“Can you tell we’ve had this discussion before?” my father said to Paige. “And it’s not one we should be having on the front stoop. Troy?”

“The dead bolt’s sticking, sir. Just a—There it is.”

When Paige tried to follow Troy into the house, my father caught her arm.

“Troy will disarm the system and perform a cursory search.”

Troy’s voice floated back. “So if Ortega’s set a tripwire bomb, I’m the only one who’ll go ka-boom. This is why you have a Ferratus half-demon on staff, sir.”

“Griffin is with his children. You don’t have any.”

“In other words, no one will care if I go ka-boom.”

“I’d care. I hate training new bodyguards.”

My father’s eyes twinkled as Troy tossed a few choice words back. A Tempestras half-demon was an odd choice for a bodyguard—being able to affect the weather isn’t terribly useful as a defense mechanism—and more suitable guards regularly applied for Troy’s job, but my father would never consider replacing him. When a man is at your side almost every day, from waking to sleeping, there are more important qualifications than supernatural abilities.

After a few minutes, Troy returned with the “all clear,” and we went inside.

Ortega wasn’t there. His house was tidy, his luggage was missing and his closets contained less clothing than one would expect a man of his income and position to possess. Most damning of all—his safe had been emptied and left open. It looked as if he’d left quickly and of his own free will.

We searched the house, but Ortega wasn’t foolish enough to leave any clues. The computer hard drive had been removed. The filing cabinet was empty, as was his desk. There weren’t even papers on the refrigerator door.

As I fingered an empty kitchen hook, where a calendar had probably hung, I said to my father, “It would appear he’s made a clean—”

“Got something,” Paige called from the living room.

We found her kneeling before the fireplace.

“I never thought I’d see this outside a movie, but he’s burned some papers,” she said. “And he was in such a hurry there are still pieces left.”

Black ashes and gray bits of paper lay in an otherwise pristine fireplace. In Miami, fireplaces were the sort of thing builders added purely for the emotional impact—a potential buyer sees it, pictures romantic nights by the fire or a faithful dog dozing before the flames, and only later realizes the impracticality of such dreams when the temperature rarely drops below sixty.

I retrieved tweezers from the bathroom, removed the largest scorched pieces and laid them on a blank sheet of paper. The edges were charred, but I could make out a few words in the middle.

“That’s the club address, isn’t it?” Paige said.