Sharon, particularly, excelled in making people believe that she was totally, unquestioningly, on their team. Wells barely gave her a glance now; she had become an appendage, the same as his housekeeper and his gardener.
“I have put together a list of everything I saw that was missing. You will want to examine the site of the intrusion, now?” It was less a question than a gentle order.
“Yes, thank you,” Sharon said, standing up when it looked like Nick was going to try and continue the questioning. Her partner, used to following his coworker’s cues, shut his mouth and stood up, as well. Rather than call his housekeeper back, Wells escorted them himself.
“The report said that you suspected a Retriever,” Sharon said, both because she was curious, and because he would wonder why they hadn’t asked, if they didn’t. If he had been a member of the Cosa it would make sense, but Wells was, unquestionably, Null. “Did you have specific reason to believe... ?”
“I have reason to believe that the alarm system I have set up is suitable to detect any normal means of intrusion,” he said. “I also paid a great deal of money to install a spell-detector on the perimeter of my property, to prevent any – ” he paused and Sharon and Nick both had the sense that he was about to say “of you people” and changed in the last breath – “unwanted intrusions of a magical sort. Therefore clearly it had to be someone of exceptional skill.”
Nick coughed, smothering a laugh. Sharon kept her face poker-still. Their client had been sold a bill of goods – there was no way to detect a spell being cast, short of actually being there when it hit. Venec and Bonnie had been working on it as a side experiment, and the current just wouldn’t hold in place long enough to be useful – you could do a short-term thing, maybe a few hours, but after that, it just faded.
The only thing worse than Nulls who were current-blind were Nulls who thought they knew all about current... and didn’t have a clue.
Sharon noticed that the client hadn’t really answered the question about why he suspected a Retriever specifically, which was interesting. Was that deliberate or was he avoiding giving them some piece of information? She had no chance to follow up on that thought, however. Wells stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, and slid it open. “This is where the worst damage was done.”
It was, clearly, his study, and Wells was right, the damage was far worse here than even the room they’d seen before. There was an oversize desk made of some deep red, clearly exotic, wood, that had at one point been placed against the far wall, based on the indentations in the carpet. Now, though, it lay on its side, in the middle of the room. That alone would have taken a lot of muscle power – or a serious push of current. The client was a normal, late-middle-aged human Null. Unless he was hiding a Hulk-like alter ego, he was out from under suspicion in the damage, at least.
The books on the built-in shelves had all been crashed to the floor, and pages lay scattered like feathers after a plucking. A floor lamp lay on its side, the shade shredded much like the upholstery they had seen earlier, and there was the sparkle of glass in the Persian carpet. Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon saw Nick pull a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, and stretch them on quietly, without fuss.
Not that the gloves mattered in terms of evidence – most of what they collected couldn’t be smudged by a physical touch – but protection would keep any of the tiny shards from sticking in his fingers.
“You look over the floor and shelves,” Sharon said, with a nod at his gloves. “I’ll look over the desk, see if our intruder left any hints behind.” If the intruder had used current, there should still be signature left, especially if he was feeling strong emotion when he went on his rampage. So long as she was only testing for it, and not actually trying to collect it, she should be within Venec’s safety guidelines.
Neither of them were Bonnie-level in terms of their reading and gleaning abilities, but they could do what was needed.
Sharon set down her own kit, and took out a small object wrapped in a silvery chamois. Unwrapping it revealed a chunk of crystal about the size of her thumb, a hazed pale pink chunk of rose quartz.
It had been a birthday present from Bonnie, a few months ago. Sharon wasn’t big on aids, but Bonnie swore that using a focus would help her, and none of them were going to refuse anything without at least testing it. Sharon had planned to do that testing in a more controlled circumstance, but...
The crystal felt warm in her hand, but otherwise it just lay there, more a distraction than not. Bonnie had claimed that it would warm to her, connect her to herself more fully, and deepen her fugue-state without losing touch with the actual world.
Nothing happened. Sharon slipped the stone back into her chamois, and went to work without it
The client stood and watched them for a few minutes, but when they didn’t do anything more interesting than run their hands lightly over the furniture, seemingly lost in thought, he gave a quiet snort and left them to it.
That was exactly why Venec had them work low-key, not showy. People who were bored were less likely to hang around and interfere.
After giving the desk a full once-over, Sharon sighed and shook her head, waiting until Nick blinked his way out of his own fugue-state, and looked at her.
“I’m not picking up anything,” she said. “You?”
“Annoyance,” he said. “But I’m not sure if it’s his, or mine. Otherwise, this place is clean as a washed-down whistle.”
“Like someone cleaned up after themselves?” The perp, she meant, not the victims.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or like they weren’t here at all.”
Not a Talent, he meant. “Client may not know as much as he thinks he does,” Sharon said, “but I’m inclined to agree with his conclusions, whatever I think of his logic. There’s no way a Null could have gotten in, and done all this. Not in the time he claimed, without a clear point of entry.”
Nick lifted one narrow shoulder in a shrug, a move he had stolen from Pietr. “Fatae? Some of them are pretty good at fast and sneaky, and those slashes might have been claws. That’s a guess, though. I’m nowhere good enough to pick up an unknown fatae trace. Hell, I’m not even sure I could pick up a known breed, unless I’d encountered it before. We need to find out more about the client, see if he might have pissed off any of the Cosa- cousins.”
Sharon considered it, then put the crystal into her suit pocket, and lifted her kit up off the carpet. “If he did, Lou will turn it up, and Venec will let us know. Come on, let’s check the other rooms.”
They both had the bad feeling they weren’t going to find anything useful, but by god, they’d check every inch, first.
three
Not every aspect of PUPI involved investigation. Some times, it required suasion and statistics. That particular part of running the company they left to Ian Stosser.
Or, more to the point: that part, he kept for himself.
Ian stood in front of his audience, making eye contact with selected members seemingly at random, and infused his words with the firm and fervent belief he had in his team, his methods, and his results. “In the year we have been accepting clients, our success rate has been a rather significant 87%. Of the remaining 13%, we still managed to bring up enough information to pass along to Null authorities. The fact that my team has not yet been able to close the case you referenced – ” organ-leggers, an open ticket that still annoyed Ian “ – merely emphasizes the difficult and delicate nature of the work we do. More, that we are the only force that is both willing and capable of taking on cases involving magic.”