When he realized who’d summoned him, he looked surprised. Then guilt pierced me when his next expression was fear as he glanced about.

“There are no Remnants, no Marie,” I said steadily. “Just us, Don.”

His form wavered, blurring at the edges. Now that he knew we had no means to stop him, was he leaving?

Then his haziness cleared up, revealing his faultlessly combed hair and sophisticated-yet-understated business suit. A knot inside me eased. For more reasons than needing his help, I hadn’t wanted Don to vanish as soon as he saw us. I was still angry at him and not sure where his actions had left our relationship, but it appears that hadn’t stopped me from missing him.

“What do you want, Cat?” he asked in guarded tone.

Don didn’t even look at Bones; a good thing since his stare was cold enough to flash-freeze steam. I took my fingers off the planchette in favor of drumming them against the Ouija board.

“Madigan burned his hard drives beyond usability and killed himself when we infiltrated his secret facility,” I summarized briskly. “Bones brought him back as a ghoul, but something went wrong. His mind’s vegetable soup, and we were hoping you could pull some meat out of it.”

Tyler’s mouth dropped upon hearing this. Maybe he’d thought I wanted him to raise my uncle just so I could bitch at him again. Don’s expression didn’t change though his outline wavered for a moment.

“Why?” he asked at last. “You shut down his operation like you wanted to, and now he’s your prisoner. What else is left?”

“Stopping whoever’s been backing him,” I said, deliberately not mentioning Katie. I didn’t want Marie finding out about her, and she was one of the only people in the world who could successfully interrogate a ghost. “Someone shelled out countless millions to keep Madigan’s operation running, not to mention the money that person spent to keep you from finding out about it.”

I was poking his pride with that last comment. When he was alive, Don’s clearance had been above Top Secret, yet he’d been unaware that Madigan was continuing his experiments with the full blessing of Uncle Sam. Meanwhile, Madigan had known all about Don’s operation and had even been put in charge of it after his death. That had to rankle.

“If we don’t stop him, that same person will find someone else to replace Madigan,” I continued. “We can’t let that happen.”

“What if the backer is too high-ranking to take on?” Don asked.

Bones’s voice held the same resonance as low, ominous thunder.

“For this, no one’s too high-ranking.”

Don stiffened, glancing once at Bones before his gaze flicked back to me.

“This has never been his country, but it is yours, Cat. You’d really assassinate whoever’s behind this, no matter who it is?”