“First they killed him, then they killed his computer.” Deb pointed to the overturned desktop unit beneath the desk. The side of the computer case had been torn away, and judging from the bent metal brackets inside, Keeler’s murderer had physically ripped the hard drive free.

The oak file cabinet in the corner was a mess as well. A cylindrical lock lay on the floor, leaving a matching hole behind in the upper drawer. Both drawers had been yanked open roughly enough to twist them off their tracks.

It would be just past eleven back in Vegas. I backed away and called Talulah. “Any chance you can hack into the security footage for Alexander Keeler’s house?”

“Hello to you, too. Look, I’m good, but even I need a little more information to work my magic. What’s going on?”

“We need to know who else has visited the senator in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Depends on who set their system up and how. Is the video hosted on site?”

I glanced at the computer. “If so, I think it’s gone now.”

“Of course it is. Can you at least tell me what company they’re using?”

I thought back to the security panel inside the door. “Nighthawk.” I gave her the street address as well.

“It’s a start. I’ll call you back if I find something.”

I crossed Keeler’s office to where a series of framed photographs sat on the bookshelves. There were the usual school photos of the kids in their private school uniforms, a family trip to Disney, a dusty wedding photo . . . I studied a shot of Alexander Keeler at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at New Millennium from almost a year earlier.

I spotted myself in the photo, standing toward the back in an ill-fitting suit and tie. I hadn’t known much about Keeler back then. All I’d cared about was that New Millennium was opening, that we were finally going to show the world what we could do. The towers in the background had been under construction, but we’d been given the okay to begin work on a handful of research projects.

I turned back to the desk and picked up a relatively recent New Millennium brochure titled A MAGICAL FUTURE. The cover showed our facility in Vegas. Inside were all the ways we hoped magic would benefit the world. The back listed future potential New Millennium sites in other countries.

“Can you talk to him?” asked Lena. “Or look into the past to see who did this?”

“Not with the books I’ve got on me. When I armed up at the library, I didn’t expect to have to talk to the dead.”