“Fitz and company,” she said in a flat tone, “are murderers.”

“But—”

“No, Harry. Don’t give me any rap about how they didn’t mean it. They opened fire with deadly weapons in a residential neighborhood. In the eyes of the law and anyone the least bit reasonable, It was an accident is unconvincing. They knew what could happen. Their intentions are irrelevant.”

“I know,” I said. “But these aren’t bad kids. They’re just scared. It drove them to a bad choice.”

“You’ve just described most of the gang members in this town, Harry. They don’t join the gang because they’re bad kids. They do it because they’re frightened. They want to feel like they belong somewhere. Safe.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if they started out as good kids. Life changes them. Makes them something they weren’t.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Take a team to their hideout. Deal with the sorcerer. We’ll make every effort to avoid harming the others.”

“You’re going to open fire with deadly weapons on their home. Maybe you don’t want to hurt the kids, but you know what could happen. If you wind up with bodies on the floor, your intentions would be irrelevant. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Her eyes flashed with sudden anger. “You haven’t been here the past six months. You don’t know what it’s been like. You—” She pressed her lips together. Then she looked at me and stared, clearly waiting.

I said, very quietly, “No.”

She shook her head several times. Then she said, “The real Dresden wouldn’t hesitate.”

“The real Dresden would never have gotten a chance to see them. To talk to them. He’d just skip to the fight.”

She flipped her notepad closed with a snap of her wrist and stood. “Then we’ve covered what needs doing. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

Murphy got up and left the room without a word, her steps smooth and purposeful.

Butters rose and collected Bob and the little spirit radio. “I, uh… I usually follow along after her when she’s setting up something. Take care of the details. Excuse me.”

“Sure,” I said quietly. “Thanks for your help, Butters.”

“Anytime,” he said.

“You, too, Bob,” I said.

“De nada,” the skull replied.

Butters hurried out.

I was left standing in the conference room alone.

Chapter Nineteen

I stood there for several minutes, doing nothing. Not even breathing.

Doing nothing is difficult. Once you aren’t busy, your head starts chewing things over. Dark, bleak thoughts appear. You start to think about what your life means. If you’re a ghost, you start to think about what your death means.

Murphy was being slowly devoured from within by a guilty conscience. I had known her a long time. I knew how she thought. I knew what she held dear. I knew what it looked like when she was in pain. I had no doubt that I made the right call on that one.

But I also knew that she was a woman who wouldn’t kill another human, even if he were over-the-hill-and-around-the-bend crazy, unless it was absolutely necessary. No killing is easy for anyone of conscience—but Murphy had been facing that demon for a long time. Granted, she’d been hurt by my death (and let me tell you how furiously frustrated it made me that I was powerless to have changed that). But why would her conscience start catching up to her now? Why develop a sudden case of the damsels when I’d asked her to get more information from her exhusband? Brick walls didn’t stop the woman when she had a mind to walk somewhere.