The moment the elevator doors closed, Runa spun toward me. “You lied to me!”

“Not here,” I warned her. “When we get out of the elevator, walk next to me. Stop when I stop and if I tell you to run, run.”

Runa’s face hardened. “You think they’ll try to kill me.”

“Yes.”

“I hope they try.”

Right. Runa’s emotions had clubbed her rational thinking over the head, dumped its body on the side of the road, and took my friend for a joy ride. Just what we needed.

Client. Not friend; client. Friends were for other people. You wanted your friends to like you, and when I wanted someone to like me, the chances of my magic leaking out and enthralling them was much higher. I’d spent twenty-one years avoiding making friends. It was irresponsible to start now.

I did like Runa. I liked her when I first met her, and I wished I could be more like her, funny and charming and comfortable in her skin. Seeing her now broke my heart. I wanted to fix all the shitty things for her, and I had to watch myself very carefully. Besides, she didn’t need a friend right now; she needed a professional investigator.

The elevator opened. I took a second to scan the lobby. No visible threats. I walked out and headed for the door, my head held high. Next to me Runa marched like she was daring someone to block her way.

We exited the building, and I accelerated, almost breaking into a jog. The space between my shoulder blades itched, as if someone was aiming at me through a rifle scope.

Get to the car, get to the car . . .

I popped the locks, and we jumped into the Element. I started the engine, reversed out of the parking spot, and sped out onto the street.

“Alessandro was in that building. I saw him, Catalina, with my eyes.”

“I had no idea he would be there.” I concentrated on driving. The car shot down the road. Nobody followed us.

“What was he doing there?”

“Killing our suspect.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Call Bern.”

The sound of my phone dialing came from the car’s speakers and Bern picked up. “Yes.”

“You were right.” I took a turn a little too fast and accelerated up the access road, shifting to the left to enter the highway ramp. “It’s House warfare. We’re coming back to the warehouse. Lock us down.”

“On it,” Bern said. “Are you coming in hot?”

“Not that I can see.” I merged into the traffic.

“Is my brother awake?” Runa asked.

“No,” Bern said. “I’ll call if there is any change.”

“I need everything you can dig up on AME Silas Conway. In particular, sudden large payments to his accounts in the last month or so and where they came from.”

“What did he do?”

“He tried to prevent us from viewing the bodies, and when the Scroll rep showed up, he reanimated the corpses of Runa’s mother and sister and tried to kill us with them. The cops are digging into Conway’s past as we speak.”

“Are you okay?” my cousin asked.

“Yes. Fullerton got the samples, but Conway died before I could question him.”

“What happened?”

“Alessandro Sagredo.”

The phone fell silent.

“I’m sorry, say again?”

“Alessandro Sagredo happened. He showed up in the Harris County IFS and stabbed my suspect in the heart. He did it as if he had a lot of practice. Then he told me to collect my friend, go home, and not to worry my pretty little head about it.”

And when I found him, he would regret every word. He’d surprised me this time, but he wouldn’t again.

“He said what?” Runa asked.

The car speaker remained silent.

“Bern, are you there?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You’ve had a pretty big morning.”

“See you soon.” I hung up.

“How is Sagredo involved in all this?” Runa asked.

“No idea. Do you know him? Do you know his family? Did your mom have any contact with him?”

“No.”

“But you recognized his picture,” I reminded her.

“I recognized him because I had a giant crush on him in high school, like every other girl my age. When he got engaged for the first time, Felicity, Michelle, and I had a pity party with cheesecake and whipped cream.”

When I heard about his first engagement, I locked myself in my room and cried alone. I had cried the next two times too, because I was a moron.

Runa shook her head. “Trust me, if anyone has any connection to Sagredo, it’s you. He doesn’t even know I exist.”

If House Etterson had no connection to House Sagredo, then why was Alessandro at the morgue, and why had he killed Conway and told me to go home? He was involved in this somehow. He had to be.

I needed to find Alessandro, and for that I would need Bug.

Bug served as Rogan’s surveillance specialist. Magically altered, he processed visual information at an astonishing rate. He could sift through the simultaneous feed from dozens of CCTV cameras and track a person across the entire city. If anybody could find Alessandro, Bug could.

He was also fanatically loyal to Rogan. The moment we involved Bug, Rogan would know every detail of what we asked, real and imagined, because Bug wouldn’t just report the facts, he would embellish them with his conclusions delivered with his particular flair.

I could just imagine the way that report would go. Hey, so you’ll never believe this dick fart thing: they want me to find Alessandro Sagredo. The gnome molester apparently stabbed somebody, and your sister wants to marry him. She’s paying me a fortune to find him before he kills again and ruins the romance. She believes the dimwit shit-for-brains can be redeemed, I guess, by the love of a good woman. Isn’t that just reindeer balls?

Nevada would then drop everything and fly back here to help and fix things which would jeopardize Mrs. Rogan’s claim. Rogan’s grandfather was difficult in life and he saw no reason to change in death. His will specified that unless Rogan and Nevada were present for the entire duration of his funeral and the mourning period, Mrs. Rogan would be cut out of her father’s will.

Mrs. Rogan wanted to inherit only one thing from her late father: the family’s summer house on the coast where her late mother had planted a beautiful garden. When Mrs. Rogan was a little girl, before her mother’s death, the family would vacation there. It was the place of her happiest memories.

For the past three years Mrs. Rogan educated and trained me. She found tutors for my magic, she arranged for etiquette lessons, she took me to museums and art galleries trying to hone my taste. She did it all never expecting anything in return, except a thank-you. Nevada and I wanted her to get that house more than she did.

I loved my brother-in-law, but to say that he was paranoid when it came to safety was like saying a typhoon was a gentle breeze. I had no doubt Connor had us watched. He couldn’t help himself. That meant he already knew that Augustine showed up at our place in the middle of the night and that I left with him and came back with Runa and her unconscious brother. Whether he shared it with my sister was another question, but sooner or later Nevada would find out that we took a dangerous case. The likelihood of her rushing back home was already high, and Bug’s litany of curses could push her over the edge.

The only way to stop this from happening was to level with her. It was too late to call her now. She would be in bed.

We needed Bug now. It was vital that we got a handle on where Alessandro was and why he was here. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow.

“Call Bug.”

The phone barely had a chance to ring before Bug snatched it up. “What do you want?”

“I need to hire you to find somebody, but you can’t tell my sister. I’ll tell her myself first thing in the morning. Can you wait that long?”

“Depends on who it is.”

Nice try. I wasn’t born yesterday. “Promise first.”

“Fine. I promise.”

“Alessandro Sagredo.”

Bug’s voice spiked. “Your virgin girl crush? The Italian Stallion?”

“Does everybody know that I had a thing for Alessandro?”

“Anybody who knows you. What did he do? Have you given up on pining from afar and decided to sweep him off his expensive cordovan leather loafers?”

I ground my teeth. “He killed my prime suspect.”

Silence.

“How?”

“He stabbed him in the heart. Less than five feet away from me.”

“Ohhh. That’s good. That’s too good. I’ve got to tell the Major.”

“Bug! Think way back, about two milliseconds ago, when you promised me that you wouldn’t tell?”

“You tricked me. I don’t know if I can hold it in. It’s too good.”

Argh. “Okay, you can tell Connor if you swear him to secrecy. He can’t tell Nevada. I’ll explain it to her myself, tomorrow morning. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try.”

“They’re asleep, anyway.”

Bug snorted. “The Major never sleeps. Sometimes he rests his eyes while thinking deep thoughts.”

“Connor is at his grandfather’s funeral trying not to murder his obnoxious family. He’s dealing with a lot right now, Bug. You don’t want to add to that, do you?”

“You always ruin things with your logic. Fine. Where was the fancy boy last seen?”