“Nevada Baylor.”
“I need to talk to you,” Mad Rogan said into the phone. “Meet me for lunch.”
My pulse jumped, my body snapped to attention, and my brain shut down for a second to come to terms with the impact of his voice. I’d slap myself except my mother and grandmother already thought I was nuts, and hurting myself would get me committed for sure.
“Sure, let me get right on that.” Hey, my voice still worked. “Should I bring my own chains this time? Or do you have bigger plans, and this is some sort of freaky murder foreplay”—why did the word foreplay just come out of my mouth?—“and I’ll end up cut up into small pieces inside some freezer at the end? I can just spray myself with mace and shoot myself in the head now and save you the trouble.”
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Just getting started.” I was so brave over the phone.
“Lunch, Ms. Baylor. Concentrate. Pick a place.”
“You seem to be under the impression that I work for you and you can give me orders. Let me fix that.” I hung up.
Grandma looked at my mom. “Did she just hang up on Mad Rogan?”
“Yes, she did. Did you know that Adam Pierce showed up at our house last night?”
Grandma’s eyes went wide. “He was here?”
“She met him outside.”
Grandma swung toward me. “Did you take any pictures?”
My phone beeped. Unlisted number again. I answered it.
“I’m not a man of infinite patience,” Mad Rogan said.
I hung up.
“Pictures or it didn’t happen!” Grandma declared.
I scrolled through my phone and pulled up the shot of Adam Pierce in a Mercer T-shirt. “There you go.”
Grandma grabbed the phone. It beeped. She answered it. “She’ll call you back. Nevada, can I email Adam’s picture to myself?”
“You have to hang up first.”
She hung up and clicked the phone, typing with her index fingers. “Arabella is going to flip.”
My mother sighed.
Grandma passed me the phone. “Here’s your phone back.”
Another beep.
“Yes?”
His voice was quiet and precise. “If you hang up on me again, I will slice your car into small pieces and hang them on your roof like Christmas wreaths.”
“First, destroying my property is a crime, just like kidnapping me is a crime. Second, how exactly is mincing my car into small pieces supposed to convince me to come to lunch with you? Third, if you’re close enough to slice my car, I’m close enough to shoot you in the head. Can you deflect bullets if you don’t know they’re coming?”
“I’m trying to be reasonable,” he said. “Come to lunch with me and we can exchange information or . . .”
“Or what? My mother and grandmother are right here. Shall I pass the phone to them so you can threaten them with terrible things if I don’t agree to lunch?”
“Will it do any good?”
“Probably not.”
“What would make you feel safe?” he asked.
“An apology would be a start.”
“I apologize for kidnapping you,” he said. “I promise not to kidnap you before, during, or after lunch. This is a business conversation. Where would you be comfortable meeting me?”
Comfortable? The memory of his magic was still burning my brain. There was no such thing as being comfortable where he was concerned. I could meet him in the middle of city hall, surrounded by SWAT, and he could nuke them and me without breaking a sweat. But I would have to talk to him. He wanted to meet me, and he would get what he wanted one way or the other.
“Ms. Baylor?”
“Hold on. I’m trying to figure out a place where nobody will recognize us.”
“If you prefer, I can acquire a windowless creeper van, and we can huddle in it and have greasy takeout.”
Huddle? “Tempting, but no. Takara, in an hour . . .”
He hung up.
I rolled my eyes.
“Is this a good idea?” Mother asked.
“I don’t know. He mentioned exchanging information, so he might have something to trade. I don’t think avoiding him will work. He won’t take no for an answer. I can meet him on my terms or on his. I’ve tried his and I don’t like them. Besides, Makarov said not to use shockers on anyone with low magic. Mad Rogan is a Prime.” I made grabbing motions with my fingers.
“Mom?” Mother turned to Grandmother.
“What?”
“She’s going to lunch with her kidnapper!”
“Take a picture for me,” Grandma said.
“This family will put me into an early grave,” my mother growled. “I’m coming with you. Mother, lock the doors and set the alarm. We’ll take the van and the Barrett.”
“Would the Barrett be enough?” Grandma Frida asked. “Isn’t he supposed to bounce bullets off of his chest?”
“It fires .50 cal at twice the speed of sound. It will hit him before he ever hears the shot.” My mother crossed her arms. “I’d like to see him bounce that off his chest.”
Chapter 7
Takara’s website described it as an Asian bistro, which in reality meant that they specialized in beautiful sushi and had a couple of traditional Chinese and Korean dishes on the menu. It occupied a large, modern building, all heavy brown stone and big windows. As I walked through the door, an eight-foot-wall fountain greeted me. The color palette was creamy beiges, soothing greens, and rich browns with a touch of metallic bronze here and there. The colors, the gentle sound of water, and the tasteful decor were soothing, yet the hostess in front of me and the three sushi chefs behind the counter looked distinctly freaked out.
I looked over the dark brown tables and saw Mad Rogan, wearing a grey suit over a white shirt opened at the collar. He sat toward the back, by the oversized bamboo shoots in a tall black floor vase. I knew the table. It let you look outside through the window, but the passersby couldn’t really see you clearly. It was the least noticeable table on the floor, but now it might as well have been in the middle of the room. Mad Rogan was extremely difficult to ignore. The place was empty, except for two young women and a middle-aged couple, and all four pretended their hardest not to watch him.
My mother was parked across the parking lot, barely two hundred feet away. Her Barrett sniper rifle had an effective range of just over a mile. Her magic ensured that she didn’t miss. My knees were still shaking. This was a dumb idea.
A hostess in a tight black dress forced a smile at me. “Ms. Baylor? Right this way, please.”
I followed her. All this adrenaline primed my magic, and I could almost feel it pouring out of me like an angry swarm of electric bees ready to buzz. I was wearing old jeans, a charcoal blouse, and my best pair of running shoes. If I had to run for my life again, I was all set.
Mad Rogan rose to his feet, a fluid motion. A waiter appeared, as if by magic, and held the chair out for me.
Mad Rogan didn’t touch my chair. He should’ve pulled it out, but he stayed right where he was. It could have been deliberate because he felt I didn’t deserve the courtesy, but members of Houses lived and breathed etiquette.
“Did you do something to my chair?”
“No.”
My magic snapped like a whip. Lie.
I turned to the table by the window. “I like the table over there better.”
The waiter froze, petrified, unsure what to do.
I stepped toward the window table, pointed to the chair facing the parking lot, and looked at the two of them. “I’m sitting here.”
Mad Rogan moved the fingers of his left hand half an inch. Faint red smoke puffed out of the carpet, forming a shape of a magic circle centering on my former chair, and dissipated into the air. He had laid a trap, and I had almost sat down into it. Bastard.
I pulled out my new chair. The rules of politeness dictated that he sat across from me, which would put the back of his head to the window and give my mother a lovely target. Mad Rogan took a step toward my chosen table. It slid back across the carpet out of the window’s view as other tables glided aside, making room. The chair jerked out of my hand and followed. The three other chairs chased mine and arranged themselves around the table. He put his hand on the chair that let him watch both the door and the window, then invited me with a casual gesture. “Your table.”