Bern got up and took his bowl of cereal to the sink. “Let’s go.”
Rynda’s house stood quiet. Bern and I walked through the front entrance into the living room, our steps loud on the tiled floor. Houston decided that we really needed some rain, and the light filtering through the dense blanket of clouds was watery and dim. The air felt oppressive.
“Gloomy,” Bern observed.
“Yes.” The house felt like a crypt. “I wonder if Rynda will sell it.”
“I would,” Bern said. “Where do you want to look?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Divide and conquer?”
We split up. I headed for the kitchen. Rogan’s people had already swept through the place. I’d reviewed the search report. They were thorough and efficient. But they might have missed something.
I started with the pantry. An hour later I was done with the kitchen. Coffee proved to be coffee, rice turned out to be rice, and a container of sugar contained only sugar. No hidden Ziploc bags containing mysterious evidence. I shook the cans one by one. None showed any signs of tampering. No hidden spots in the dishes. Nothing taped to the inside of the cabinets. We were wasting time we didn’t have, but every instinct I had told me that whatever we were looking for was here somewhere.
“Nevada?” Bern called.
I walked into the living room. He stood over Kyle’s paintings. I came over to stand next to him.
“What are these?” he asked.
“Kyle’s paintings. Olivia Charles had them framed. I’ve gone through them. No hidden ink. Nothing in the frames. I was so sure that there was something hidden here.”
Bern crouched and picked up the top painting. A curving road flanked by trees.
“There is something about them,” I said. “It makes you want to keep looking at them.”
Bern wandered to the center of the room where the light from the back window shone on the carpet, and put the painting down.
“Give me the rest?” he asked.
I picked up a stack of paintings and handed him the next one, a tiny sea with a too-big pirate ship on it. He took a few steps backwards and placed the painting to the left and below the first one. “Next.”
A playground with a cute monster holding a red balloon and peering out of the bushes followed, then the curve of a road with a bright yellow sports car, then the clouds with a white, almost transparent flying ship. Another road with a knight in armor riding on his horse. Bern put it between the first painting and the yellow car. The road connected.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose.
We went through the stack, Bern placing the pictures one by one into a six-by-four grid, like pieces of a puzzle clicking together. We finished and stood back. A road wound in a wide arc around a house that was part suburban home, part castle, and part magic tower. A playground lay to the right, a pond just below, mountains to the left, and in the bottom left corner, four paintings came together to form an X near a gnarled tree.
“A map,” I whispered.
“He isn’t a dud,” Bern said. “He’s Magister Examplaria. A pattern mage, like me.”
Grandma gave Kyle a treasure. He hid it and then he drew a map to it, because he couldn’t help himself. And Olivia must’ve known. I’d helped to take away the only person in Kyle’s life who understood him.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
Bern glanced at me.
“I should’ve questioned the children. Instead I let Rynda do it, because they were traumatized by Vincent. I let it get personal, and it blinded me.” This is why Dad always cautioned about getting too involved.
“We have it now,” Bern said. “You can beat yourself up later. The sea is the pool. We’ll need a shovel. He must’ve buried it. Pirate treasure is always buried.”
I snapped a picture of the map with my phone. We found a pair of shovels in the garden shed and tracked our way through the lot down to the back of the property, where the woods stood dense. We pushed through the brush into a small clearing.
The sky broke open, sifting cold rain on us. I surveyed the clearing. On the right a big oak spread its branches, on the left two stumps and more brush. No signs of digging marked the forest floor.
If I were a little boy, where would I bury my treasure?
He’d made sure to point out the tree on the map. The tree was important.
I circled the big oak. Little round marks punctured the bark on the north side, two in a row, at about even intervals.
“What is it?” Bern asked.
“This was a climbing tree. These are nail holes. They must’ve nailed planks to it and then someone pulled them off.”
Bern took a running start and jumped. His hands caught the thick lower branch and he pulled himself up.
“Anything?”
“A hollow. Hold on.”
He jumped back down, a canvas bag in his hands. He set it on the ground, and I gently pulled the strings open. A plastic pirate chest, the kind you could get in a craft store or online, the plastic made to look like dark aged wood. A skull sat where the lid met the box, with two plastic swords thrust through the skull’s eyes. Smaller skulls decorated the surface.
Bern carefully pulled the swords free and opened the chest. I took the objects out one by one, carefully placing them on the canvas. A Swiss Army knife. A little velvet sack containing ten golden dollar coins, each with a different president. Three bullets. A yellow sports car. A flashlight. And a small cardboard jewelry box, the kind you would use to store a necklace.
Gently I opened it. A single USB stick lay on the velvet cushion. Inside the lid in a confident feminine cursive, someone had written, “Grandma’s Secret.”
I hugged the box. I felt like crying.
I drove through Houston’s traffic.
“It’s encrypted,” Bern said, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his laptop.
“Can you break it?”
“I’ll need time. It’s not one of the commercially available cyphers. This is a custom job and it’s very good.”
“Call Rogan.”
The car obediently dialed the number.
“Yes?” he answered.
“We have Olivia Charles’ USB. We can meet their demands.”
“What’s on it?”
“It’s encrypted. We’re bringing it home, but Bern’s uploading it to our home server as we speak.”
“Good. Great.”
“Okay, bye.” I hesitated for a moment. Why not? “Love you.”
There was a slight pause. “I love you too.”
I hung up and grinned. The Scourge of Mexico just told me he loved me. I never got tired of hearing it.
“What’s going to happen when this is over?” Bern asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What will happen with you and Rogan once this emergency is over?”
“Then we’ll have to do the trials.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“What exactly is the question, Bern?”
“Once all of these crises are over, what will happen with you and Rogan? Will you move with him into his house? Will you commute to work? Are you planning to marry him? Do you want to marry him?”
Well, that was unexpected. “You’ve been hanging out with Grandma Frida for too long. Are you worried I might take advantage of Rogan’s virtue and shack up with him?”
“No, I’m worried that you have no plan. You’re not thinking about any of these things, and you need to figure them out, not for us, but for yourself. What is it you want?”
That part was easy. I wanted to wake up next to Rogan every morning. Sometimes he would be Connor, sometimes he would be Mad Rogan, and I was good with that. I loved all of him.
“I don’t know how it will turn out. I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“We’ll be fine,” Bern said. “You don’t need to worry about us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I checked the accounts. We have enough mo
ney to survive on for about ten months. Maybe a year if we stretch. With no new cases coming in.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t need to worry about money. We can wait on things like House security. Don’t jump into something because you think that the family needs things, because we’ve become a House.”
Thank you, Garen Shaffer. “It’s not like that. I love him, Bern. I mean that.”
“I was afraid of that,” he said quietly. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Thank you. Rogan won’t hurt me.”
“You weren’t there when he was watching you with Garen. His face was flat. Cold. He stood there, without an expression on his face, and twisted solid metal into bows like it was Play-Doh.”
“He didn’t prevent me from going to that dinner. He never asked me not to go. When Garen walked into my office, he didn’t storm over and try to throw him out. He put himself on a chain for my benefit, because as much as he wants to wrap me in bubble wrap and kidnap me to his lair, he knows I wouldn’t stand for it. He’s trying to make sure I see all choices available to us as an emerging House. As we were walking home, after he watched me and Garen, he told me one more time that from a genetic perspective, Garen was the better choice.”
“Is Garen the better choice?”
“No. Because I don’t love him. Even if love wasn’t a factor, I would choose Rogan over him. When we were naked and freezing in David Howling’s cistern, Rogan sacrificed himself for me. He fully expected to die. If Garen and I were in danger, and only one of us could make it, Garen would rationalize why he was the better choice to survive and leave me.”
“Just be careful, Nevada.”
It was too late for that. I was all in. “I will.”
The phone rang. An unfamiliar number. I accepted. “You’ve reached Nevada Baylor.”
“You wanted to talk,” a cultured female voice said. “I will meet you at Takara in fifteen minutes. If you do not show, I’ll know where we stand.”
The call ended.
“Was that . . . ?” Bern blinked.
“That was Victoria Tremaine.” When Linus Duncan made you a promise, he kept it. She’d picked Takara, the place where I often ate. It was a dig at me. See, I know where you eat and what you like to order. I have your whole life under surveillance.
I locked my jaw and took the exit.
“You can’t be serious,” Bern said.
“She tried twice and failed both times. She wants to talk, I’ll talk to her.”
“This isn’t wise.”
“If we don’t talk, she’ll just keep trying and we can’t afford that. Eventually the girls and Leon have to go to school. We have to live normal lives. Our House status will protect us, but she’s determined. I don’t want her throwing wrenches into it.”
“How do you know it’s safe?”
“Because Linus Duncan arranged it. Do you want me to drop you off?”
“No.” Bern pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Bug. I want to know what we’re driving into. I want him to get eyes on the restaurant, and I want him to get us some backup.”
Takara served as our go-to sushi place when we wanted a treat. Its listing said Asian Fusion, which in their case meant authentic Japanese cuisine and bulgogi on the menu. A quiet place, furnished in rich tones of brown and green with elegant but comfortable décor. When Rogan invited me to our first lunch, I decided to meet him there, because Takara sat right in the middle of a large shopping plaza off I-10 that had everything from Toys “R” Us and Academy Sports, to Olive Garden and H-E-B, the trademark Texas grocery store. Nonstop traffic, lots of people, and very little privacy. The perfect place to meet someone you don’t trust.
Despite the two-thirds full parking lot, I recognized Victoria’s car immediately. It was the only Mercedes with a human Rottweiler in a suit stationed by it. I parked at the opposite end of the parking lot.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked Bern.
“No. She doesn’t want to see me. I’m going to stay here and keep the car running in case you come running out.”
I handed the keys to him and stepped out of the vehicle. Victoria’s bodyguard watched me as I crossed the parking lot. Twenty yards separated me from the door, and each step proved harder than the last. I could barely move. Finally my hand fastened around the door handle. Made it.
I took a deep breath and walked into Takara with my head held high.
The restaurant was empty, except for one patron. Victoria Tremaine sat in the back by the window. Almost the same table Rogan had chosen. She wore a beautifully tailored black suit. A stunning blue and turquoise shawl, gossamer thin and embroidered with peacock feathers, hung off her left shoulder. It gleamed, catching the light from the window, with what was probably real gold thread.
A hostess smiled at me.
“I’m with the lady in the shawl,” I told her.
Her smile faltered slightly. “Please, this way.”
“No need. I see her.”
I marched to the table and checked the floor for traces of an arcane circle, just in case.
Victoria Tremaine scoffed.
“One can never be too careful.” I sat in the chair.
A waiter approached us.
“Bring hot tea,” Victoria ordered. “Green or black, whatever is best in the house. Two cups. Leave the kettle and keep it refilled. My granddaughter and I will be talking. Don’t disturb us.”
The waiter took off at a near run.
When I thought of grandmother, I thought of Grandma Frida, with her halo of platinum curls and the comforting smell of machine grease and gun oil that seemed to follow her everywhere. To me, that word meant safety and warmth. No matter how badly I screwed things up with Mom and Dad, Grandma Frida would always be there to listen, to make me laugh.
Victoria Tremaine couldn’t be more different. She was taller and heavier than Grandma Frida, who was always bird-boned, but it was a formidable kind of heaviness. She wasn’t fat, she was solid, as if the age accreted around her. Lines crossed her face. Unlike most aging wealthy, she hadn’t bothered with either plastic surgery or illusion magic. Her hair, styled the last time I saw a recording of her, had been artfully chopped into a shorter cut that emphasized the severe lines of her face. I looked at her eyes and wished I hadn’t. They were the exact blue of my father’s. But my father’s eyes had been kind, laughing, sometimes stern. Victoria’s eyes were those of a raptor. She wasn’t an evil witch, she was the aging queen. Instead of mellowing with age, she had only grown more dangerous, ruthless, and merciless.
“You look like James,” she said.
“I also hold his values.”
“And what are those?”
“I take care of my family, and I try to be a good person.”
“A good person?” She leaned half an inch forward. “Do tell.”
If we took that exit, we’d be at it for a while. “You wanted to speak to me. I’m here.”
“I want you to drop this House Baylor nonsense. You belong to House Tremaine.”
“No. Was there anything else?”
“You have no connections. You have no finances, no workforce, and you don’t even know enough to realize how much you don’t know.”
“I’ll learn.”
The waiter brought the tea and placed it in front of us with two cups.
“At what cost? You have no idea how deep these waters are. We are related by blood. Blood is the only thing in this world you can trust.”
The waiter poured the tea and took off.
“I know exactly how deep they are. I know that there is an organization which is attempting to destabilize Houston with the long-range goal of installing an authoritarian government based on the Roman Empire. I know that the man at the head of it calls himself Caesar. I know that this plan began with Adam Pierce. I know that Olivia Charles and David Howling were part of the same conspiracy, which also includes Vincent Ha
rcourt and Alexander Sturm. David Howling told this to me before I snapped his neck. I know that this conspiracy repeatedly targeted my family, going as far as to hire mercenaries to assault the warehouse where we live. They had orders to kill me and my sisters. I also know that you were the one who lifted the hex on the mind of a young man to find the artifact for Adam Pierce. And that you hexed Vincent Harcourt to keep him from spilling Caesar’s secrets. You’re in this conspiracy up to your elbows.”
I took a breath. “So I’m a little confused. You tell me that I’m supposed to trust you because you and I are blood. When was blood the most important thing to you? Was it when the mercenaries arrived in the middle of the night to butcher us, when Howling iced the overpass while I was in the car behind him so I would wreck and die, or when Adam tried to burn me to death in the middle of downtown?”
Victoria narrowed her eyes. “Clever girl.”
I sipped my tea.
“You have no proof.”
“I don’t need proof. A truthseeker hexed Vincent’s mind. There are only three truthseeker Houses in the US. I met Garen Shaffer and eliminated him as a suspect.”
“You cracked Garen Shaffer?” Skepticism filled her voice.
“I didn’t have to. He wanted to play a game, and he lost.”
“He didn’t cloak?”
“He did at some point, but I picked through it. Garen Shaffer is too focused on the welfare of his family and his corporate health to become involved in a conspiracy. He’s quite content with things as they are. House Lin is up to their throats in government contracts.” Rogan had shared that handy fact with me one night, while we discussed the future of House Baylor. “Involving themselves with the conspiracy would be too risky, as they’re under heavy scrutiny. That leaves you. You fit the profile.”
“Oh, so there is a profile?”
“Yes. Everyone involved comes from an old powerful House, at least four generations deep. Everyone is dissatisfied with the status quo. Pierce wanted to burn the world free of repercussions and constraints of the law. David Howling wanted to destroy his brother and take over his House. Olivia Charles hated to see her only daughter stuck in a loveless marriage because of her genes. She had reached the apex of her social climb, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted the kind of status that would allow Rynda to pick and choose her husband among the elite of the elites, no matter her genes. Vincent Harcourt is a sadist, who is almost never given free rein by his House. Not sure what Sturm’s issues are, but he definitely has some.”
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