Wu spun around then and executed a neat bow in acceptance of the compliment.
Learning he was stalking me wasn’t a surprise. Thom had already speculated as much, and the guy wasn’t being subtle about it either. After the trick Santiago had played on him with the phone, I couldn’t blame him for wanting to put eyes on me to make sure I was where I was supposed to be considering War was on, well, the warpath.
None of that bothered me. No, what I resented was that his demonstration hinted he had witnessed the playful exchange between Cole and me. Wu wasn’t flamboyant by nature, and backflipping from windows was not his style, but men got flashy as peacocks when it came to one-upping each other.
Last night had already taken on a dreamlike quality, the memory a faded photograph I kept taking out and examining in the hopes of recapturing the significance attached to the moment. The fine details of those precious, unguarded hours I’d spent with Cole were evaporating like mist exposed to sunlight. That was bad enough without Wu’s attempt at superimposing himself over the mental snapshot.
Yanking the curtains shut, I changed into my burglar gear and met Wu in the yard. He had traded out his sedan for a compact SUV in standard black. “I know you like to accessorize, but you coordinate rides to match your outfits too?”
“Black SUVs are common.” The subtle dig at White Horse got ignored, so he pressed on. “No one will notice one more.”
“What’s your plan?” We loaded up and headed out. “I have no cat burgling skills if that’s what you’re thinking. For that matter, I have no cats and have never burgled.”
Wu appeared unimpressed with my lack of résumé. “Would Summers keep the prints in her office?”
I almost played the I didn’t say Summers kept the prints game with him, but I resisted. Score one for my maturity level. “I doubt it. She’s aware someone has taken a magic eraser to all the digital files. She would hide the hardcopies to protect them. Her office is small. There’s no room for a safe unless it’s the fireproof kind you can carry out by the handle, which would defeat the purpose. That leaves her vehicle or her house.”
He nodded along with each point. “Where does she live?”
“I have no idea.” I glanced over at him. “We’ve always met on scene or in public.”
“Call your coterie and have them locate her address.”
“You expect me to believe you don’t already have that nailed down?”
“Can you ever follow a simple order?”
“You said we’re partners. You’re acting like this is a dictatorship.”
“Humor me,” he said dryly. “I’m curious how good your people are, how well you all work together.”
“Fine.” I dialed Santiago since Miller was still giving me dead air. “Hey, can you tell me where Jill —?” I got out a pen and pad of paper from my backpack. “Give me that again.” I scribbled down the address. “Thank you much.”
Santiago grumbled at me, which I took as progress. Maybe we were past out-and-out name calling.
“Here you go.” I handed Wu the sheet of paper. “Are we good, or did you need something else?”
Wu skimmed the information, which made me all kinds of panicked since drivers ought to keep their eyes on the road, then balled up the paper and tossed it in the floorboard. “That’ll do.”
I almost tacked on “pig”, but I figured he wouldn’t get the Babe reference Rixton was so fond of using.
“That’s it?” I waited for him to explain. “I hassled Santiago for that?”
Granted, Santiago had clearly expected me to pester him at some point since he’d had the information cued and waiting on my call.
Wu cut his eyes toward me. “I expected you to call Miller.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
Scenting blood in the water, Wu verbally circled me. “Where is he?”
I strapped on water wings and got ready to paddle for my life. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“Miller wouldn’t leave town without checking in with Cole or you first.” Wu hummed an interested sound. “He was last seen at Madison Memorial around the time you and your human partner interrogated Boris Ivashov. Both men vanished shortly after that.”
“You remembered all those names, but you reduced Rixton to ‘your human partner’?” I kicked back in my seat. “You can do better than that, Wu.”
Streetlights whipped across his angular face. “Where is Miller Henshaw?”
“I have no idea.” I spread my hands. “I haven’t seen or heard from Miller in over twenty-four hours.”
“Ivashov is a loose end in need of cauterizing,” he said at last. “Will Miller finish the job?”
A sour taste rose up the back of my throat. “Call it a hunch, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Ivashov.”
“It bothers you that Miller would kill to protect you,” Wu observed.
Miller had already killed for me. All of my coterie had in the aftermath of War’s failed coup.
“How could it not bother me?” I massaged the tight spot between my eyebrows. “It’s not only that a charun will die, but his host will too. Two deaths for the price of one is hard math.”
“The host is already dead.” Wu gentled his tone in an unspoken reminder the host had bargained for that death. “That’s what the body in Madison meant, why it had to be collected, why the evidence must be destroyed. Viscarre slowly eat away at their host. The process takes time, but death is inevitable, and the shell must be disposed of before humans get their hands on them.”
“I understand.” Going forward, I had to be more careful. For all our sakes. “What’s your plan for when we reach Summers’ house?”
“The plan is to comb over every inch of her residence until we’ve acquired each piece of evidence she’s got on the Orvis fire, anything that could be linked to charun involvement, and then we destroy it.”
“What do we do if she’s home?” I scratched my scalp under the beanie meant to conceal my hair. “What about an alarm system? What if the documents are in a safe?”
A dark chuckle moved through his chest. “How often are you home?”
“Okay, so I’ll allow that people in our profession don’t get as much downtime as most.” For instance, the lack of sleep from the past week had left me with sandpaper discs for eyeballs. “That still doesn’t explain how you’re going to handle the infiltration or acquisition portion of the program.”
Wu made a hard left then pulled into the circular driveway of a modest ranch-style house. Summers’ car was nowhere in sight, so that was good news. Neighbors snugged up to her property on either side and in the rear, which wasn’t ideal.
“Stick with me.” Wu slid out, gathered a bag of supplies from his trunk, strolled up to the front door like he had every right to be there, then frowned back at me, who was slinking from shadow to shadow in the manner of a crafty cartoon character. “Luce.” The amount of exasperation packed into that single syllable impressed me. “Come here, please.”
Head down, certain one of the neighbors would call the cops at any moment, I hustled to his side. “Hop to it.” I bounced from foot to foot. “We’re drawing too much attention.”
“No one has noticed us,” he assured me while he got to work ripping an adhesive strip off the back of a metallic disc he slapped onto the siding above the doorbell. “This will disrupt the signal from her alarm. Once the light turns green, we’re good to go.” He glanced at my hand-wringing. “Put on your gloves.”
After what felt like thirty years later, the tiny red light switched to green, and Wu started picking the locks. Nape prickling, I squirmed behind him in an approximation of the potty dance, desperate to burst inside and shut a door between us and the rest of the neighborhood. A cold sweat broke across my shoulders and rolled down my spine. Stubborn lungs refused to inflate, and gold spots glittered in my eyes.
“Breathe,” Wu murmured. “I’ve got this. We’re almost in.”