by Jami Gray
His opening gambit caught me off guard, but I cautiously prodded, “And you tried to play me off with some bullshit about your Family being interested in me.” However, considering my early-morning reading, that claim might not be bullshit after all.
In an eerie coincidence that mimicked mind-reading, he cocked his head. “Why would that be bullshit?”
For a moment, I froze, dread tightening its greedy hands on my throat. I swallowed hard, escaping its grasp. “I’m not doing this dance again, Zev. Just say what you want to say.” I took another sip and set my cup down.
“Fine, we’ll come back to that.”
No, we won’t. Not if I had anything to say about it.
Zev drummed his fingers against the counter. “We have reason to believe that Keith Thatcher is in possession of an encrypted drive that may contain proprietary Family information.”
Yep, that would definitely put Keith on the Cordovas’ radar, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to justify Zev’s involvement. I did a quick run-through of what I knew of the Cordovas and the even less I knew of Zev for another plausible explanation. Only after I added in his insistence that we work together did I find a conclusion that left my stomach in knots. “Is this proprietary information connected to the research that led to Jeremy’s kidnapping?”
His gaze remained disconcertingly steady. “It’s possible.”
Not the answer I wanted to hear. “How possible?” I pushed.
His mouth tightened. “Highly possible. When we retrieved Lara’s initial research for LanTech, we found evidence that she stored a copy of her test results on a secured company file.”
Bet that burned Emilio Cordova’s ass. The head of the Cordova Family was a control freak, a trait exposed by his single-minded campaign to punish LanTech. I was beginning to suspect Zev shared that trait. As he spoke, I casually gathered the notebook and journal, turned, and went to the counter by the fridge. I opened a drawer filled with takeout menus and other odds and ends, and dropped the books inside. With my back to him, I said, “And you think that copy is on the hard drive Keith stole.”
“Pretty much,” he confirmed.
I turned and leaned against the counter, folding my arms over my chest. “How did he get ahold of it?”
Zev frowned. “Does it matter?”
Maybe not, but something about the situation niggled at the back of my mind. “Humor me.”
He all but rolled his eyes. “It seems that as a financial manager, Keith had access to sensitive company files. When LanTech kicked him to the curb, he decided to supplement his forced retirement through alternate means.”
It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. One pissed-off ex-employee with access to the company’s financials and a bunch of proprietary information… “Like selling LanTech’s trade secrets to its competitors?”
“Competitor,” Zev corrected, a reminder that Origin was the other player in this convoluted mess. “That was probably his initial intent—to sell Origin the information Lara promised them.”
“But?” I prompted when he paused.
“But based on his behavior, it’s possible he had no idea of what exactly he had in his possession.”
I wandered back and picked up my coffee. “Why do you think that?”
“Because if he knew, he would’ve approached Emilio first.” When I aimed a silent question his way, he explained, “Not only did Keith know about Lara’s research, he helped draft her contract with LanTech. A contract that stipulated her research belonged solely to her, and if something should happen to her, it would go to her heir.”
“Her heir being Jeremy,” I finished, finally following his trail of breadcrumbs. “And because Jeremy is a minor, that means that research belongs to his guardian.” That poor kid could not catch a break. Not only had he lost his mom, but his dad, Emilio’s younger brother, had died some time before that. Funny the things you find out when you’re stumbling through a botched kidnapping.
Zev lifted his cup. “To Emilio, yes.”
And Emilio would pay to ensure that information stayed away from Origin. “I’m guessing Emilio never heard from Keith?”
“Not a peep.” He continued to watch me with a disconcerting intensity completely at odds with his casual tone. “Yesterday, the head of Origin’s research received an anonymous email that offered a copy of the test results for an undisclosed amount of money.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yesterday,” he confirmed.
I frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me that when we were at the café?”
“Because,” he said with maddeningly patience, “I didn’t find out until after our meet.”
“And here I thought we were going to share information.” I wanted to choke those words back as soon as they escaped, because I’d failed to share a few things of my own.
“Like how you’re going to share why you were at Estancia last night with Sabella?” The deceptive nonchalance of his question didn’t quite hide the order buried within.
“That has nothing to do with this,” I snapped, unwilling to revisit last night’s events or my unwelcome reminder of my reaction to his date. “If the email came in after Keith’s death, either he delayed the delivery or—”
“He’s working with someone,” Zev finished.
I was betting on option number two. “So who’s Keith’s partner?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Where’s your roommate, Rory?”
And with that, I knew exactly why Zev was dogging my heels. My temper rose to a low boil. “Lena is not Keith’s partner.”
Proving he didn’t know me at all, he ignored the warning signs of my temper and blithely continued down his twisted path of logic. “Keith stole a magically encrypted hard drive, then he contracted a Guild Key, likely to unlock it. Now, Keith is dead, the drive is nowhere to be found, the Key is missing in action, and someone has made Origin an offer they can’t refuse. Do you see where I’m going here?”
I shoved my coffee aside hard enough that it wobbled a second before regaining its balance. I braced both hands on the counter and leaned in, my voice a low, vicious whip. “I know exactly what you’re insinuating, but you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” His sardonic demeanor disappeared, leaving behind the merciless Arbiter. “Lena Davis is an unacknowledged offspring of an excised daughter of the Clarke Family and a First Nation Shaman. As a child, she was used as a negotiating tool for her parents’ constant power plays and guilt trips. When she was thirteen, she joined the Guild as a Key and voided any claim she had to the Clarke Family or to the First Nation Tribes. Essentially, she made herself an orphan. At thirteen.” He leaned forward, closing the space between us. “She has grown up knowing her heritage and the advantages it offered, but with a singular youthful choice, she reinforced a Family edict and ensured she’d never get to claim any of it. You don’t think that might breed a fair amount of resentment?”
“Not for Lena.” That was more information than I wanted to hear from someone who wasn’t Lena, but I would be damned if I let Zev know that. It also didn’t help my ragged temper to hear the hint of contempt in Zev’s voice as he laid out his faulty logic. “Not everyone ties their self-worth into whether or not they share blood with an Arcane Family,” I sneered. “The fact that you feel being renounced by a Family is reason enough to betray everything you are says more about you than Lena.” It also meant that Lena was now on a Family radar, another thing to add to my growing “worry about it later” list. I straightened and stepped back, my hands fisting as I fought back my rising resentment. My voice went arctic as I held his gaze. “Lena is not Keith’s partner, nor is she the one extorting Origin.” And if he continued down this path, our little arrangement was going to go straight to hell.
His blank expression and empty voice made it difficult to determine if what I said made any impact. “If that’s the case, then where is she?”
“If I were to guess, probably being held hostage by Keith’s partner.”
>
My snide tone bounced off his titanium hide. “What are you basing that conclusion on?”
Mimicking his derisive tone, I shot back, “The facts.”
Completely unfazed, he demanded, “What facts?”
If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have kicked him out of my home in a heartbeat. But the truth was, I needed him and his contacts to get Lena back, because the more he shared, the more worried I became that Lena’s trouble ended and began with an unknown power player. And to fight that kind of clout, I needed a heavyweight, which left me with no choice but to continue working with his pretentious ass. “Lena disappeared the day before yesterday. We were able to track her until earlier that afternoon before losing her signal.” No sense in getting into the fact that the Guild tagged their people with loci spells; better to let him think we relied on technology.
“We, being the Guild?” Settling into his interrogation, he sat back.
I nodded. “An electro mage conducted a search of the area where her signal was lost and confirmed that her location was being blocked by a spell, which meant someone was deliberately keeping her off the radar.” Even knowing it was a long shot, I tossed out the bait—my implication being that the mage behind the spell was strong enough to block electronic signals or any other undisclosed tracking techniques. I waited for any betraying flicks of emotion from Zev. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t oblige, even though we both knew a mage of that caliber would be connected to a Family. Moving on, I said, “Then there’s the fact that sometime between yesterday morning when Keith’s body showed up at my condo and when Lena disappeared, Keith had a violent struggle with someone in his home. My guess: it’s probably the same someone who sent Origin the extortion email.”
“She could’ve easily disabled whatever your electro mage was tracking and gone after Keith herself, retrieved the drive, and sent the email.” His tone was one used when pointing out the obvious.
The fact that Zev hadn’t considered the Guild would use more than one technique to track its employees was telling. It was also confirmation that the Guild could be just as secretive as the Families. “That’s one option,” I conceded, “but it’s not realistic. Not only was Keith Lena’s client—something that was easily traced—but the minute she deactivated the tracking, she put the Guild on alert. Then there’s the spelled trap from last night.”
That got a reaction. Zev’s spine snapped straight, and his expression shifted to lethal menace. “Start explaining.”
“Per protocol,” I said with the same condescending tone Zev had used earlier, “the Guild kept an eye on Lena’s signal, in case it reactivated. Late last night, after I left Estancia, it did just that. I was notified the Guild was heading in to investigate.” Okay, so I was taking a few liberties with the retelling, whatever. Having Lena twisted up in this was bad enough; I wasn’t sure I wanted Evan on Zev’s radar, as well. “As soon as I completed my job, I headed over to help. Instead, I found the investigator strung up in a complex holding spell.”
“Alive?” Skepticism was loud and clear in his question.
“Yep.”
His eyes narrowed. “That means whoever set it was probably planning on coming back to find out who it caught.”
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. “That was our assumption, but we didn’t stick around to find out.”
“Why not?” His sharp question needled my temper.
“Because,” I snapped back, “the spell did not react kindly to being broken and neither one of us were in any shape to stick around and deal with the fallout.”
His hand fisted on the counter, and his eyes narrowed. “Tell me you called in a Hound.”
Pompous jackass. His statement inferred I didn’t know how to do my job. Instead of answering, I folded my arms over my chest and glared. A silent staring contest ensued. Damned if I was going to blink first.
After a few tense seconds, he broke first. “Fine.” His lips quirked, an indication he’d gotten my silent point. He backed off. “Have you heard back from them?”
That I was willing to share. “Not yet.”
He studied me, his thoughts hidden, but something was working in that thick skull. Eventually, he put the pieces together. “Someone didn’t like you poking around.”
“No, they didn’t.” I dropped my arms and braced my hands on the counter. “But it also tells me Lena’s still alive.”
There was something in his expression—pity or compassion, I couldn’t tell which—but the confrontational edge in his voice disappeared. “You sure about that?”
Refusing to admit how deep his question sliced, I answered, “Very, because if they wanted the Guild off their ass, they would have already dumped her body. Probably at Keith’s so it would appear as if the two had argued and killed each other. It would be the easiest way to redirect the Guild’s attention and have them chasing their tail long enough for Keith’s real partner to get away clean.” Not that I would have bought that scenario.
We held each other’s gaze as a somber quiet crouched between us. Who knew what he was thinking? But I wouldn’t give up on Lena until there was indisputable proof she was gone. Even then, I would tear my way through any- and everyone to find out the who and why, then I would make them pay.
Zev looked to his cup and idly moved it around on the counter. “You told me yesterday, you ended up at Keith’s on Guild business.”
I nodded. “When we researched Lena’s active cases, Keith’s name came up, along with a note that she had scheduled a meeting with him for yesterday at his house.”
When I didn’t elaborate, he prompted, “Any idea of why she wanted to meet with him?”
“No,” I lied without a qualm. I didn’t mind sharing actual facts about Lena’s contract, but my assumptions about her meeting with Keith could be twisted to add weight to Zev’s suspicions.
His eyes narrowed, and he flexed his fingers around his cup, clearly on the fence about whether or not to believe me. I waited him out. Finally, he asked, “What do you know about Keith’s contract?”
“It was initiated by his medical provider.” Was it nice to take a mean sort of pleasure in his confused expression? Probably not, but I did. However, the sooner we got our shit on the table, the faster this unholy partnership would be done. So before he could ask, I said, “Dr. Oliver Martin, a urologist at the Reid Clinic, requested assistance from a Guild Key for a magical contagion.”
My answer didn’t erase his frown. If anything, it deepened. “A what?”
My lips curved, but considering how I felt, there was nothing nice about it. “Keith’s dick had been cursed.”
Zev blinked. “You’re shitting me?”
I shook my head. “Can’t prove it, but if it involves a urologist and a curse…”
He grimaced and downed the rest of his coffee. “Who the hell does that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I drawled, heavy on the sarcasm. “Perhaps he pissed off a woman by fucking around on her?”
He looked away, but not fast enough to hide a purely masculine wince. He tried to cover it by running a hand through his hair. “That would make sense, I guess.”
I grabbed my coffee and took a sip, grimacing at the now-lukewarm liquid. “Keith had quite the reputation.” I carried the cup to the sink. “According to Lena’s documented interviews of known associates, infidelity was just one of the reasons he split with Madeline. Something the gossip rags had a field day with.” I popped off the lid and dumped the contents down the drain.
“You can’t believe everything you read in those,” he muttered.
“And the interviews are what? Sour grapes?” When he didn’t say anything, I slid him a glance as I rinsed out the sink. “You really think he was faithful?” When he remained silent, I shook my head. “Ever hear that adage about where there’s smoke, there’s fire?”
“You think Madeline set the curse.” There was a note of incredibility in Zev’s voice that rubbed me the wrong way.
I shut off the water. “Do you have someone else in mind?”
Instead of answering, he said, “She’s his ex.”
“Exactly.”
“And when she denies it?” Zev asked. “What’s your next move?”
I dried off my hands and shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to share the name or names of whoever it is that is… was,” I corrected, “keeping Keith company. If anyone knows the dirty details of Keith’s love life, I can guarantee it will be Madeline.”
“That makes no sense,” he grumbled.
“Only because you’re a guy,” I shot back. “Women have long memories, especially when it comes to men who screw them over. A woman like Madeline, who’s made a lifelong career based upon her social status and public image, is not going to leave herself open to being blindsided by an ex with an ax to grind. They were married for what? Twenty-eight years, right?”
Zev gave a short nod.
“That’s a long time to store up hurt feelings, and signing divorce papers won’t erase those. She not only knows Keith better than anyone else, but she’ll know all his tucked-away love nests, or who was the latest body keeping his sheets warm. Once I have a name—”
“We,” Zev interrupted. “Once we have a name.”
I waved off his correction. “Fine, we have a name. We have another thread to pull on.”
He still didn’t look convinced. “That’s a hell of a lot of assumptions.”
“If you have something more solid, please share. I’m all ears.” I waited, knowing he had nothing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been in my damn kitchen.
“Fine.” He lifted his cup, drained it, and straightened from his seat. “Let’s go ask Madeline if she cursed her ex’s dick.”
Chapter Fifteen
Madeline Thatcher’s office was one of multiple suites taking up the top floor in a downtown high-rise. We stepped out of the elevator and into a hall, where a surprisingly bright reception area waited on the other side of a glass wall. We crossed the hall to the door, which Zev reached around me to hold open. As I walked through, the heat of his palm rested lightly against the base of my spine. The courteous gesture set off an unexpected but purely feminine reaction that I did my best to ignore. From behind me, Zev’s deep voice said, “Good morning, Debbie.”