open, and guards in grey uniforms poured out, guns drawn.
“Put your hands up!” the leading guard roared.
I put my hands on my head and let them handcuff me.
Ten minutes after the building security apprehended me, the Houston PD House Response Unit arrived at the scene in a blaze of glory. They released Fullerton, who was clearly a neutral third party, detained Runa and me, and asked us questions for forty-five minutes. The way they concentrated on the description of the mysterious male who stabbed Conway made me think Alessandro had tampered with the hallway cameras. After the third round of the same questions, I dug my heels in, gave them the name of our attorney, and pointed out that my client was traumatized by having her family reanimated and that she had enemies powerful enough to corrupt an AME and that I could see at least three spots from which one could line up a long-range shot and snipe her. After that I answered every question with “Are we free to go?” They gave up and released us. I grabbed Runa and all but shoved her into the elevator.
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