Rogan considered it.
Augustine waited.
Rogan leaned back. “Do you know how Forsberg’s people were killed?”
Augustine peered at him through his glasses. “You realize I referred Harrison to Nevada?”
“I meant, do you know what really happened?”
“No, but I’m all ears.”
I sighed and headed to the counter, where Grandma Frida’s coffeemaker waited. This would be a long conversation and I needed coffee for it.
By the time Rogan was done talking, we’d moved back into my office, since there was less chance of discovery there. I chased Leon and Arabella off, then checked up on Mom and Grandma and told them I was discussing things with Rogan just in case they decided to look for me. I was on my second cup of coffee, it was barely eight o’clock, and I was still sleepy.
Augustine took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A modern angel, urbane, well-dressed, and carrying a briefcase filled with savage weapons.
“So there is a conspiracy, probably involving several major Houses. To what end?”
“They are trying to destabilize Houston’s status quo,” Rogan said.
“Yes, but what’s the end game?” Augustine frowned. “They’re committing a great deal of money and resources. There are only a handful of reasons that motivate people to risk that much of their assets.”
“Power, greed, or revenge,” I said.
Augustine nodded. “Precisely. Let’s say Adam had succeeded and Houston’s downtown is in ruins. The stock market crashes. Theoretically, one could make money from that crash, but the local economy would be recovering for years. Long-term outlook for doing business is poor.”
“Not only that, but backlash against the Houses would spike,” Rogan said. “It would make sense if one of the anti-House radical groups was involved, but this is coming from within House elite. You know what this means. It will eventually explode.”
“And when it does, everyone will have to pick a side.” Augustine sighed again. “I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what the hell is going on. In fact, I make it my life’s mission to know what is going on at all times.”
Out of Augustine’s view, Rogan rolled his eyes.
Augustine grimaced. “I’m tired of odd things happening. I don’t want excitement, I want boredom. Boredom is good for business.”
Him and me both.
Augustine glanced at me. “I understand Rogan’s involvement. But what about you? You do realize the full danger of this mess?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then why?”
“I’m here because I want to help Cornelius. But mostly because of Nari Harrison.”
Augustine’s eyebrows rose.
“When we talk about the deceased, we usually mention whom they left behind,” I explained. “We say, ‘She was a wife and a mother’ or ‘He leaves behind two children and three grandchildren.’ It’s almost as if the dead have no value unless we know that someone they are related to is still alive and mourning them. I feel terrible for Cornelius and Matilda. But I feel even worse for Nari. She expected to have a long life ahead of her. She had dreams. She won’t see them come true now. She won’t see Matilda grow up. She’ll never grow old with Cornelius. She’ll never experience anything again, because some scum decided to kill her. Someone should care that this happened. Someone should fight for her and make sure that her murderer never takes another life and that he or she pays for what they did. If I die, I want someone to care. So, I’m that someone for her.”
A short figure walked down the hallway toward us. I fell silent.
Matilda stopped in the doorway of my office. She was carrying the huge Himalayan cat and a little plastic bag. The cat hung limp in her arms, perfectly content to be dragged around like a stuffed teddy bear.
Matilda looked at the three of us, walked up to Rogan, and held out the cat to him.
“I need to clean his eyes.” Her voice was so cute. “His tears are brown because of his smushed nose and he gets infected. He won’t hold still. He can’t help it.”
Rogan stared at her, stunned. I’d never seen that expression on his face before. It was almost funny.
“Will you hold my cat?”
Rogan blinked, reached out, and carefully took the cat from her arms. The cat purred like a runaway bulldozer.
Matilda opened her little Ziploc bag, took out cotton pads and a small plastic bottle, her tiny eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She wet the cotton and reached out to the cat. He tried to turn away, but Rogan held him tight.
“Hold still. Be a good kitty.” Matilda stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, held up her cotton ball, and carefully wiped the cat’s left eye with it.
It was such an odd thing. Rogan—big, frightening, all coiled violence and icy logic—gently holding a fluffy cat for a tiny child a fraction of his size. I should take a picture, but I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted to remember it just like this, serious Matilda and shocked Rogan, his eyes soft.
Matilda finished. I held out the trashcan to her. She threw away the cotton pads stained with brown, packed away her bottle, and took the cat from Rogan, settling his front paws over her shoulder. She petted the fur. “There, there. It wasn’t bad. You’re okay.”
The cat purred.
Catalina ran down the hallway, her face flustered. “There you are. I went to the bathroom for a second and you disappeared. Come on, we’ll make some cookies.”
Matilda held out her hand to her. My sister took it.
“Thank you!” Matilda said to Rogan.
“You’re welcome,” he said with all of the formality of a man accepting knighthood.
Augustine was smiling.
Rogan looked back at me. “Why me? Why not you?”
“Cornelius is a stay-at-home dad,” I said. “She views men as caretakers. Usually he probably holds the cat, but he wasn’t available.”
Rogan leaned back in his seat.
“It’s terrible when he’s reminded he is human,” Augustine said to me. “He doesn’t know how to deal with it. Just think, Connor, one day you might be a father and get one of your own.”
Rogan stared at him as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on his head.
Payback time. “I doubt it. He’ll never marry. He’ll stay in his house and brood in solitude being cynical and bitter.”
“And entertain himself with his piles of money and high-tech toys,” Augustine said. “Like a broody superhero.”
Augustine had a sense of humor. Who knew? “Maybe we should invest in one of those searchlights with a Rogan symbol on it . . .”
Rogan reached into his wallet, pulled out two dollar bills, pushed one toward me and the other toward Augustine. “I hate to see comedians starve. Our only lead is Gabriel Baranovsky, who was Elena’s lover, according to her douchebag of a husband. Are you going to help me with Baranovsky, Augustine?”
“I wasn’t planning on attending,” Augustine said. “But I might now. I want in. Not because I have some altruistic motives, but because when this thing finally bursts out in the open, it will be like an earthquake. It will shake the House politics not only in Houston, but probably in the entire country, and I can’t afford not to know where the pieces land.”
“Attending what?” I asked.
“How much do you know about Baranovsky?” Augustine said.
“Nothing,” I told him. “I haven’t had a chance to do any research. I was busy trying not to die.”
“Gabriel Baranovsky is an oneiromancer,” Rogan said.
Oneiromancers predicted the future by dreaming. Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to catch a glimpse of things to come by any means they could, from casting bones to examining cheese. Dreaming about it proved to be one of the more commonly used methods.