Critical Point (Cas Russell #3) - S. L. Huang Page 0,2

said a little desperately. “I knew Arthur before everything went down. Before he lost—while he was still with them. Nowadays he never … he got private about them afterwards. His business, Cas,” he added severely. He cleared his throat. “Which daughter?”

Great. He knew them all by name. “Tabitha.”

“I, uh, I think we should be worried. Maybe very worried. Arthur wouldn’t ignore one of his kids, ever.”

The squirming in my gut got worse, enough that my anger faded a bit. “Do you know what he was working on?”

“Not a clue. I didn’t even know we had a case on.”

“I’m going to head to his office, then. See if I can find anything.”

“Sounds good,” said Checker, and I could already hear the quick clack of his computer keys. “I’ll see if I can find anything on my end. Does Diego know?”

“Who’s Diego?” I was proud of how calmly and precisely I managed to speak.

The clacking of the keyboards stopped for a moment. “Uh, his husband. Never mind, I’ll call.”

“Still in touch, are you?”

“Stop it.” The clacking had resumed, and a thread of annoyance joined the worry in Checker’s voice. “You can be petty after we find him.”

He was right, but that didn’t mean I had to concede it. “I’m capable of multitasking,” I snapped. “I’ll let you know what I find at his office. And after that I’m going to his apartment. Are you going to give me grief about respecting his privacy on that too?”

“Just find him,” said Checker, sounding tired and concerned, and hung up on me.

I grabbed my coat, steadfastly resisting any urge to feel guilt about my snippiness. I checked the Colt in my belt and made sure the hem of the coat covered it completely, shoved a few spare magazines in my pocket and, feeling in a better-to-be-safe-than-sorry mood, a revolver in another pocket. Part of me hoped to find Arthur snoozing at home, but a strong sense of foreboding in my chest warned of how unlikely that was.

Wherever he was, he’d better be alive. He owed me about a thousand damn explanations.

two

SHIT. I’d forgotten about my client meeting. I pulled out my cell as I locked the door of the stupid office behind me, punching in the contact number I had. It was already seven minutes after the hour; maybe he was a no-show anyway.

The phone rang out without a voicemail message. That was weird.

“You’re not supposed to be leaving,” said a voice with an Aussie accent.

I turned. It took me three scans of the decrepit parking lot to find the person who had spoken. My client—well, I assumed—was scrambling toward me over the gravel: an unkempt Asian Australian man, with shaggy black hair, greasy stubble, and a torn shirt beneath his leather jacket that was even dirtier than mine. “Sorry,” I said insincerely, waving my phone at him. “I was just trying to call. Something’s come up.”

“No. No!” He whipped his head in a frantic headshake. “No, you have to stay!”

“Look, we can reschedule for—”

“No!” he cried, and launched himself at me.

His movement translated into mathematics, clumsy Newtonian mechanics with his mass and velocity throwing themselves forward with no regard for efficiency. He might be bigger than I was, but still, it was insulting. And I was in the mood to hit someone.

I twisted and struck my palm against his hip, building the perfect fulcrum. His body flipped over in a spin an acrobat would have been proud of, and he landed on his back, wheezing.

I stepped into the afternoon sun so my shadow fell across his face. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Cas Russell. Our meeting is rescheduled. Is that underst—”

My office exploded.

The concussion roared outward through shattering glass and splintering wood and slammed across the lot. The blast flung me into the air, the noise overwhelming everything else. I flailed against it and managed enough of a partial solution to twist and hit the ground hard on my shoulder before rolling out back to my feet.

The explosion had shredded the front wall of my new office, bits of boards hanging by mere splinters against crumbling mounds of plaster. Nothing was on fire, but I didn’t want to know what it looked like inside. The small, grimy parking lot had only a few cars in it, but their windows had all shattered, and I could hear car alarms wailing from some distance away. My lungs twinged in the aftermath of the sudden pressure differential.

My would-be client, who had escaped the worst of the blast by