I supposed that made sense, considering we’d all come back exhausted in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. The only person in the living room was Juwon, who was curled up on the other couch, absorbed in a tome of a book that was bigger than his head, and was so engrossed he didn’t even look up when we came in.
Pilar disappeared into the kitchen briefly. The voices picked up for a tick before she returned with a first aid kit and some towels, followed by Checker with a laptop.
“Oh, geez, Cas,” Checker said, his eyes sweeping up and down my various injuries. “I take it, uh, things didn’t go well.”
“Oscar’s dead. Simon’s in the hospital.” I hoped. Assuming he’d made it there. “You’ve kept working here?”
“Yeah. Nothing to write home about. The police didn’t find any other explosives at the station, other than the bomb you set. The ranch is owned by a shell corporation, but I’m trying to track it back. And an arson report just hit the wires for that address, but I’m guessing it’s less ‘fire’ and more ‘incendiary device.’”
Exactly as predicted. Rio wouldn’t have made it in time anyway, then. I tried to feel mollified by that and failed. “How about any connection to Halberd or Pithica? Where’s Willow Grace?”
“She said she needed to go take a call,” Checker said. “It was just a minute ago. She should be back in soon. Don’t worry, I told her to stay close to the house.”
I left off digging through the first aid kit to glance at the security screen. Sure enough, Willow’s statuesque figure paced against the back wall of the house, her phone to her ear. Good. In a second I’d get her back in here and nail her down on everything she knew.
“We haven’t, uh, really been driving hard on looking into the Pithica thing,” Checker went on. “I didn’t know if we wanted to … antagonize them. Unless we’re sure. Because of the deal you’ve got.”
Christ, I didn’t know either. If they weren’t involved and they caught wind of us preparing to move against them … I had no doubt Dawna was still watching. The instant they had any excuse, they’d move to crush us. And with Rio gone …
But Willow could give us information without tipping them off. We’d see what she had and go from there.
“I’ve also been researching the place you found Arthur,” Checker continued, while I worked on wrapping my ankle. “As far as I can make out, neither D.J. nor Teplova has any connection to the people who own or administer it. I’d say the weird file that led us there was just a list of out-of-the-way places deserted enough for them to make use of, but the rest of it didn’t fit—it’s all random places like office buildings and parking garages.”
“Dummy addresses,” I muttered.
“Yeah. I don’t know … Rio mentioned about how you and he thought it was, um, not on the level.”
“It was too easy.” I thought back. “That file just appeared. While we were looking.”
“I figured maybe you’d done something to unlock more stuff,” Pilar said to Checker. “But we couldn’t ask you at the time.”
“Huh?” Checker turned to her. “No, I didn’t do anything.”
“Wait, you’re saying whoever planted it had to have done it in real time?” I said. “Not beforehand in some sort of long con?”
“No, I mean yes, it would have to be—hang on, this is really important.” His fingers had started going on the laptop keys, and he spoke while engrossed in the screen. “This is a big deal. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Pilar and I exchanged a glance. “We were looking at the directory,” I said. “The file wasn’t there, and then it was.”
“You’re sure?”
“Rio and I both were.” The creepy feeling I’d missed something vital started to crawl over me. “How could that happen?”
“There’s only one way. Someone put it there and backdated it. Someone who knew we were looking and had access.”
I started to feel sick. “That’s a very short list.”
“Oh, crap,” said Checker. “What if it’s one of us? We know what Pithica can do. What if one of us did it and didn’t even know?”
“Simon,” I said. “We need Simon here…”
But he was in a hospital somewhere. Thanks to me.
“We can figure this out.” I glanced over at Juwon and kept my voice low—the last thing we needed was a panicked family. “Simon probably would have been able to tell if I’d been messed with. He’s seen