Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,13

all right. I have a whammied head and bruises to prove it.”

A thread of regret laced his tone. “I am really sorry about that.” After a beat, he offered, “If it makes you feel better, I think you cracked my ribs.”

“It helps.” Not much, but a little.

The corner of his mouth tightened, either in a flinch or a microscopic smile. It softened his face, and I remembered how when we fell in the hall upstairs, he twisted to hit the ground first, cushioning my fall. I mean, kidnapped was kidnapped, but still … there was that.

The guard at the door gestured for us to go in, and Carson took my arm, his grip firm. “Just do as the man says,” he told me. “Don’t antagonize him and you’ll be fine.”

Threat or reassurance? Both, I was thinking, plus a small plea for me not to say anything stupid.

Gosh, it was like he knew me or something.

“Let’s do this thing,” I said, and shook off his hand to stroll into Mordor on my own power.

Easy to say. But as soon as I crossed the threshold, a powerful, undefinable … something hit me in the psychic solar plexus. It zapped the strength from my knees, and a bright, blinding haze washed my vision. Panic came next—there could be a tiger in the room and I wouldn’t even know it.

Then Carson touched my arm again, and the physical touch grounded me. Still shaking, but only on the inside, I was able to dial back my other senses and see the man standing behind the desk.

There was the tiger in the room.

Devlin Maguire was a big man. Big in presence, and tall and broad in an oak tree sort of way. The office was supersized to accommodate him, everything from the ceiling-high bookshelves to the massive oil painting on the wall (Napoléon Bonaparte in Egypt—very subtle).

His desk was a mahogany acre of real estate, his leather desk chair a throne. He was on the phone, and I hadn’t even noticed. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said calmly into the receiver. “You’re going to have that information in my in-box in one hour, and I am going to keep your helpfulness to me a secret from your boss at Homeland Security.” And after a pause, “Yes. I thought you might.”

Yeah. Whatever the poor guy on the other line had promised, I bet I might, too, in his shoes.

Wait. I was in his shoes.

Finishing the call, Maguire turned with an air of moving on to the next thing. Which was me. “So, this is the FBI psychic.” He came around the desk and looked me up and down. “You are not at all what I expected.”

I shrugged. “I get that a lot.”

He smiled slightly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll bet you do.”

“I’m sorry about your daughter,” I said, because it was true. “You must be very worried.”

My sincerity seemed to surprise him, but he merely nodded acknowledgment and got down to business. Half sitting on the desk, his fingers laced loosely as they rested on his thigh, he said, “I’m sure you can guess, Alexis is the reason you are here.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said, with a bravado that made Carson give my arm a gentle warning squeeze. “You couldn’t have just sent a limo?”

“Sit down, Miss Goodnight.” Mr. Maguire gestured, very civilly, to one of the chairs in front of the desk. I didn’t want to sit, but my cousin Amy always says “Pick your battles,” so I sat.

This chair was enormous, too, and it swallowed me. I’m sure that wasn’t calculated to intimidate his visitors or anything. Carson had moved closer to his boss’s right hand, which I didn’t think was by accident, either, symbolically speaking.

Maguire continued as if this were a perfectly normal meeting. “I’m sorry that you were inconvenienced, and that the misunderstanding led to such unpleasantness. But I need your assistance. Without the interference of the FBI.”

I didn’t need a map as to why he didn’t want the feds up in his business. Whereas anything I Saw, psychically speaking, was inadmissible in court. “I’m not sure how I can help you, Mr. Maguire,” I said politely, since we were pretending this was all normal. “Your daughter isn’t dead.”

He seemed unsurprised. “That’s good to know, since I received a ransom demand earlier today.”

“I knew it!” I slapped the leather of the chair arm. “I totally called it.”

Maguire merely raised a brow. “I can see I made the right choice bringing