Arabella exhaled. “Well, I’m shook.”

Shook was a good way to put it.

My window opened onto a street, behind which rose tall brick buildings. Between the buildings and the road an old oak tree spread its branches, its massive trunk encircled by a four-foot-high stone wall. A lone streetlamp fought a valiant battle against the night, illuminating some of the street and the tips of the branches.

I sighed. It was a long, long day, and I had so much work to do tomorrow . . .

Arabella said something.

“What?” I asked.

“I said you should have some chicken. Don’t be pulling a Nevada on me.”

“I will. I just didn’t want to ask you in front of Runa.”

Movement troubled the oak. I focused on it.

Alessandro sat on the thick branch directly across from my window. He wore charcoal grey, and his hair was brushed back from his face.

He raised his hand and waved at me.

I caught my hand rising to wave back and spun to my sister. “He’s here!”

“Who?”

“Alessandro! He’s sitting in the oak.”

Arabella dashed to the window. “Where?”

The tree was empty.

I pointed to where he had been a moment before. “Right there. He waved at me.”

I grabbed my phone and dialed the emergency contact for Abarca.

“Chicken,” my sister said. “Lots and lots of chicken. Helps with hunger-induced hallucinations.”

“I saw him.” The phone rang and rang.

“I believe that you think you saw him. The heart wants what the heart wants, Catalina.”

“My heart doesn’t want anything. I saw him stab a man in the chest and now he’s in the oak, bypassing our security like it’s not even there.”

“Chicken and then a nap. How about a nice long nap?”

“I’ll put you into a nice long nap.”

She snorted. “You and what army?”

“Abarca!” the phone said.

“There is an intruder on the premises.”

“Are you sure?” Abarca asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. He was in the tree by my window. If he was a sniper, I would be dead, or Arabella would be dead.”

“I find it highly unlikely,” Abarca said. “We’ve got the place locked down tight. Are you sure . . .”

“My sister said she saw an intruder,” Arabella yelled. “Do something!”

“We’re on it.” Abarca hung up.

I dialed Bug.

“If you’re calling about that ass clown, I don’t have him yet. He got away from me this afternoon, but I’ll find him . . .”

Ass clown. What did that even mean . . . “He was in the oak by my window twenty seconds ago.”

“Dickfucker!”

Bug hung up.

“Food. Now,” Arabella ordered.

“Okay, okay.” I headed for the door. “I did see him.”

“Maybe you’ll see him in your dreams. By the way, I called our insurance company to give them a heads-up about the Yarrow case.”

“Why?”

“We rammed a house with Brick.”

I made a one-eighty. “You what?”

“It was a hostage situation,” she said. “The damages aren’t that bad.”

“How bad?”

“We took out a wall and a panic room door.”

I opened my mouth. Too many words tried to come out at once, and I just stood there, trying to sort them out.

“Anyway, our insurance is canceled as of last month.”

“What? Are they claiming we didn’t pay the bill? Because I had them on direct deposit!”

My sister sighed. “No, they canceled because our grace period expires tomorrow, and we’re ‘high risk.’”

“Nice. Do they expect us to immediately die in horrible ways?”

Arabella nodded. “Pretty much. Let’s go get some dinner.”

Chapter 6

I woke up because my alarm went off and it was my turn to cook breakfast.

Cooking was basically my and Mom’s job. When Nevada lived with us, she was too busy keeping us afloat financially. Bern and Leon had kitchen duty once a week and usually made meat, preferably steak, and they served it charred on top and raw in the middle. Grandma Frida came from the generation when things weren’t cooked unless they were mushy or slightly burned, and my younger sister, who was actually a decent cook when she had to be, couldn’t be trusted to stay in the kitchen for the duration of the cooking process. She’d start frying and then end up outside texting to her friends or in the media room laughing at some show, until the smoke detectors went off and we had to race to save the food and put out the fire.

I set about making things. Since it was a weekday, I decided on a simple menu. I put two packs of bacon into two baking pans and popped them in the oven. Then I mixed the batter for the blueberry pancakes.

The best part about cooking, besides making delicious things, was that it gave you time to think while your hands were busy.

I had spent a few more hours last night going through Sigourney’s case files. Most of the people she testified against were still incarcerated. Two had died and one was released and had moved out of the country. The revenge angle was looking unlikely.

Every minute we wasted chasing down dead ends made recovering Halle that much less probable. The first seventy-two hours in a missing person case were crucial. The fire happened early Monday morning. Today was Thursday. The seventy-two hours had come and gone, and we hadn’t even realized she was missing for most of it.

I imagined Runa finding her sister’s body after thinking Halle was alive, and shuddered. How much loss could Runa and her brother take? To have that hope and then have it crushed was almost worse than not having it at all. And where was Halle? If I was right, someone dragged her out of her house in the middle of the night while her mother burned to death. It made me angry. Violently angry.

We had to make some progress today. Bug hadn’t reported in, so right now Diatheke was the most obvious choice. They opened their doors at nine and I would be there exactly one minute after that. I had the legal backing and my magic. They would tell me what I wanted to know whether they liked it or not.

I called Nevada while chopping mushrooms for the egg, mushroom, and cheese scramble.

My sister answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“How’s Spain?”

“Sunny and beautiful. How’s Houston?”

“Cold. My toes are cold. Anyway, do you remember Runa Etterson?”

“Yes.”

“Her family was murdered.” I summarized things for her.

“In the heart, huh?”

“Yes. It was smooth, Nevada. Practiced.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing. Do you need me?”

“No. If we do, I’ll call you, I promise. I don’t want you to worry.”

Nevada snorted. “You sound like Mom. Speaking of Mom, how are things with Abarca?”

Yep, she’d heard about Augustine waltzing into our house at two o’clock in the morning. I knew Rogan left someone to watch us. The man couldn’t help himself. Served us right for not spotting the observer. If our security was better, they wouldn’t have gotten so close. If I told Abarca about it, he wouldn’t believe me. According to our valiant security chief, there was “no way” for anyone to penetrate our perimeter, climb an oak, and then wave at me. His exact words were “not even a squirrel.” In fact, he heavily implied that I hallucinated the entire thing.

“We may have to let him go,” I said. “Mom is beating herself up over the whole thing.”

“They were friends and Abarca looked good on paper.”

“That’s what I told her.”

“Catalina, if you really get in trouble, call Heart. I’ll text you the number. He’s in the States and between wars right now.”

He headed Rogan’s elite unit, fighting in conflicts all over the world for astronomical prices. We couldn’t afford Heart, even with Rogan’s discount.

“I will,” I told her. “Does he take installment payments?”

“Seriously,” Nevada said. “Call him. I don’t want to come back home to burned bodies.”

“You worry too much,” I told her.

“I worry just enough. I would worry less if you promise to call Heart.”

“If things get bad, I promise I’ll call Heart. Love you.”

“Love you too.” There was a pause as my sister hesitated. “Catalina, kidnapping cases rip your soul right out. Especially if you know the client. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

I hung up. My stack of pancakes was almost finished, and the mushrooms had browned nicely.

Someone cried out. It was a very short, startled sound, cut off in mid-note. Now what?

I turned off the gas burners, wiped my hands on a kitchen towel, hung it over my shoulder, and went to investigate.

The door to the spare bedroom stood ajar. A deep rumbling sound came from within, a soft kind of snarl born deep in a huge throat. It sounded demonic. I pushed the door open with my fingertips.

Ragnar sat on the bed, his back pressed against the headboard, his face pale, his eyes opened as wide as they could go. An indigo-blue beast sprawled on the floor by the bed. Six feet long, not counting the tail, with a tiger’s thickness and a muzzle with four nostrils, the creature watched Ragnar with electric-blue eyes. His paws were as big as my head.