Chapters (34)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Gunmetal Magic
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- EPILOGUE
- Magic Gifts
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- EPILOGUE
- About the Author
“I thought Raphael had moved out,” Barabas said.
Remain calm. “Actually, we never lived together in my place. I lived at his,” I said. I would not bite Barabas. It wouldn’t be right.
“He was back here last night while she was out,” Jim said. “Him, and a large moving truck.”
“Oh.” Barabas thought about it. His eyes lit up. “Oh!”
Slapping my lawyer was not in my best interests either. I turned to Jim. “You put a detail on my apartment?”
“The second you became a target,” he said.
Well, that just took the cake. I tilted my head. “So good of you to let me know, cat. I’d hate to mistake my babysitter for a threat and accidentally shoot him.”
Jim blinked. Ha! I had managed to surprise the spy master.
“So these are new furnishings?” Barabas said, his face pure innocence.
“Don’t tempt me, Barabas.”
The two bouda women made big eyes at the portrait of Aunt B on my shelf.
“Lovely decorations,” Sandra offered and bit her lip, obviously straining not to laugh.
“Yes, the way the light here plays on Aunt B’s face is very nice,” Lucrezia added.
“Fuck you, Lucrezia,” I told her.
Sandra groaned and the laughter burst out of her mouth. She doubled over. Lucrezia dissolved into giggles.
By tonight, not just the Pack, but the shapeshifters in Canada would know what Raphael had done to my apartment. I would murder him.
I crossed my arms on my chest and turned to Jim. “Is there a reason for all of you coming here?”
“Yes,” Jim said. “Why do you have your computer on the kitchen table?”
“This is a long conversation.”
“I have time.”
We sat down at the kitchen table and I briefed him on last night while Derek made more coffee for everyone. I explained Anapa in broad terms, the Bone Staff, the volhv, and the knife. At the end, Jim nodded at the computer. “Kyle, see what you can do with that?”
A beefy guy who looked like he bent steel rods for a living sat down at the computer, opened a small briefcase, hooked up some box with blinking lights to the tower, and his fingers started flying over the keyboard. He winked at me, still typing without looking at the keyboard.
“Gloria has no fingerprints on file,” Jim said. “No driver’s license, no city permit for her shop, nothing. She just showed up one day and set up her trinket bazaar.”
“And nobody cared because it was White Street?” How did he know all this?
Jim nodded. “How can I make your life easier?”
If we didn’t have an audience, I might have hugged him. “Gloria and her friends likely murdered Raphael’s people. First, I need to canvas White Street and the Warren and shake some information out. How often was she at the shop, who came to visit her, when did she leave, what did she drive, where she went, and so on. Basic legwork. Second, I need to establish Anapa’s whereabouts.”