Behind them, Grandma Frida frowned at her phone. She was about the same height as Mom, but they couldn’t be more different. Grandma Frida was slender, bird-boned, with a halo of platinum curls. Her mechanic coveralls were stained with a fresh smudge of engine grease. Mom was solid, with light brown skin, dark hair, and dark eyes, which turned distant when she measured the distance for a kill shot.
Just behind them Cornelius waited, dressed in light summer suit slacks and a grey vest that fit his trim body with custom precision. He’d rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. His blond hair was slightly ruffled. Cornelius always dressed impeccably, but no matter what he wore, unless the occasion was really formal, he managed to look effortlessly casual. Gus, his massive black-and-tan Doberman, sat by his feet. When we met Cornelius and Matilda, they’d had another Doberman, Bunny, but Bunny and Matilda were the same age and after years of faithful service and a lot of playing, Bunny was slowing down. Gus was one of the puppies he had sired, which was why Leon insisted on referring to him as Gus Bunnyson.
Patricia Taft, our security chief, stood beside Cornelius. In some ways, they were polar opposites. Cornelius was artfully disheveled and appeared nonthreatening. Everything about Patricia was precise, from her dark brown hair put away into a French braid to the beige pantsuit that complemented her brown skin. She wore the pantsuit like a uniform, and she projected confidence and authority that made people fall in line when they saw her coming.
Alessandro emerged from his office carrying a plastic container with a lid. He saw me and made a trapping motion with the container. Jadwiga. Right.
I held a key up. “I need you to form a single file line.”
The family stared at me.
“You have to enter the conference room one at a time, watch where you put your feet, and check your chair.”
Bern turned to Leon.
“What?” Leon batted his eyes at him in pretended innocence.
“You know what,” Bern told him.
“Why?” Mom asked.
“Because a very rare spider escaped its containment in the conference room this morning. It’s an endangered species. It’s also worth a quarter million dollars.”
“Perfect,” Arabella said.
“My deepest apologies,” Cornelius said, looking troubled. “I’ve spoken to Matilda.”
“If you see the spider, please don’t squish it.” I unlocked the door and stood aside. “Yell, and Alessandro will trap it.”
“I’ll definitely yell,” Runa said. “But I can’t guarantee the no squishing part.”
“Try,” I told her.
The family filed into the conference room. I waited for a scream. No shrieks came. Alessandro crossed the hallway, the plastic container in his hands, and invited me into the conference room with a sweep of his hand. I walked in, checked my chair, and took my place at the head of the table. Alessandro sat on my right. Patricia sat on my left.
Bern set the laptop at the end of the table and tapped some keys. Connor and Nevada appeared on the screen mounted on the far wall. My brother-in-law was in his work mode, dressed in black and doing his best to loom. Connor was a large man, with dark hair and intense blue eyes, and he radiated menace like a space heater radiated warmth.
My older sister waved at us. Her honey-blond hair was braided away from her face. She wore a white dress, which meant she either was about to go out or had just come back from somewhere, because Arthur Rogan and white dresses did not mix. My nephew was thirteen months old, and we all suspected that someone had switched him with an Energizer Bunny when nobody was looking. He’d learned to walk, and as soon as he could take a couple of steps unassisted, he decided he had places to go and things to do and when that failed, he levitated things to himself. His control was a bit wobbly and sometimes his sippy cups opened in midair.
“Is the feed off?” I asked.
Runa passed the tablet to Bern. He flicked his fingers across it. “Yes.”
No record of this meeting would be made.
I kept my face neutral. “At 11:02 this morning Luciana Cabera was murdered at the Respite.”
The room went completely silent.
“The attacker was likely a Prime telekinetic, who impaled her with two spikes, one through the chest, one through the mouth.”
I tapped my phone. The screen on the wall behind me showed Luciana Cabera pinned to the wall in all of its HD gore. I let it sink in and tapped the phone again. The image of a spike extracted from the body filled the screen.
I looked at Connor.
He raised his voice. “Jeremy, clear my schedule for the next week and find Bug.”
“We suspect that the telekinetic is Xavier Secada,” Alessandro said. “The weapon and the manner of the murder fits his MO.”
Xavier’s portrait appeared on the screen. Of average height, Xavier was lean and pretty. Some men grew more masculine in their twenties, and Xavier had done some growing up, but his face still retained a slightly androgynous beauty. The first time I saw him, five years ago, I thought he looked like a singer from a boy band. His bronze skin glowed with a perfect tan. His chestnut brown hair was cut in a flattering style, the kind that screamed, “I go to an expensive salon, and I enjoy it.” His dark eyes were arrogant and cruel, and the smirk on his lips told you he had a high opinion of himself.
“That little shit,” Grandma Frida said.
“Xavier’s involvement means the murder was committed with Arkan’s blessing,” Alessandro continued. “At this point we don’t know what motivated him to have the Speaker murdered. Arkan prefers to remain in the shadows and when he has to eliminate a public figure, he typically arranges an accident or makes them disappear.”
“The Respite is owned by Linus,” I said. “Shining a searchlight on Linus isn’t convenient right now, so we moved the crime scene.”
Arabella pivoted toward me. “Why? What happened to Linus?”
Mom raised her hand and made a simmer-down-now motion. “He will be fine. Don’t freak out.”
“What’s going on?” Arabella’s voice spiked. “Will somebody tell me what happened?”
“I will if you stop talking for a second.” I took a deep breath. “Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, Linus was attacked in his home. Pete is dead.”
Arabella sucked in a sharp breath. Sadness touched Mom’s face. She and Pete had been friends. Bern looked alarmed, which almost never happened. On the laptop screen both Connor and Nevada went expressionless. My sister had picked up her husband’s habit.
“Linus made it to the vault,” Alessandro said. “The attacker was a mental mage, because Linus took two double doses of Styxine.”
Grandma Frida whistled.
“Is he conscious?” Connor asked.
“No,” I said.
“What’s Styxine?” Runa asked.
“It’s a mental defense drug,” Connor said. “Military issue. It takes your consciousness completely off-line. The mage can’t kill you if they can’t sense your mind. It can render you permanently comatose, so it’s a last resort.”
“Can we give him something?” Arabella demanded.
“No,” Mom told her. “We have to wait for him to wake up on his own.”
Arabella squeezed her fists. I needed to move past the “Linus might not wake up” part.
“He activated the siege protocol, which I disabled to get him out of the vault.”
“Where is he now?” Runa asked.