White Hot

I stirred and the illusion rippled. I was still in the car, Rogan was driving, and my hand still rested on his muscular forearm. He was projecting. It had to be a memory, probably from childhood. I didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose or if it was an unconscious side effect of him remembering it, but I had a choice. I could reject it and stay in this car, miserable and feeling sorry for myself, or I could let myself sink into the place where I was safe and warm while winter raged outside. I held completely still and welcomed it.

We didn’t say anything until he parked before our warehouse. The lodge melted into thin air. I unbuckled my seat belt. I would have to go inside and explain to my mother that she wouldn’t have to kill Augustine. I would have to explain what I’d done. It seemed so daunting right now.

Rogan turned the car off and reached out. His fingers wrapped around my hand, reassuring and trying to forge a connection between us.

“Did you send me the books?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.”

I leaned across the seat and kissed him. Time stopped and for a few blissful moments there was nothing except Connor, intoxicating and irresistible, the taste of him, the scent of him, the raw male power in his arms, and the tender seducing touch of his lips . . . And then I was out of the car and gone before the power of that kiss wore off.

Chapter 13

I opened my eyes to the blinking lights and loud beeping of my alarm. I slapped it down and swiped my phone off the night table. Three text messages: Rogan, Diana Harrison, and the third from an unknown number. I clicked Rogan’s first.

House Howling disavowed David. Lenora will see us this morning at eight. You and I are going alone. Cornelius’ dispensation specified that he must stay behind to protect Matilda.

So Cornelius got his blessing after all, but not exactly in the way he wanted. I clicked his sister’s text message. My brother rarely draws attention to himself. Don’t underestimate Cornelius. He’s a dangerous mage and he loves his wife enough, still, to sacrifice every animal he bonded with in her name. I hold you personally accountable for the safety of my niece.

Great. She’d known me for a whole five minutes and she already held me accountable.

I clicked the last text message. A picture of David Howling, smiling, holding a drink with his left hand and shooting with the index finger of his right. I’ve played this game before. I typed back, Cute.

Come on, text me back.

Nothing. Probably used a burner phone.

You’d think there would be some savagery in David’s eyes. Some indication that he was a cold, calculating killer, but no. They were warm and calm, their color a very pale hazel. His face was relaxed, his smile genuine. What makes you tick, David?

The message was sent to me, but it was really for Rogan. I forwarded it to him.

The response was instant. Cute.

Ha! Evil minds think alike.

Someone knocked. “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Catalina said through the door.

“Come in.”

My sister stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind her. Her face was pale, her lips pinched together. “What happened?”

She sat on my bed and offered me a tablet.

“Is that Matilda’s?”

She nodded. “Matilda has an email address. Her mother would send her cute cat pictures from her work. She knows how to check her email and this showed up this morning.”

I glanced at the tablet. A video clip. Okay. I tapped it.

David Howling’s smiling mug filled the screen. “Hello, Matilda.”

Oh, you sonovabitch.

“I heard your mommy had to go away.”

Fury punched me.

“Do you miss your mommy? I’m so sorry that she went away. It’s not right when mommies just go away like that. But don’t be sad. You will see her very soon. I’ll make sure of it.”

He pointed his index finger at the screen, winked, and pretended to shoot. The video stopped.

The world had gone red and for a second I couldn’t even see.

“She is four years old.” Catalina’s lips trembled with barely contained rage.

“Has Cornelius seen this?”

“No.”

“Talk to Bern and tell him to scrub that email out of Matilda’s email box and off the server. This was designed to make all of us lose it and do something rash.”

Cornelius was already not in a good place. This email could push him over the edge.

Catalina grabbed the tablet. “You kill him, Nevada. Kill him, or I will. He isn’t touching one hair on Matilda’s head.”

“I will,” I promised her.

Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed, and suitably armed, I climbed into the passenger seat of Rogan’s Range Rover. Melosa nodded at me from the back seat. Normally I’d hide my gun in a canvas bag or a purse. Today I didn’t bother. My Baby Desert Eagle rested in a hip holster. Its magazine held twelve rounds, .40 S&W, and I’d brought two spare magazines, in the interior pocket within the lining of my jacket.

We drove downtown in silence, Houston sliding past our windows under an overcast sky. Lenora Jordan’s new HQ was a far cry from the marble elegance of the old Justice Center. Rogan had leveled it while trying to save Houston. The new Justice Center had been raised by one of the larger Houses as a business high-rise and bought by the city of Houston three days before it was set to open.

The new Justice Center was built with polished sunset-red granite, its facade a complex pattern of rectangles and triangles of insulated tinted glass. When the sun caught it just right, the entire building glowed, its tint changing with the time of day and color of the sky. Sometimes it was fiery orange, sometimes almost purple, and sometimes red. It stabbed at the clouds, a sharply cornered, massive obelisk taking up the entire block between Travis and Capitol streets. A meaner, leaner, harder tower, a monument to Houston’s resolve, daring any enemies to take a shot at it. People called it the Spire. The name fit.

As Rogan slid the Range Rover into a parking space two blocks away, the Spire loomed above the city, and the overcast sky turned it a reddish purple, the color of a fresh bruise. A bad feeling came over me. I wished we could have brought more backup. Unfortunately, this part of the downtown was a no-escort zone by mutual agreement between the Houses. We’d brought Melosa, who could be viewed as our driver, but that was it.

Theoretically the restriction made the downtown safe. Practically, we had been attacked only a few blocks from the old Justice Center and the no-escort policy didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

“Good luck,” Melosa said.

Yeah. I hoped we wouldn’t need it.

We walked to the building without incident, I surrendered my firearm to security, then we crossed the Spire’s cavernous lobby—polished white marble floor and red granite columns rising to a dizzying height. We selected the right elevator and let it carry us to the twenty-third floor without incident. Lenora Jordan’s gatekeeper, a Native American woman about forty or so, gave us a long once-over and nodded toward the door. We stepped into her office and I almost did a double take.

Nothing had changed. Same massive bookcases, same leather visitor chairs, same deep red curtains. Even the massive desk of reclaimed wood looked the same. It wasn’t just like her old office. This was an exact duplicate of it, as if the collapse had never happened.

Lenora Jordan sat in her chair, typing on her computer. The first time I’d met her, I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Lenora was the hero of my adolescence. Incorruptible, powerful, confident, she bound criminals in magic chains and dragged them to justice. As Rogan once said, Law and Order were her gods and she prayed to them sincerely and often.

Maybe it was because this was the third time we’d spoken, or maybe too much had happened, but I couldn’t muster any hero worship. Instead I noted faint lines around her mouth and a touch of puffiness around her eyes. Her curly black hair was still perfect and the makeup enhancing her deep brown skin was still flawless, but fatigue smudged the perfection. The Harris County DA was working overtime.

“Yes?” she asked without raising her head.

Rogan took out his phone, flicked his finger across the screen to start the recording of Senator Garza’s death, and held it between Lenora’s eyes and her computer screen. She snapped the phone out of his hand. Recorded moments ticked away. Lenora’s gaze sharpened. She focused on the video like a bird of prey, a powerful eagle ready to strike.