"You should ask him out," I said.

She shook her head sharply. "No way."

"Please don't tell me you think guys should make the first move. That is so—"

"Trust me, I have no problem taking the initiative. It's just—he—Jeremy—is not the kind of guy you walk up to and say, 'Hey, let's go grab a beer.'"

"You could try."

She must have considered it, judging by the look of terror that passed behind her eyes. She reached up, tugged out her hair clip, and wound her hair around her hand, walking to the mirror as she did. Nothing more painful than a crush. I remember my last one. Greg Madison. Deep dimples and a laugh that made my heart flutter. Damn, that had been painful. Of course, I'd been fourteen at the time, not forty. But I suppose infatuation is infatuation at any age, and maybe even worse when you're old enough to recognize the symptoms, be mortified by your reaction, and still not be able to do anything about it.

Chapter 13

JAIME'S DRIVER WAS DOWNSTAIRS WAITING TO PICK HER up. My first thought was

"Wow, she has a chauffeur," but once we were behind the soundproof tinted glass in the backseat, she assured me that the driver was a rental, hired for the trip by her production company. Jaime didn't own a car—she was rarely home, so a car would have sat in the parking garage. Milwaukee was less than a two-hour drive from Chicago, so there was no sense flying. The driver was just a bonus, the kind of luxury that comes with being semifamous.

We spent the afternoon in the hotel business lounge. Other people came and went, popping in just long enough to check their e-mail or send a fax. One stuck around, a guy in his early thirties, still young enough to be impressed by the posh hotel his company had put him up in, and to expect others to be equally impressed. When that and his pricey suit didn't win him coy glances from Jaime, he switched to that modern-day equivalent of dragging in a freshly killed hunk of meat—attempting to wow her with his computer skills.

She assured him that she could handle it, but he still hovered at the next terminal, pretending to work, stopping every few minutes to make sure Jaime was "still doing okay," hoping she'd become hopelessly snarled in the Web, and he would swoop to her rescue, maybe win an invitation back to her room and hours of acrobatic sex with a gorgeous flame-haired stranger. Hey, it happens in the Penthouse letters column all the time, and they don't put stuff in there that isn't true.

When Jaime finished, she escaped with the old "just running to the ladies' room" line. Now, if it'd been me… but it wasn't me, so I kept my mouth shut.

Once back in the hotel room, Jaime grabbed a roll of hotel-supplied Scotch tape from the desk, and plastered the walls with the printouts so I could read them. There were over a hundred pages, detailing twenty-three cases, some obvious suspects, some your garden-variety domestic murders but with something extra that had warranted national attention. When she ran out of wall space, she laid pages on the bed and sofa. Then she checked her watch.

"I'm supposed to be in makeup in twenty minutes."

"Go on." I looked around. "This is fine."

"So long as housekeeping doesn't decide to slip in and turn down the sheets." She glanced around the room and shuddered. "Even the showbiz spiritualist gig wouldn't explain this."

"I'll cast a lock spell on the door."

My spell wouldn't work on a door in the living world, but there was no harm in trying, if it made her feel better.

"Good luck," I said. "Or is it 'break a leg?"

She gave a wan smile. "Sometimes I think a preshow broken limb wouldn't be such a bad thing." Her eyes clouded, but the look evaporated with a blink. "I should be wishing you luck, too. If you need anything, just pop by the theater." She hesitated. "But if you do pop in—"

"Don't really pop in. Got it."

She murmured a good-bye, grabbed her purse, and left.

I spent the next hour reading through the first wall of printouts. I made two mental lists, one for likely suspects and one for possible. Some were obvious noncandidates. Like the hooker who accidentally killed a John, robbed him, then decided murder was more lucrative than turning tricks. Or the teen who'd set a bomb in the girls' changing room during cheerleading practice and later told reporters "the bitches got what they deserved." Women like that didn't need the Nix's booster shot for resolve. Likewise, I could exclude the women who'd committed their crimes under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The Nix needed very clear criteria for her partners, those on the verge of murder, needing only her extra push.

A low whistle sounded behind me. "You are busy." Kristof stepped up to me and scanned the wall filled with articles. "I thought maybe you could use some research help, so I put on my bloodhound nose."

I smiled. "You're very good at that, you know. Scary good."

"If I want something, I find it." Kristof turned to the wall. "Where can I start?"

I hesitated, then pointed to the pages strewn over the bed and told him my criteria.

"I'll cull the ones that fit," he said. "Then you can read them, make your own decision."

The more I read, the more I wanted this part of my mission to be over. I don't have any hang-ups about violence. For a witch in the supernatural world, being powerful meant mastering the dark arts. Paige was trying to change that, and all the power to her. But when I was her age, I saw only two choices: become a black witch or accept that my powers were good for little more than spell-locking my door and cowering on the other side.

So I'd followed the path of dozens of young witches before me: I'd left the Coven. Left or was kicked out, depending on who you ask. Once gone, I'd devoted myself to learning stronger magic, which meant sorcerer magic, plus the odd black-market witch spell I managed to master. To become more powerful, I had to dig deep into the underbelly of the supernatural world and gain the respect of people who don't respect anything but violence. It became a tool, one I learned to wield with little more concern than I would wield a machete to chop my way out of a jungle.

But the violence I saw in these pages wasn't chopping down your enemies or fighting for survival. This was hate and jealousy and cowardice and all the things I'd felt inside the skull of that sick bastard on death row. The more I read, the more I remembered what it had been like to be in his head, and the more I wanted to be done with this chore.