“I guess we could seal it with tape in the meantime?” I finally said.
“Most people use wood, but yeah, duct tape would hold it.” He gave me an odd look. It was torn between amusement and sympathy. Then his expression sobered. “I hate to mention it right now, but what kind of security do you have at your office?”
Crap. “Basic. The wards aren’t even as good as here.”
Would the people who broke in here really go to my office? They’d surely expected me to be asleep here, but when they hadn’t found me, they’d searched for items they could use as a spell focus. There hadn’t been many. If they thought I was in hiding, my office would be the next logical place to find personal items.
“Let’s find some tape. I need to get to the office.”
? ? ?
Dawn hadn’t even arrived, and I was once again watching police officers dust for prints. This time in the Tongues for the Dead office. The window in the door had been smashed and the door unlocked from the inside. Glass littered the entryway, and shiny shards spread like a trail deeper into the front lobby.
Ms. B’s fastidiously tidy desk looked only slightly disturbed. She would know better than I would if anything on it had been moved. Rianna’s office didn’t even look like it had been opened, nor did the broom closet Roy considered his office. Mine, though . . .
I’d only seen it from the doorway. The cops didn’t want me inside until they finished diffusing the nasty ambush spell set to detonate just beyond my personal office door. Falin had nearly set it off when we first arrived and he wanted to ensure the building was clear. I’d sensed it just in time, and had never been so glad I was sensitive.
Now I sat on the small love seat in the lobby, staring, but not really seeing the magic techs working on the ambush trap, or the cops dusting the lock on the door. With the escalation of an armed spell, the cops were taking this much more seriously than the simple robbery at the house. I’d texted Rianna. She and Ms. B would head this way once sunrise passed. Now there was nothing to do except wait.
Falin had been talking to one of the officers working on the spell, but now he walked over to stand beside the love seat where I was sitting. “You okay?”
I turned toward him, but my gaze was sluggish to follow. It felt like so many thoughts were buzzing in my brain that the commotion was too loud to follow any single one. I looked around the room, but my gaze kept getting caught on the little shards of glass ground into the carpet.
This wasn’t just some missing bedding, and it couldn’t be fixed by picking up a few empty drawers. A sharp tinge of magic snapped through the air, and someone yelped as the ambush spell reacted poorly to the tech’s attempts to dispel it.
Someone had meant very deadly business.
Falin placed a hand on my shoulder, the touch tentative and light, as if he was prepared to draw back quickly. The contact grounded me, made the cacophony of warring thoughts tearing through my mind quiet a little, as I focused on the warmth of his fingers through my sweater. I reached up, placing my fingers over his, and his touch grew surer. We stayed like that, me sitting, him standing, both silent as the police worked.
I’d known as soon as I saw the news report that I’d be a target, I just hadn’t expected it this soon. I’d expected more time to work on the case, to get ahead of the bad guy. Instead the day hadn’t even properly begun yet, and it had already been a long and potentially dangerous one.
Briar walked through the front door as the techs unraveled the last of the spell in my office.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” she said as she glanced around, her hands on her hips. Then she smiled.
She smiled.
My teeth clenched so tight my jaw popped. I wanted to jump up and throttle her. Or yell at the top of my lungs that this was not some game and nowhere in our contract had I signed up to be her disposable pawn.
“I should bring you up on charges,” Falin said. His voice was that distant, scary tone, full of ice and danger, controlled, but with menace lurking below the surface, like an iceberg that could sink any unwary soul who ventured into it.
Briar cocked an eyebrow and rolled her shoulders back. “For what, exactly? There was nothing false in the information I provided the reporter. Alex is technically still a person of interest in this case. It was the videos that really condemned her, and that was all her, not me.”
“But you leaked the videos,” I said, my voice thin and a little shrill, but not screaming. I was proud it didn’t come out a scream. No conversation goes productively after one party starts screaming. I’d get further sounding reasonable, even if right now I hoped to never hear Briar’s name again. “And you gave them my name. Less than twelve hours later, both my home and work have been burgled, and a spell was set in my office that would have killed someone if I weren’t a sensitive.”
Briar glanced back at where the techs were cleaning up. “Yeah, but that means we got the necromancer’s attention. That should prove useful. We just need a little better hook attached to our bait.”
“Use yourself as bait. Oh, wait, you don’t even walk down the street without a spell that makes you less noticeable. Fuck you, Briar.”
And there went reasonable. Oh well, I didn’t care. I was done. Briar could take her contract and shove it.
“I quit,” I said, pushing out of the chair and storming past Briar.
“You’re emotional right now, so I’m going to let you think about that one a little while longer,” she called after me as I headed to my office.
The magic techs were done; I was clear to enter without dying as soon as I stepped through the door, but the crime scene techs still had work to do. They were going to let me do a visual survey, though, so they knew what to focus on.
The desk was the obvious target. The drawers hung open, papers and office supplies that had previously been stored there now tossed to the floor. The locked filing cabinet in the corner had been left alone, but the mini-fridge beside it hung open. Whoever had tossed this room hadn’t been looking for information on my cases, they’d been searching for personal items. Which seemed like overkill, as the spell in the doorway had been deadly. The necromancer was clearly thorough.
“It looks like my coffee mug is missing. Maybe some pens?” I scanned over the loose papers scattered across the floor and desk, but the officer wouldn’t let me move anything. “And . . . a picture of my dog.” That realization made my already queasy, knotted stomach ache, like I’d been punched.
The cop looked up from his notepad. “So nothing of value? Computer? Electronics? Spell materials?”
I kept my focus on the desk so that I didn’t glare at the cop. Didn’t he realize the significance of what had been taken? Actually, I couldn’t sense any magic on him, so he was likely a norm, maybe even a null. Without looking up, I shook my head.
“I don’t keep any of that stuff here.”