happen to them without me?"
Jazz studied him. Despite her natural suspicion, every-thing Harry had said had the ring of truth. His
grief was painful to see. But looking at him, she was certain he had not told her everything.
"You knew my father."
Harry frowned. "Only to photograph him."
A niggling thought worked at the back of her mind, puzzle pieces attempting to fit together. "The
Blackwood Club killed Terence's father and threatened to kill your sis-ter. You see where I'm going?"
"You want to know if your father fell victim to his friends. The Senate burying their knives in
Caesar."
"Caesar?" she said, and a ripple of revulsion went through her as she realized what he meant. "My
father was... what? Club president?"
Harry got up and walked to a cabinet, poured himself a snifter of scotch, and leaned against the wall.
"I don't think they have such titles," he said, taking a sip. "Not so far as I know, anyway. And, yes. James
Towne ran the Blackwood Club, at least back in those days. The club goes back a long way, you see. More
than two hundred years. But Josephine —the ice queen in that photo—thought that, as the only living
Blackwood, she ought to lead them."
"She murdered him?" Jazz heard how small her own voice had become.
"Nothing of the sort. Your old man tried a bit of magic that was too big for him. Something dark and
ugly, from what the whispers said at the time. Cost him his life. Right after that was when they found me
out, drove me off."
"And my mother?"
"Never met the woman."
Images of her mother's corpse sprawled halfway off her bed and the words smeared in blood on the
wall filled her mind. Jazz blinked hard, holding back tears, but she knew that when she spoke, the quaver in
her voice would reveal her anguish.
"All those years, why did the Uncles —the Blackwood Club, I mean—why did they look after us like
that?"
Harry threw back the scotch in his glass and squeezed his eyes closed. When he opened them, his
gaze was intense. "They were obsessed and ambitious. Nasty, greedy bastards. But they had a loyalty to
the club. I can't know for sure, you understand. Just a theory, but from what little I knew of them, I expect
it was just them taking care of their own. You were James Towne's family, so they looked out for you. And
maybe they wanted to make sure you didn't know anything that could hurt them."
Jazz's throat felt dry. She wouldn't have minded a scotch herself. "Then why did they kill her?"
"That, I haven't the faintest idea."
His expression was blank, not a trace of a smile or frown, and Jazz knew he was lying. Her pulse
fluttered and she searched his eyes.
"Harry, don't —" she started to say.
A gunshot interrupted her, echoing down to the Palace from the stairwell and muffled by the doors.
Jazz stood, knocking over her chair, and took two steps away from the door.
"Christ!" Harry said.
She turned and reached out a beckoning hand. "Come on," she whispered. "We've got to go out the
back. It's got to be them."
Harry stared at the door. "I'm not sure about that."
He set his glass down on the table and went to the door. Jazz wanted to shout at him, ask him what
the hell he was doing, but making noise didn't seem like the smartest idea. She took a step toward the rear
exit. Even if they came through, she could still make it out as long as she reached that back door and locked
it from the other side.
She held her breath.
A knock came on the door, slow and methodical. Jazz flinched. She hadn't heard footsteps or voices,
just that one shot and now the knocking. Harry stared at the door a sec-ond, but then he turned the handle
and swung it wide open.
A figure stood framed in the doorway. For a moment all she could make out were the eyes, and they
were familiar enough to make her shiver. The magician, she thought. But then she saw that he had no hat,
and the clothes were differ-ent. This was no Victorian ghost but a flesh-and-blood man, and when he took a
step into the light she blinked in sur-prise. How could she have mistaken Terence for a ghost?
Stevie Sharpe followed behind him, pressing a gun against Terence's back. Stevie's lower lip had
been split and blood trickled down his chin. He wiped it away with his free hand, keeping the gun on
Terence. "Fuck's sake, Stevie!"
But he didn't even glance at her, his face grim and sullen.
"Hello, Jazz," Terence said, smiling at her. "I'm sorry to say