Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,49

making Darren’s head pound. “What association that is potentially unrelated did you find?” Darren asked.

He was definitely going to have to work with Milton before they took him into the field. Well, that was true of Jen as well since both were probationary agents, but Jen had a steadiness Milton lacked, and the idea of an armed Milton trying to arrest a suspect scared Darren.

“You know what I can do with computers,” Milton said, but before anyone could answer, he added, “No, of course you don’t know. No one understand what I do with computers, but the spells I weave use the precision of the computer, but then drag real-world information into the processor. I want to develop time-walking skills. I know those are normally a shamanic skill, but I don’t see any reason why a magic user couldn’t access the same information stream, and with the processing capability of a computer—”

“Agent Ackie,” Kavon said, his voice tight with anger.

Darren slipped between the two of them before Kavon’s fraying temper snapped. “Hey, I am the king of throwing out random ideas. So, don’t worry about anyone taking your lead too seriously. Why don’t you just tell us what you found?”

Milton’s gaze darted to Kavon before he focused on Darren. “I don’t know that I found anything. I set the computer to find connections between the sites, the way Agent Boucher suggested.”

“And?” Darren took a step back.

“And nothing. No one was at all the sites or even most of them.”

Kavon’s aggravation shot up.

“But!” Milton added with a wide-eyed look in Kavon’s direction, “there’s a degree of separation here. You know, like six degrees of separation only with less degrees.”

“Meaning?” Darren prompted before Kavon could lose his temper.

Milton turned to his computer and typed. “These three power sinks were widely covered by the press. Dozens of periodicals had reporters on scene.” He brought up images of three scenes. One was the gas station Bennu had damaged. Darren felt his face warm, and he didn’t dare make eye contact with Les. “But some other scenes were not covered as well. This one was off-limits to the press.” Milton brought up a picture of another power sink Bennu had left behind—this one when he’d given Angel Zamora power to defend himself.

“And?” Darren asked.

“Get to the good part,” Les suggested. “You know, the part where there is one place that connects all these.”

“Fine,” Milton snapped. “One of the crime scene techs on this scene was featured in a local news magazine. The December 7th scene was owned by one of the co-owners of that same magazine, the magazine covered several of these stories, and two of the magical sinks the magazine didn’t do stories on, their staff photographers sold photographs of the scene to other outlets, so they had someone there.”

“A photographer could be our suspect,” Darren said. A photographer at a high-profile magazine would have the inside track on a lot of political intrigue. It might not be as exciting as skydiving, but a durance might be interested in the levers of power in Washington DC. And that would be a less obvious choice than a politician—assuming the durance cared about hiding.

“You’re assuming too much,” Milton said. “I never said it was the photographer. The only reason I found this pattern is because my custom magic spell pulls so much information out of the internet and open source databases. So if someone at this paper is our suspect, he or she is trying to avoid leaving an obvious trail. Selling pictures to other news outlets seems like a pretty stupid move for someone trying to hide.”

“Criminals are stupid,” Kavon said. “What’s the newspaper?”

“WCN. Washington Conservative News.”

Darren’s stomach dropped a foot. He whirled around and looked at Kavon. “It can’t be a coincidence,” he said as he thought about Mason Butler, the reporter who had tried to get them to comment on the New Christian Conservative Party conference.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Kavon said, his voice tight and his emotional pile full of excitement. “Check news outlets for any significant news with the NCCP.”

“Who? Me?” Milton asked.

“You have the computer, so do a search.” Kavon still sounded aggravated, but the real fury had vanished now that they had a lead.

“I have a computer programmed to look for connections to our magical sinks. This is a spell. I can’t just type a new search into it.” Milton’s voice grew sharper.

“No problem. I can do that,” Ahtisham said as he sat behind his computer.

“I could do the search,