Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,99

These guys can zap you like that.” I snapped my fingers.

She grinned. “I’m just a scrap of spirit, Daisy. My soul is safe in the beyond and I have no body to damage. But even if I did, my place would be with you.”

My hero worship was in danger of turning into real affection.

In Marian’s office, the band of nerds was clustered around the other working laptop, but they moved back as Carson and I came in. Margo was already wrapped in the afghan from the office couch, but she shivered when Aunt Ivy slipped through the wall.

When I was dead, I wanted to be like Ivy, the type of remnant who made my own doors.

We huddled around the screen for information the way castaways huddle around a campfire for warmth. Lab Coat had managed to hack into the security camera feed using his own brand of techie magic. The picture was sepia with night and blurry with rain, but I could see a helluva lot of cars, vans, and flashing lights.

“What are we looking at?” asked Carson.

“This is the drive outside the north entrance of the museum,” said Smith, pointing to the screen. “This is the police, the armed response team, news crews, and—”

“And the FBI,” I finished. I recognized Taylor’s profile and Gerard’s bulldog tenacity. They were standing side by side, watching a big, black car pull into the drive behind the police barricade. It parked, and about fifty cops and detectives went over to it.

Devlin Maguire climbed out of the limo. Proof that my psychic powers don’t include premonition.

“What is he doing here?” I couldn’t fit him into my mental jigsaw puzzle. But there he was, big as life, unmistakable from the cut of his perfectly tailored raincoat to the size of his charisma. I even caught a glimpse of platinum blond near his shoulder before the reporters engulfed him. It appeared that he’d brought his pet witch, Lauren.

The news camera lights made him stand out even in the security video feed. Maguire looked like a president taking a press conference. There was no sound, but he made confident, reassuring gestures to the reporters, while Taylor, Gerard, and half the police force waited on him to finish.

I glanced at Carson to see if he was as surprised as I was. I couldn’t tell, because he’d gone to that cool, impassive facade he wore around his father.

The man who’d had his mother murdered.

“Maybe this is good news,” I said, then felt stupid when he cut his gaze to me, his subtext clear: How could this possibly be good news? “Alexis must be here, in the museum somewhere. The FBI could have come with Taylor, but Maguire wouldn’t be here unless the kidnappers called him.”

At Carson’s continued stare, I realized my error. “Or he could be worried about you,” I said, just babbling now. But how did you tactfully navigate such a screwed-up family dynamic?

“He’s not here because of me,” Carson said grimly, but he didn’t explain more than that.

“So who is that?” Marian asked. “It’s not the mayor, though you’d think so from the press.”

“Why … that’s Devlin Maguire!” exclaimed Margo, leaning into the screen. “He is a major contributor to the museum, and has come to a number of our gala events with his sister, Gwenda, who is on the fund-raising board.” She glanced at me, and showed she had been paying attention to more than the moans and groans from the floor below. “I believe Mr. Maguire is a shareholder in the Beaumont Corporation, who loaned us the basalt Anubis statue—the black jackal that you’ve been so interested in.”

Hold. The. Phone.

I reeled at the implications of that and turned to Carson, more baffled than accusing. “Did you know that? Is that why you remembered that article about the deep-sea recovery?”

“That’s how I came across the article,” he admitted. “Doing paperwork.”

His tone was too careful. There was more, and when it connected, I thought my brain would short-circuit. “Does that mean that Maguire knew what the Oosterhouse Jackal was all along?”

Carson gazed back at me levelly. “The problem with you, Sunshine, is that you are so honest, you never expect anyone to tell you a lie.”

“Did you know what the Jackal was?” I asked, my voice cracking. I knew there were other people in the room, was aware of them pretending not to listen, but they seemed very far away.

“No. I had no idea.” A chink opened in his armor, and a little bit of last night’s