. My grandmother almost burned to death. My oldest cousin nearly died in the collapse of downtown. I nearly died half a dozen times. The price for this will be too high.”

  “That’s for me to decide.”

  His eyes had that steely cold look to them. He wasn’t going to back down.

  I leaned back. “Very well. But you’ll have to find someone else to help you with your suicide mission.”

  “I would like your help,” he said.

  “No. I understand that you are determined to hang your
self, but I won’t be holding the rope for you. Not only that, but Baylor Investigative Agency is a very small firm. We specialize in low-risk investigations. I’m not qualified.”

  He pointed at the ME’s report. “You seem very qualified.”

  “I know about guns, Mr. Harrison, because there is a long tradition of military service on my mother’s side of the family. My mother and my grandmother are both veterans. It doesn’t mean I’m capable of taking on this investigation. Hire someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Augustine.”

  “I’ve already spoken with Augustine. He did me the courtesy of being candid. With the amount of money at my disposal, I can’t afford a full investigation. My money will buy me some surveillance and the due diligence of his people, but it’s not really lucrative enough for him to throw the full power of his team behind it. Even if he does so, House Forsberg is very well prepared for any traditional level of scrutiny. This means a drawn-out, expensive investigation, and I would run out of money before we obtained any results. According to Augustine, you’re capable of nontraditional scrutiny. He said that you were able, professional, and honest, and that you had good instincts when it came to people.”

  Thanks, Augustine. “No.”

  “My finances aren’t enough for MII but they allow me to make a very attractive proposal to a smaller firm.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “I mortgaged our house.”

  I put my hand over my eyes.

  “I can pay you a million today. Another million when you explain to me why my wife was murdered and who was responsible.”

  Absolutely not. “Good-bye, Mr. Harrison.”

  “My wife is dead.” His voice shook with barely controlled emotion. His eyes glistened. “She’s my light. She found me in the darkest time of my life and she saw something in me . . . She believed I could be a better man. I didn’t deserve her or the happiness we had. She loved me, Nevada. She loved me so much, in spite of my faults, and I was the luckiest man alive because when I opened my eyes in the morning, I saw her next to me. She had integrity. She was kind and intelligent, and she tried her hardest to do the right thing so this world would be a better place for our child to grow up in. She didn’t deserve this. She deserved to be happy. She deserved a full and long life. Nobody had the right to rob her of it.”

  His face contorted with raw pain and grief. I was trying so hard not to cry.

  “I love her determination. I love her spirit. I’m proud to have been her husband. And now she’s dead. Someone took this wonderful—this truly beautiful—human being and turned her into a corpse. I saw her on the morgue table. She’s just . . . cold and lifeless as if she never was. Everything is gone except for our daughter and my memories. I have to strive to be the man she thought I was. When my daughter grows up, she’ll ask me why her mother was murdered and I’ll have to answer her. I have to account for my actions. I want to tell her that I found those responsible and I made sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

  He brushed moisture from his eyes with a furious swipe of his hand. “Nobody else will do this. Her family doesn’t have the means, my family doesn’t care, and her employer might have murdered her. There is only me. Will you help me? Please.”

  He fell silent. He was sitting here asking for my help and I couldn’t throw him out of my office. I just couldn’t. I remembered when Mom sold our house to pay for Dad’s bills. I remembered when we mortgaged the business and kept it from him, because it would’ve killed him faster than any disease. If someone I loved was murdered, I would do the same thing Cornelius did. He had nowhere to turn. If I slammed the door in his face now, I wouldn’t be able to look my reflection in the eye.

  I reached into the top drawer of my desk and took out the blue new-client folder. I opened it so it faced him, placed it on the table, and wrote $50,000 in the margins on the front. “This is my retainer. This stays with the agency no matter what happens. It’s nonnegotiable.” I used my pen to circle the bottom number on the right side. “These are our rates. This job is likely to be high-risk, so the top rate right here will apply. As you can see, it’s a daily and not hourly rate. Depending on the situation, I may have to charge you hazard pay or additional expenses. The retainer acts like a deductible. Once the amount billed to you exceeds it, you will make additional payments in installments of $10,000. After we’re done here, you may want to go to the bank and withdraw at least $20,000 in cash. We may have to bribe people . . .”

  “Thank you.”

  “This is a bad idea. Please reconsider.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I walked him through the privacy policy and had him sign all of the waivers. “What happens once we find whoever is responsible?”

  “I’ll take care of things from there.”

  “Meaning you’ll kill your wife’s murderer.”

  “It’s the way Houses handle things,” Cornelius said.

  “Well, I’m not a House. I’m a person with a family, and I respect and try to obey the laws of this country. I won’t hesitate to defend you or myself, but I won’t condone murder.”

  “Understood,” Cornelius said. “How do we start?”

  “I need to be able to speak to Matthias Forsberg. I need face-to-face time so I can ask him some questions. I can make the necessary calls tomorrow, but he’ll refuse to see me.”

  “You don’t have the social status and you work for his competitor.” Cornelius nodded. “Matthias is an active participant in the Assembly. He never misses a session. Tomorrow happens to be December 15th. The session starts at 9:00 a.m.”

  “I don’t have admission to the Assembly.” The Assembly was an unofficial executive body that governed the magic users at state and national levels. The Texas State Assembly met in Houston. A family had to have at least two Prime-caliber magic users in three generations to be considered a House and each House had a single seat. Technically the Assembly had no power within the U.S. government, but, practically, when the Houses spoke in one collective voice, both Congress and the White House listened.

  “A family name has to be good for something, right?” Cornelius smiled. It never reached his eyes. They stayed bitter and haunted. “As a Significant and a scion of a House, I’m free to attend the Assembly and bring a companion of my choice. I intend to be an active participant in this investigation, Ms. Baylor.”

  “Call me Nevada,” I told him. “Good. Then we’ll meet here tomorrow at seven.”

  Cornelius and Matilda left, the hellhound Bunny in tow. I sat at my desk for a few moments, long enough to shoot a quick email to Bern with everyone’s names and a brief description of what happened, then took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. Breaking this to my family would be hard. My mother might disown me.

  I fished the dollar-sign bride out of the trash, smoothed her out the best I could, and stuck her and the ME report into a manila folder. This job would affect the entire family. They had the right to know the risk. Besides, experience proved that keeping secrets when you were a Baylor didn’t work. Sooner or later all your hidden schemes exploded into the light, and then there was hell to pay and hurt feelings.

  I tucked the folder under my arm and grabbed my book, Hexology by Stahl. A few weeks ago a package of books had arrived at our doorstep in a padded yellow envelope, six books in all, dealing with spells, arcane circles, and magic theory. A plain rectangular label had just one word printed on it—Nevada. Interrogation of my family provided no leads. They didn’t know where the books came from, they didn’t order them, and they had no idea who did, although they offered many wild theories.

  I’d dusted the envelope for prints but I didn’t find any. The label proved to be a generic four-by-four inches, and a half-dozen office stores in the ten-mile radius carried identical labels. And of course, they also carried the same yellow envelopes. My name was printed in Times New Roman font, 22 pt size. I briefly considered swabbing the envelope for DNA and paying a private lab to
analyze it to eliminate my family and run it through their database for possible matches, but the lab quoted $600 to run the swab and I couldn’t justify the expense to myself. It was still driving me nuts.

  The books had proven incredibly useful and I’d been reading them nonstop trying to catch up on years of neglected education in magic theory. This particular book was on hexes—magic constructs that locked information within a human mind. I had encountered a very powerful hex several weeks ago and had to peer under it to save the city. The book confirmed that I had come perilously close to killing a man through sheer ignorance.

  I made my way through the office back door into a wide hallway. The delicious smell of seared carne asada swirled around me. I turned right and headed toward the kitchen.

  When Dad was fighting his losing battle with cancer, we sold our house. We sold everything we could, but we still had to survive and make a living, so a strategic decision was made: we used our business to purchase a large warehouse. On the east side, the warehouse was the front for Baylor Investigative Agency. We installed interior walls and a drop ceiling, making a small but comfortable office space: three offices on one side and a break room and conference room on the other. On the west side, the warehouse turned into a motor pool, where Grandma Frida worked on tanks and armored vehicles for the Houston elite. Between the office and the motor pool, separated from the latter by a large wall, lay three thousand square feet of living space.

  My parents had this vision of making our living space look like the inside of an ordinary house. Instead we succeeded in throwing walls where they were needed and sometimes not at all, so in certain areas our place bore a startling resemblance to a home-improvement showroom. The kitchen was one of those spots. Square, roomy, with a generous island and a big kitchen table made from an old slab of reclaimed wood, it would give most cooking shows a run for their money. Right now it sat half empty: my mother, Grandma Frida, and my oldest cousin, Bern, were the only ones left. My two sisters and Bern’s younger brother, Leon, must’ve run off already. Just as well.