Ilona Andrews - Wildfire

“I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

“The first time I made a man tell me his secrets against his will, he curled up on the ground and cried. He was an experienced mercenary, but he cried like a hurt child, because I’d violated his mind. So you and I have things in common. You’re not a disappointment to anyone. You don’t need anyone’s approval.”

She closed her mouth and sat up straighter. “Does Rogan know about Brian’s betrayal?”

“Yes.”

“Who else?”

“My family, Cornelius, Bug, Edward, and Edward’s security chief. Possibly your mother-in-law.”

“What happens now?”

“We proceed as if we don’t know about Brian. We still have to find the thing they want. They’re not going to stop until we do, or until we end the whole organization permanently.”

She got up. “I’ll have to tell the children. They must know that they can’t trust their father.”

“Rynda . . .”

She walked away.

Well, that went well.

I picked myself up and went across the street to our warehouse. We had hours until the deadline was due. I could practically feel the time ticking away. It ate at me. We had to find Olivia’s secret. I had to find it. Rynda and her little family wouldn’t be safe until I did. If Sturm didn’t get what he wanted, he would retaliate. He’d probably retaliate anyway. Rogan almost killed him in the steakhouse. Sturm wouldn’t let that go.

Everything went wrong for Rynda. Everything went wrong in this investigation, period. This one thing had to go right.

Inside, Catalina’s shrill voice sliced at my eardrums. “I don’t want to talk about it!”

Whenever she got upset, her voice shot up into piercing notes.

I rounded the corner.

“Catalina!” Arabella chased her. Matilda trailed her, her fluffy white cat following her. I didn’t know she was still here.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” The door to Catalina’s room thudded shut.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Arabella growled.

“What is it?”

“She deleted her Instagram account.”

“Why?”

“Alessandro Sagredo.” Arabella put her hands on her hips.

“Did he say something to her?” If he said something mean to my sister, I’d skin him alive.

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Arabella whipped out her phone and stuck it under my nose. “He looks like that!”

The man on the phone looked about twenty and he was stunning. Square jaw; full, perfectly drawn mouth; strong nose; narrow, almost green hazel eyes under dark eyebrows. A mass of chocolate-brown hair, trimmed in an expensive haircut, framed it all, setting off the strong lines of his face that promised to become chiseled with time. Life hadn’t beaten him up yet, and there was still something fresh about his face, but the harshness had begun to break through. He looked like he was the son of a Roman gladiator about to enter the arena for the first time. And he stood leaning against a beautiful silver and blue Maserati.

“He follows like three people on Instagram,” Arabella said. “And Catalina. She woke up with six thousand followers, so she deleted the account, because she is an idiot!”

“Are you going to marry him, Catalina?” Matilda asked seriously.

The door swung open, revealing Catalina. She stabbed her finger at Arabella. “Stay out of my business, you little psycho. You too, Matilda.”

She slammed the door shut.

Matilda looked at the door, looked at me, and laughed like little silver bells ringing.

“I don’t have time for this.” I started down the hallway. It was morning, therefore Bern would be in the kitchen, eating his second or third breakfast.

“Nevada, do something!” Arabella snarled behind me.

“No time.”

“I hate this family!”

“We hate you too.”

“Hehe!” The silver bells rang.

Bern sat at the kitchen table, putting away a bowl of cereal.

“Will you please come with me to Rynda’s house? I want to look through it one more time in case I missed something. I don’t want to go by myself, and I don’t want to ask Cornelius because he’ll bring Zeus and I have trouble concentrating when he’s around. I don’t want to take Leon either, because I don’t want to be responsible for him shooting anyone. I just want to think quietly.”

Bern got up and took his bowl of cereal to the sink. “Let’s go.”

Rynda’s house stood quiet. Bern and I walked through the front entrance into the living room, our steps loud on the tiled floor. Houston decided that we really needed some rain, and the light filtering through the dense blanket of clouds was watery and dim. The air felt oppressive.

“Gloomy,” Bern observed.

“Yes.” The house felt like a crypt. “I wonder if Rynda will sell it.”

“I would,” Bern said. “Where do you want to look?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Divide and conquer?”

We split up. I headed for the kitchen. Rogan’s people had already swept through the place. I’d reviewed the search report. They were thorough and efficient. But they might have missed something.

I started with the pantry. An hour later I was done with the kitchen. Coffee proved to be coffee, rice turned out to be rice, and a container of sugar contained only sugar. No hidden Ziploc bags containing mysterious evidence. I shook the cans one by one. None showed any signs of tampering. No hidden spots in the dishes. Nothing taped to the inside of the cabinets. We were wasting time we didn’t have, but every instinct I had told me that whatever we were looking for was here somewhere.

“Nevada?” Bern called.

I walked into the living room. He stood over Kyle’s paintings. I came over to stand next to him.

“What are these?” he asked.

“Kyle’s paintings. Olivia Charles had them framed. I’ve gone through them. No hidden ink. Nothing in the frames. I was so sure that there was something hidden here.”

Bern crouched and picked up the top painting. A curving road flanked by trees.

“There is something about them,” I said. “It makes you want to keep looking at them.”

Bern wandered to the center of the room where the light from the back window shone on the carpet, and put the painting down.

“Give me the rest?” he asked.

I picked up a stack of paintings and handed him the next one, a tiny sea with a too-big pirate ship on it. He took a few steps backwards and placed the painting to the left and below the first one. “Next.”

A playground with a cute monster holding a red balloon and peering out of the bushes followed, then the curve of a road with a bright yellow sports car, then the clouds with a white, almost transparent flying ship. Another road with a knight in armor riding on his horse. Bern put it between the first painting and the yellow car. The road connected.

The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose.

We went through the stack, Bern placing the pictures one by one into a six-by-four grid, like pieces of a puzzle clicking together. We finished and stood back. A road wound in a wide arc around a house that was part suburban home, part castle, and part magic tower. A playground lay to the right, a pond just below, mountains to the left, and in the bottom left corner, four paintings came together to form an X near a gnarled tree.

“A map,” I whispered.

“He isn’t a dud,” Bern said. “He’s Magister Examplaria. A pattern mage, like me.”

Grandma gave Kyle a treasure. He hid it and then he drew a map to it, because he couldn’t help himself. And Olivia must’ve known. I’d helped to take away the only person in Kyle’s life who understood him.

“I’m an idiot,” I said.

Bern glanced at me.

“I should’ve questioned the children. Instead I let Rynda do it, because they were traumatized by Vincent. I let it get personal, and it blinded me.” This is why Dad always cautioned about getting too involved.