I nodded. The partial address was visible, and below it “11 AM–invent—”

“It’s telling him when to expect Bianca to be there doing inventory,” Paige said. “It must be a scheduled time—maybe when stock arrives.”

The rest was mostly random phrases: “—must be complete—” “—absolutely no one—” “—message that we—”

I carefully gathered the fragile pieces and put them into a bag for lab analysis.

“We should speak to the neighbors,” Paige said. “Ortega lived alone, right?”

My father nodded. “He’s been divorced for about ten years, with no children.”

“And, as far as we can see, no long-term girlfriend, which means it would be easy for him to cut and run. But it also gives me an excuse for talking to the neighbors.”

She went to the neighbors and introduced herself as Ortega’s new girlfriend, concerned because she hadn’t heard from him in two days and he wasn’t answering his phones. The couples to the right and across the road couldn’t help. Though Ortega had lived here since his divorce, they knew nothing about him. That wasn’t uncommon—avoiding unnecessary contact with neighbors is another way for supernaturals to hide what we are.

But the neighbor to the left was a divorcée in her forties who’d probably been eyeing Ortega, and who took one look at Paige and couldn’t resist breaking the bad news—that Ortega had been home and probably avoiding her calls. She’d last seen him at nine-thirty that morning, which she recalled because it struck her as unusual for him to be leaving for work so late. Then, seeing him putting suitcases in his trunk, she’d presumed he was on vacation. He’d driven off, alone.

HOPE SECURITY CLEARANCE

HOPE

SECURITY CLEARANCE

Karl tried to relay over the phone what he remembered of the blueprints, but Lucas insisted—quite rightly—that it should be done in person, so Karl could draw them. He agreed, with great reluctance.

“You wanted to dump it on them and walk away, didn’t you?” I said when he hung up.

“What do you want me to do, Hope? Lie to you again?” He turned on his heel and set out toward the rental car. “I suppose if I really cared about you, I’d watch you suffer and do nothing about it. But you’re not suffering, are you? You’re learning.”

“I need to learn to handle it, Karl. You’ve said so yourself. You encouraged me to join the council—”

“—because I knew you needed a safe way to enjoy chaos while doing some good. And, yes, I encourage you to expose yourself to more. In small doses. Like walking across burning coals to toughen your feet. But your idea of learning to withstand burning is to throw yourself onto the pyre and grit your teeth, because by God you’re going to prove you can do it or die trying.”

“Karl, I—”