“That was the only reason.”
Love nodded. “Did you see anyone else while you were there?”
“His receptionist. I… uh… cast Influence on her so she would show me into my dad’s office without making me wait.”
Love’s eyebrows went up. Influence came naturally to my family. With a smile and just the barest whisper of magic, a Beckstrom could make almost anyone do almost anything. Still, any spell cast legally on another human being had to be done with their consent. That was a damn hard thing to actually enforce, but the spirit of the law ruled in magic-related cases.
Cases like murder.
“Did you Influence anyone else in the building?” Love asked.
“No.”
“So other than your father, his receptionist was the only other person you spoke to while in the building,” Love said.
“No. Zayvion Jones was there too.”
This time it was Detective Payne who gave me the weird look. She held so very still I realized she had the bones to make a lovely marble statue. Then she looked down at the pad of paper in her hands and wrote something.
But it was more than just the weird look that had me wondering what the big deal was about Zayvion. It was the sudden scent of surprise, lemon sour, and something else-a confusion of anger or maybe just worry-that radiated off of her. She knew Zayvion. Or knew something about him.
Wasn’t that interesting?
“Do you have contact information for Mr. Jones?” she asked.
“No. If I did know where he lived, I don’t now. I don’t have his phone number either.”
She nodded and went back to writing. News of my coma had been all the rage while I’d been sleeping it off. There probably wasn’t anyone in Portland who wasn’t up on the latest disaster in the Beckstrom family.
“Okay, then,” Love said. “That’s it. Thank you, Ms. Beckstrom.” He turned off the tape recorder and made another note on his paper. “So. You seen Zayvion Jones since then?” he asked without looking up at me.
“From what I can remember, I’ve talked to him once since I’ve been back.”
“How long ago?” He still wasn’t looking at me, still had his pen on the paper, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t actually writing anything, just going through the motions. No more sunshine and sandy beaches. Makani Love was nothing but rain-cold police procedure now.
My personal life was none of the police’s business. Except, of course, when it was.
Zayvion had been noticeably absent. It was possible he didn’t want to see me anymore. Possible he had changed his mind about us. I wouldn’t blame him. My life was full of complications. And so far, it didn’t look like it was getting less complicated anytime soon.
I had seen him this morning-on the street, watching the bus go by. Or at least I thought it was him. But maybe I was just seeing something, someone, I wanted to see in the rain and darkness.
“The last time I spoke to him was about two weeks ago, when I first got back to town.”
Love looked up from his paperwork. No smile this time. “If you do see Zayvion Jones, we’d appreciate knowing about it.”
“Why? Is he in trouble?”
“No. We just need him for some paperwork. Nothing serious.”
Right. It didn’t take a Hound to know he was lying.
“Okay,” I said. “Is that it? Can I leave now?”
Love looked over at Payne, and she closed the pad she’d been writing on.
“How much do you know about the Magical Enforcement Response Corps?” she asked.
I knew nothing-didn’t even know the police had a separate department to deal with magical crimes. I just thought some of the police officers were cross-trained to deal with magic, like Love and Payne. “Have we talked about it before?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
Love grunted and took another slurp of his coffee. “We don’t go out of the way to make the MERC public, yah?”
“So why tell me?”
They didn’t say anything. I looked between them, at Love’s wide, usually happy face, at Payne’s thin, perpetually scowling one.
“Is there a case you need my help with? A Hounding job or something?”
Love sat back a little, his chair groaning. “You’ve had some problems with magic, yah?”
Besides blowing my brains out with magic and doing a three-week coma? I thought. Besides these lovely colorful tattoos down my right arm and bands across my left? Besides carrying magic in me instead of just drawing on it from the stores beneath the city like sane people? Besides Trager stabbing my leg for a syringe full of my blood and the magic it contained, and of course, that freaky visit from my dad’s ghost this morning? No, no problems at all.
“Define problems,” I said.
“We want you to know you can call us-any of us-if something goes wrong again,” Love said. “The law is here to protect you.”
“What makes you think I need protection?”
“In this city, everybody needs protection.” He smiled, but it was the grim look of a man who had seen the worst of what people could do-with and without magic.
Here was where I should lay my cards on the table and tell them about Lon Trager on the bus. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. And it wasn’t some sort of Silence or Choke spell.
I hesitated because if I told them Lon Trager wanted Pike, I’d end up whisked out of town under police custody, thus killing any chance of me convincing Pike he should come to the police to make sure they could take care of Trager aboveboard and legally. I did not want Pike to go vigilante and get himself killed or thrown in jail.
And if the police didn’t rush me out of town, they might just tell me to take out a restraining order on Trager, which wouldn’t do me any good if one of his unrestrained “people” decided to kill me. Barring those two options, Love and Payne might decide instead to tail me 24/7, which I would hate. I don’t like people watching me.
I took another drink of coffee to cover my pause. Pike. First I’d talk to him, find out what the old Hound knew. Then I’d drag his stubborn hide down here to the police to make sure he was protected from Trager right along with me. If I was getting whisked out of town by the cops, Pike was coming with me.
“So, just in case you need protection,” Love continued, “we want you to meet a few people on the MERC force. You have time now, yah?”
“I guess.”
“Good. Come on this way.”
He stood, filling the free space in the room, and I stood too because even with the door propped open, the room suddenly felt much too small for the three of us. I stepped aside so Mr. Island Warmth could walk past me, and then grabbed my coat and exited the room right behind him. Payne followed, a blade of dark shadow on our heels.
Love led us through the maze of cubicles again, and the tightness in my chest squeezed harder. Getting out of that room hadn’t done much good for my claustrophobia. Even here it seemed too small for so many people, and so many desks, and so many walls. There wasn’t enough air.
I gritted my teeth and thought calm thoughts about big open fields and big open oceans and big open skies, where there was plenty of room and plenty of open and plenty of me breathing slowly and smoothly and not hyperventilating like a moron.
Then we were out into the lobby, into high ceilings and echoes and room to breathe, and no more hyperventilation. A hall to the left took us to another door that was card-locked and also had a hell of a Diversion glyph on it. Most people probably wouldn’t even see the door with that big of a Diversion operating. Behind the door was a stairwell. We went down at least two flights, the only sound the squeak of Love’s right sneaker, the clomping of my boots, and the ghostly hush of Payne’s sensible loafers.