Windfall

Chapter Six

Two hours? Not enough sleep. Oh, no.

I stumbled up and into the shower, where I finally washed away the blood and sand of the night’s adventures, and realized halfway through that I was still wearing my pull-on jog bra. Ever tried to get one of those off when it’s wet?

Not a pretty picture.

I stumbled comatose out of my bedroom, barely remembering to belt my bathrobe along the way, and started coffee. The asthmatic chug-hiss-chug of the machine echoed through the predawn stillness. Lewis was sprawled out on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. Kevin looked boneless and well rested on the couch. He slept open-mouthed.

War refugees. I felt a prickle along my spine, a dizzying sense that all this was just prelude to something a whole lot worse. I hoped I was wrong.

Not a sound from Sarah’s bedroom. I tapped gently on the closed door, then eased it open.

The two of them were asleep, wrapped tightly around each other. Eamon, in sleep, looked younger and almost angelic, that sharp intelligence missing and a kind of gentleness in its place. His arms were around Sarah. Her back was pressed against his front, and his forehead rested on the disordered silk of her hair.

It looked… sweet. And definitely postcoital.

I shut the door without waking them and went back to stare blankly at the coffeemaker as it peed into the carafe.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump. It was Lewis, yawning, all lean and shirtless and tousled, hair sticking in a dozen directions, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Hey,” I said, and moved away from him. “I made a big pot.”

“I’m going to need a syringe to inject it directly into my bloodstream.”

“IV kit, third cabinet. Rinse it out when you’re done. I’ll need it later,” I said. My hair was still wet. I leaned over the sink and twisted it into a rope, drizzling out a stream of silver water. Lewis busied himself with coffee cup retrieval, sorted through the thrift-store assortment, and handed me a GOT COFFEE? mug with a pop-eyed, jittery Too Much Coffee Man on it. He took Garfield.

“Did you sleep?” he asked me.

“A little.” I’d dreamed, too. Not good dreams. “I’m sorry I got weepy on you. Bad night.”

“I understand.” He poured himself a cup, mutely offered the same to me, and I nodded. “David doesn’t love you.”

I nearly fumbled the cup he was holding out. “What?”

“David doesn’t love you,” he repeated patiently. “He lives for you. I don’t think you understand the difference. Djinn don’t just love. It isn’t a game to them, and it isn’t something they fall out of when it gets old. That’s why the Wardens have rules about these things. Not just because compelling a Djinn against his or her will is—unsavory—”

I thought of Yvette Prentiss, and her use and abuse of her Djinn. And David.

“It’s rape,” I said. “Might as well call it what it is.”

He nodded, sipped coffee, and continued. “Sex, yes. But I’m talking about love. The rules are there to protect Djinn from their own instincts, as well as from anything humans might force them into. Because when they fall in love, it’s … not on a human scale. And people get hurt. I’m worried, Jo. You and David—I know you love him. But the thing is, it’s the kind of love that can destroy both of you. So be careful.”

If he was trying to scare me, he was doing a good job. “David would never hurt me.”

“He has hurt you.” Steam blurred his expression. “Listen, last night you warned me about Kevin. I have to do the same. I like David, and I respect him, but you have to know who and what he is. His instincts won’t always run in your favor. Just… be careful, will you?”

I intended to be. “I have to go to the studio. Will you guys be here when I get back?”

“I don’t know. We really should get on the road, try to get lost. I don’t want to put you and your sister in danger. Well, any more danger than you already seem to have attracted, anyway.”

“You’re too tired to hit the road,” I said reasonably. “If you’re going to flee for your life, at least stay long enough to get some decent meals and rest. Sarah’s a hell of a cook. You can take my bed while I’m gone.”

There’s nothing like the first swallow of coffee after a night of exhaustion; it was like a cattle prod to the spine, a fierce jolt of reality. I savored it and held his stare. “So,” I said. “Are you and Rahel together?”

“What makes you think I’ll answer that?”

“Cold light of day. You’re warning me about falling in love with a Djinn. I’m just curious.”

His expression clearly reflected skepticism of that. “Rahel and I understand each other.”

“Which means, what? You play chess? You give each other backrubs?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.” Well, well. Lewis had developed a prim streak. For a guy who hadn’t hesitated to get wild with me on the floor of a college lab, that was a bit hilarious.

“I’m just pointing out that there may be a pot/kettle issue on the table here regarding sleeping with the Djinn.”

“Funny, I didn’t invite you into my private life.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Pot.”

“Kettle.”

“Bite me, Lewis.”

“Very mature.”

“Bite me hard!”

“Grow up.”

“You first!”

We stopped, staring at each other, and for no apparent reason, burst into laughter. Flagrant, stupid giggles. Stress and near-death will do that to you. I had to set my coffee down for fear of acquiring more burns he’d have to heal.

When we settled down again—which took a while—I said, “Okay, I’ve thought about it. I’m not going to work today.”

I picked up the phone. Lewis reached over and took it away from me. Our fingers brushed, and he was very close to me.

“You are,” he said. “I don’t think you should stay here.”

“But—”

His fingers twined with mine. “I’m not blind and deaf, Jo. You think I don’t know? You think I can’t feel it?”

I felt horribly off balance. Were we flirting? Had we been flirting? Was he coming on to me? I’d thought he understood…

Lewis said, “No buzz.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He raised our clasped hands. “No buzz. No resonance. No feedback. Jo, you can’t hide it from me. Your power is gone.”

He wasn’t talking about flirting. He was talking about my Warden abilities… and he was almost right. My power wasn’t completely gone, but it was definitely operating at such a low voltage that he wasn’t drawing a spark from it anymore.

Lewis, who’d always drawn fire and power out of me, couldn’t even feel a tingle anymore.

That wasn’t seduction in his eyes. It was pity.

“Jo—” He let go of my hand and moved damp hair back from my face. “Go to work. I don’t want you here in case things get ugly. You’d get hurt.”

“Sarah—Eamon—”

“I can keep them safe; nobody’s gunning for them. You, however, don’t have enough sense to stay out of the line of fire, and you’ll be a target. Go. Do whatever it is you do.” He winked at me. Winked. “And besides, I love watching you on TV.”

Mona was running a little rough. In-town driving really didn’t agree with her, of course; she needed open road and high RPMs and curves to conquer. Her heart just wasn’t in the few miles to the studio. I patted her console and promised her a weekend in the country soon, not to mention a nice detailing.

Cherise’s convertible was parked in its accustomed space when I arrived. Top up.

I scanned the horizon. Yep, the clouds were crawling closer. Rain later today, for certain.

I checked in with Genevieve, who laconically pointed out my costume hanging on the rack. I did a double take.

“What… ?”

Genevieve, who had for some reason added some white streaks to her hair during the night, as well as a raspberry stripe from front to back, sucked on her cigarette and shrugged. She had a new tattoo as well. I’d never actually seen a woman with a naked woman tattoo before. It seemed recursive.

“You’ve got a new gig, sweetheart,” she said in that tobacco-stained voice.

“Want my advice? Avoid the Fruit.” She meant Cherise, whom Genevieve had nicknamed Cherry back in the early days. Hence, the Fruit.

The costume hanging on the rack was an aqua-blue bikini.

I gulped and held it up. Not enough fabric to it to make a blindfold. It would be different if I was strutting it on the beach, or—better yet—wearing it for David, but for an audience in the hundreds of thousands… I felt faintly violated.

“Um, do I have a—”

“Choice?” Genevieve’s laugh sawed the air. “You’re funny, kiddo.”

I tried a smile, went behind the screen, and changed.

It was worse than I’d thought. I’d had the perfect bikini—in fact, I still had it in a drawer at home—and this wasn’t it. It was way too Penthouse for public view, and it was designed for someone of Cherise’s build, not mine. I felt like I was modeling fabric swatches. The thick bathrobe was a relief. I came out to give Genevieve a miserable look, and she raised one overplucked eyebrow in commiseration.

And then proceeded to torture my hair with hot irons until she was satisfied.

Thirty minutes later, I was walking onto the set, feeling like I was on my way to the electric chair. Clutching my bathrobe in a death grip. Cherise was sitting in a chair over to the side, looking like a thundercloud. I don’t mean frowning, although she was doing that, of course. No, she looked like a thundercloud. As in, blue foam cloud suit, with little drops of silvery rain glittering all over it and hanging by wires. Her legs were covered in thick black tights.

I clapped my hands over my mouth in outright horror. She frowned harder.

“I did not ask for this,” I blurted. “God, Cher—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “It’s not your fault.”

“This is awful.”

“Are you wearing my bikini under there?”

“We can quit.”

Cherise managed to look mutinous and defeated at the same time. “And do what? Flip burgers? Internet modeling? I’ve got my pride, you know. I’m a professional.”

Her little, silver suspended raindrops were shivering with indignation.

I swallowed a bubble of laughter and nodded. “Let’s just get through this, okay?”

“I will if you will,” she said, and looked around at the stagehands, who were all staring at us. Probably waiting for me to drop the bathrobe. “You! Assholes! Nobody drops water on me today unless you want to cash in on that pension, you got me?”

For a little thing, she was ferocious. Nobody answered.

Marvelous Marvin strolled onto the set, toothy as a land shark, and patted his stiff hair. “How do I look, girls?”

“Clark Gable and Valentino all rolled into one,” Cherise said. He beamed at her and moved into his camera position. She glared after him. “They’re dead, asshole.”

“Let me guess. Marvin’s behind this?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Marvin wants to ogle your ass for a while. And besides, he’s pissed at me because I wouldn’t put out.”

Usually, that would have been a joke, but the way she said it… “Seriously?”

She just looked at me.

“You’re going to report him, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Like Bikini Girl is going to get any traction on a sexual-harassment issue. Plus, there’s the whole issue of me having tormented the hell out of every HR person to the point where they run when they see me coming.” She eyed me speculatively. “But you, on the other hand…”

“Me?”

“If he snaps your bikini, you’d report him, right?”

“No,” I said flatly. “I’d kill him.” Especially today. So not in the mood for this. I wanted to do this, grab my paycheck—which would be the last one, as I planned to be fleeing soon—and get the hell out.

Whatever Cherise was about to say was cut off by the command for silence on the set, and we stood in silence, waiting for our cues.

Hers came first. I watched her lumber out into public view in her thick, lumpy cloud costume. Watched Marvin deliver his lame-ass jokes at her expense. I’d never really looked at it from this side of the camera before. Damn, I had a really pathetic job.

Marvin had set up a water-drop joke. The stagehand didn’t pull the bucket.

Cherise was just that scary, and besides, the stagehands were union. They didn’t give a shit. When Marvin gave the signal, the stagehand up there just grinned, shrugged, and chomped gum.

Cherise gave him a behind-the-back thumbs-up.

Commercial break. The anchors sniped at each other over who had stepped on whose leads. One of them was rewriting an intro for the next piece. Badly.

Marvin speared me with a look and gave me the toothy grin of death.

“Joanne,” he said. “Let’s flash some skin. You’re up.”

I took a deep breath and slid the bathrobe off of my shoulders, then folded it neatly on a chair. The air felt ice-cold on my all-too-exposed skin. I walked over onto the tiny ocean set, which had glittering white sand, a blue-sky backdrop, and an oversized beach ball. Marvin came over to join me. Close up, his tan looked a shade of orange that earthly sun didn’t produce, and the professionally even smile didn’t really disguise the ruthlessness in his eyes.

“Okay, this is the standard beach setup, right? So look pretty and nod.” He gave me an analytical once-over. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around.”

I didn’t want to, but I did it, a fast circle. When I was halfway around, he reached out and stopped me.

“Your tag’s showing,” he said, and slipped his fingers into the back of my bikini bottom.

And snapped it.

And burst out laughing.

I spun, with perfect timing, and yanked his toupee off his head just as the camera operator finished his silent three-two-one countdown. The thing felt damp and dead-animal in my hand. I tossed it offstage, to where Cherise was standing.

She fielded it neatly, waved it like a battle flag, and grinned at me.

Marvin was not amused. The red light went on, and he was still glaring at me for a full two seconds before he pulled himself together enough to bare his teeth at the audience and start the shtick. His hair plugs looked naked and sickeningly experimental under the harsh lights, and some of them were standing up stiff as cornstalks from where I’d pulled the toupee off. We were talking about the possibilities for fun and sun in the next three days, I gathered. Marvin talked in totally unscientific generalities about updrafts and warm fronts, and gave us the assurance that we were over the worst so far as hurricane season went. “And I can personally guarantee that the next weekend is going to be spectacular!”

I stood hipshot in my best cover-model pose, waving and smiling. Presenting myself mostly in profile, because it seemed slightly less revealing than standing full-on or (God forbid) facing away.

Marvin turned to me and gave me the most furiously charming smile I’d ever seen.

I smiled back. Give us pistols at ten paces, and we’d be the picture of friendship.

“Why don’t you read the forecast for the next week, Joanne?” he asked. Which gave me a pleasant little shock of surprise.

“Sure,” I said warmly, and caught, too late, Cherise frantically making a no-go gesture with both hands. Damn. Whatever was coming, I’d just walked right into it.

“It’s on the beach ball,” he said.

The beach ball was behind me.

I froze, stared at him for a second, and then recovered my smile. “Would you get it for me, Marvin?”

He kept smiling. “Sorry. I’m busy.”

The whole point was, of course, to get me to turn my nearly naked ass to the camera. I bit the inside of my cheek and decided to just go for it. “Actually, Marvin, I’d like to give it a shot without the notes.”

Which wasn’t what he expected or wanted to hear. He shot a look at the director, who made a bored keep-moving motion. “Sure.” He rolled his eyes for the benefit of the viewers.

“Well, Marvin, from the radar imaging you showed us earlier, it’s pretty obvious that we have a warming trend moving in from the southwest, moving northeast. I’d say from the satellite time-lapse that we can expect to see some clouds later today with a strong possibility of afternoon showers, and by tomorrow, lows in the mid-eighties and highs topping out around ninety-two degrees. The dew point will be around seventy-four, with humidity of about eighty-four percent, rising through the weekend. We can expect to see some thunderstorms by tomorrow evening, about a seventy-three percent chance. So let’s be careful out there. There should be some major electrical activity associated with these storms, as well as the possibility of rising winds.”

I finished it with a wide smile.

There was a stunned silence. The two anchors and the sports guy looked at each other in open-mouthed amazement; I guess they didn’t think a girl in a bikini could so much as string together a sentence, much less deliver a coherent, scientific analysis.

I hadn’t used even a little bit of Oversight to do it, either. I didn’t think I was capable of that, at the moment. I’d done it all from my own observations last night, and the maps, and the same data Marvin had available at his disposal.

And I knew I was right. One hundred percent right.

Marvin looked like a gaffed fish. He must have realized it, because he flushed under the pancake makeup and forced a labored smile in return. “Ha! That’s very funny, Joanne. You’ve been watching a little too much Weather Channel.” He broadly mugged for the camera. “Sorry, folks, but Joanne’s forecast is completely wrong. There’s not going to be any rain. I’ve already guaranteed it.”

“Want to bet?” I asked.

“Oh, we don’t encourage gambling on our show,” Marvin shot back, with a quick, frantic glance at the director. Who was looking enraptured with the sudden tension on the set, and gave him a go-ahead nod. “But I suppose a friendly wager, in the interest of science…”

“If it rains, Marvin, I think you should have to wear the Sunny Suit,” I said sweetly.

The anchors laughed, off camera. Cherise had her fist stuffed in her mouth. All her silver, suspended raindrops were glittering as she shook.

Marvin sputtered and twisted, but after all, he’d given his personal guarantee.

“Well,” he finally said, “I’ll take that bet. Because Marvelous Marvin stands by his predictions!”

The anchors clapped. So did the stagehands, who were all giving me—not Marvin—a big, double thumbs-up.

Marvin did a back-to-you, and the newscast resumed. They were about to interview a 110-year-old man from Coral Gables who had a pet tortoise nearly his own age.

The red camera light flicked off, and Marvin lunged at me. I danced back through the sand, stepped off the narrow ledge onto the cold floor of the studio, and mouthed at him, Want to see my ass?

And then I turned, pointed to it, and walked away, head held high. Put my arm around the squishy mass of Cherise’s costume, and walked her toward the door. I tossed the bathrobe over my shoulder on the way out and made sure that I was doing a full model’s sashay, the entire time.

When I looked over my shoulder, Marvin was doing a silent dance of fury, right in the director’s face. The stagehands were convulsed with silent laughter.

So endeth my career as Weather Girl. Sad, really. I was just getting to like it, in a perverse, kinky kind of way.

It occurred to me, on the drive back, that I had a lot to worry about.

Jonathan’s threat was still in force, and although he’d temporarily forgotten about me, he was almost certainly going to come reinforce his point anytime now.

And whatever wistful hopes I had to repair the damage to David were now officially dead, buried, and had grass growing on their graves.

David was an Ifrit, and I didn’t know how to get him back without human blood and the Ma’at. I was dangerously willing to get the human blood. The Ma’at, however, were notoriously not easy to convince, and with the Djinn in the middle of political warfare, that wasn’t even vaguely an option.

When Jonathan showed up, I’d have to do what he said. I wouldn’t have any choices left.

I felt such a crashing wave of anguish that it left me breathless, tears cold on my cheeks, and I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to let it pass.

It didn’t pass. The waves kept coming, battering me, releasing more and more pain. It was as though a dam had broken inside of me, and I couldn’t stop the flood.

I found myself hunched over, head against the steering wheel, hands over my stomach. Protecting my unborn child, my child who was just an idea, a possibility, a spark.

David was already gone, but he wasn’t dead. He’d told me he had to die for the child to live. Probably.

I tried to sense something, anything, from her, but like the bottle that contained David in thick, obscuring glass, my own body refused to grant me a connection. Was she still there?

Please, I thought to her. Don’t go.

It took me an hour to dry my tears and feel up to facing what was waiting for me at home.

When I arrived, Lewis and Kevin were gone. That wasn’t totally a surprise; Lewis never had liked hanging around waiting for trouble, and he’d be thinking of Kevin, too. I wondered why the Ma’at weren’t rallying to protect him. Yet another thing I should have found the time to ask.

I wished I hadn’t missed Lewis, but at the same time, I was relieved. He’d have taken one look at my reddened eyes and known what I’d been crying about, and I wasn’t really sure I could stand the sympathy just now.

When I closed the door, I heard Sarah banging around in the kitchen. By banging I mean cooking, with punctuation. I saw Eamon standing in the living room, sipping coffee, and raised my eyebrows; he raised his back and nodded toward the source of the noise.

“I think she’s a bit unhappy,” he said. “Considering that she walked out of the bedroom thinking she’d be alone in the house and, well, she wasn’t.”

I blinked. “That was a problem?”

“It was the way she walked out of the bedroom.”

“You mean she was… ?”

“Naked as the day she was born,” he said with careful gravity. “I think the resulting shriek woke half your neighbors.”

I was going to hell for the fact that this actually cheered me up. I tried to be a dutiful sister. Tried very, very hard. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you, but you guys were asleep—”

“Oh, believe me, it’s not me you have to convince. I thought it was a lot funnier than she did,” he said. “By the way, your friend—Lewis?—said to tell you that you looked great this morning.”

Eamon’s tone had just a bit of a question in it. I felt a blush coming on again.

“On television,” I clarified. “He said he was going to watch me on television. Not like rolling over in bed and saying I looked great or anything.”

“Ah.” Eyebrows up and down. “Of course.”

Hurricane Sarah was making omelets, apparently, with lots of agitated chopping of mushrooms and onions and peppers. Ham had already suffered the same fate.

When I came into the room, she pointed the chef’s knife at me and said, “You.”

“I surrender. I throw myself on your mercy. Please don’t mince me,” I said, and sat down at the table. There was a pitcher of orange juice out, so I helped myself to a glass. Tart and pulpy, just the way I liked it. I sipped liquid sunshine and waited for the storm to break as Sarah went back to her chopping.

And waited. And waited. She just kept chopping. Finally, I ventured, “So you’re mad, then.”

“Oh, you think?”

“Look, Lewis needed a place to stay for the night. It was late. I didn’t want to wake you—”

“Yes, all very logical, but you’re not the one who wandered out here naked and got ogled by that—lecher!”

“Lewis?” I blinked in surprise. Not that Lewis wouldn’t ogle—he was a guy, after all, and highly aware of women—but he was usually a lot more subtle about it.

“No, not him. The other one. The kid.”

Oh. Kevin. Of course. “Um, right. Sorry about that. Don’t take it personally. He’s a teenager. He’s constitutionally lecherous.” I edited out the response that began, If you weren’t so focused on shagging Cute British Guy, you might have thrown on a robe, and damn, I’ll bet it was funny… “Are you really mad?”

The chopping paused for three long seconds, then resumed at a slower pace. “No,” she admitted. “I’m embarrassed. First of all, Eamon and I—well, we got carried away. I mean, it was rude of us to stay here, in your home, and—do—what we did. I don’t know what came over me. I’m usually a lot more reserved than that.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even here. Unless you got carried away and had incredible sex in my bed or something…” Oh, man, I didn’t like that silence. “Sarah? Tell me it wasn’t in my bed?”

“Just the once,” she murmured.

I’d thought it looked more than usually rumpled when I came back, but I’d been exhausted and traumatized and distracted.

“I think that makes it a dead heat on insensitivity,” I said. “Speaking of which, thanks for asking me how work went. I got fired this morning. No more Weather Girl.”

“What?” she blurted. “But—how are we going to pay the bills?”

Typical Sarah. Not, Oh my God, that’s awful, are you okay? I eyed the feast she was cooking up. “Well, I did get a decent severance check, mostly because they were afraid I’d sue, given the bikini-snapping by a senior staff member. But I think we’ll have to economize on the haute cuisine. And the couture is right out. Also, anything else with French derivations.”

A quiet cough from the door. Eamon was standing there, looking sober and remarkably self-possessed for a guy who’d appropriated my bed for illicit purposes. “I know you don’t want charity, but I’d be more than willing to offer a loan. Purely to tide you over until you find something else. No strings attached.”

Sarah’s face lit up. Eamon, however, was watching me. Very wise of him.

“No,” I said. “Thanks. It’s a nice offer, but honestly, I can’t accept it. We’ll just figure it out for ourselves.” I didn’t want Sarah to jump from being taken care of by Chrêtien to being taken care of by Eamon. Especially since she barely knew him, for God’s sake. Not that I disliked him—in fact, I thought he was pretty cool—but the pattern bugged me. “Okay, Sarah?”

More agitated chopping. No answer. I sighed and sipped orange juice.

“Were you fired because you were right and that idiot with the hair problem was wrong?” Eamon asked.

“No,” I said. “I was fired because I was right while I was on camera. Plus, I wouldn’t let him snap my swimsuit with impunity.”

Sarah laughed. Eamon didn’t. He just watched me with those cool, quiet eyes, as if he understood everything.

“Good for you,” he said. “You deserve better than that. I heard you give the forecast. It was very clear you deserved his job, at the very least. I doubt they could ever afford your talents, if they understood what you were worth.”

He wasn’t delivering that in a tone of flattery, or admiration—just a dry, brisk, undramatic statement of fact.

I exchanged a look with my sister. She smiled.

“See?” she asked.

I did. I approved. Not that I’d ever admit it, of course. I was, after all, the bratty one.

“So,” I said. “What’s on your schedules for this morning, beyond the best breakfast of our lives?”

“I have some work to do,” Eamon said. “However, after that, I thought I might take you lovely ladies out for a bite of dinner. Would that be acceptable? Someplace nice. Help you forget your troubles for a bit. It’s really the least I can do, after… imposing on your hospitality.”

Sarah got that smile. That secret, glowing smile of Really Good Sex. She gave him a smoking look from under lowered lashes, and I controlled a weary flash of petty jealousy, because I wanted David, I needed him, and I was grieving for him, all at the same time. Sarah might be living her idyll. Mine had crashed headlong into the real world, flamed out, and was plummeting toward earth at Mach One.

I got lost in those waves of sadness again. Luckily, they’d lost a little of their force, and I only got a little hot prickle in the corners of my eyes instead of the full, embarrassing breakdown.

“Jo?” Sarah prodded. “Are you staying here today?”

It was a very good question. I wanted to sit and grieve, but sitting and waiting for all of my dizzying array of enemies to come and take their shots sounded really, really dumb. Much as I wanted to hang out and pretend to have a normal life, that possibility had gone out the window last night on the beach. “I’ve got some things to take care of, too. Will you be all right on your own for a while?”

“Sure.” She gave Eamon another one of those little looks that promised to drag him off to the bedroom. “I’ve been thinking of cleaning up around here. As a thank-you to you, Jo. If that’s all right.”

As long as it kept her busy and preferably not spending any of my dwindling bank account… “Okay. But I want you to keep the phone close, okay? That friend of mine, Lewis, he had some trouble. There may be people looking for him. They wouldn’t hurt you, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. Don’t answer the door if somebody shows up asking for him, and if you get in trouble, call me.” Eamon made that quiet coughing noise again. “Or, okay, call Eamon. Right?”

“Sure.” Sarah abandoned the chopping and turned to the beating of eggs, which she did with amazing skill. “I can take care of myself.”

I knew she believed that. I’d just never seen any real evidence of it.

But she did make one hell of an omelet.

The first stop on my list of things to do was to have that heart-to-heart conversation with Detective Rodriguez, whose van was still conveniently located downstairs. Avoiding him wasn’t going to get it done. I’d rather finish the conversation, amen, and at least have one fewer potential gun aimed at my head.

It wasn’t quite as hot as it had been, although it was way too muggy—the clouds overhead, which had started out thin and cirrus, sliding like white veils over the sky, were thickening to cotton clumps. Cumulonimbus. I couldn’t feel the tingle of the energy building, but I could read the sky about as well as anyone, and there was definitely rain on the way. The wind had shifted.

I knocked on the van’s window, waited, and finally got a sliding door opened in the back for answer.

I don’t know what I expected from the Good Ship Surveillance, but it was clean.

Really, really clean. There was a neat little bed, made up so crisply it probably would have passed a drill sergeant’s inspection. No food wrappers or loose papers or detritus of a normal life. Near the back was a closed metal locker that probably held necessities like toothpaste and changes of clothes and spare ammunition.

He had video running. Video of all of the entrances to my building, plus a pretty good view through the patio window into the apartment. Some kind of wireless cameras. Good God.

“Good morning,” Rodriguez said, and nodded me to a chair. It was bolted down to the floor, but it swiveled. Kinda comfy, too. I settled in as he slid the door closed behind me. “Coffee?”

“I’m already soaking in it,” I said, and held out a cup I’d brought with me.

“Here. Fresh orange juice. My sister got enthusiastic and pulped half the state’s cash crop for breakfast.”

“I know,” he said, and gestured toward the monitor that showed the view through the patio door. Sarah was at the sink, washing dishes. Eamon was rinsing and drying. They were so much in each others’ spaces it was like watching something a whole lot more intimate, with a whole lot fewer clothes.

“Remind me to pull the shades later,” I said. He leaned over and took the OJ, but he didn’t drink, just set it aside. “What? You think it’s poisoned?”

“I’m careful,” he said. “No offense.”

“Fine. Your loss. Are you taping all of this? The video?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything embarrassing I can use on my sister?”

I got a very faint smile that didn’t reach those impartial eyes. “Privileged.”

Banter was over. Silence fell, hot and oppressive, and he studied me with wary eyes. Waiting.

I caved. “Look, Detective, what can I do? What is it going to take to make you, you know…”

“Go away?” he supplied, and eased down into a chair across from me. Not as comfy as mine, I noted. “Answers. I need you to tell me everything, start to finish. Nothing left out.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’ll give you the whole story, but honestly, it won’t do you any good. And there’s not a shred of proof, one way or the other, so you’d better give up on having any peace of mind. All you’ll have is my word, and I have the impression that isn’t going to carry a lot of weight with you.”

He sat back, watching me, and finally picked up the orange juice and sniffed it, then took a sip. “Actually, I revised my opinion a little,” he said. “Last night. On the beach.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. He swiveled his chair instead and looked at the screen, where my sister and her new boyfriend were scrubbing dishes and laughing.

“What’s his story?” he asked. “Your new friend.”

“Sarah met him at the mall. Same day I met you, as a matter of fact. Though you and I haven’t hit it off quite so well.”

He sent me one of those looks. “You live an interesting life.”

“You have no idea. What made you change your mind on the beach?”

He drank more of the OJ. “Two things. One of them has nothing to do with the beach itself: You were pissed off, not scared, when you confronted me the first time. Guilty people get scared, or they get smooth. You’re different.”

Well, that was a nice compliment. “And the other thing?”

“Guilty people don’t save lives in the dark. Murderers can save lives, if it suits them. They can run into burning buildings and grab babies out of cribs at risk of their own skins. They can even feel sorry about it if it doesn’t work out. But if there’s a choice, and if there’s no percentage and no witnesses, they won’t put themselves out for it. If a guy’s bleeding to death in an alley and all they have to do is make a 911 call, they won’t unless there’s a reason—unless somebody sees them and expects them to do it, or there’s some profit in it. Get my point? It’s all about the way it looks, not the life they’re saving; they really don’t give a shit about that.” He shrugged and tilted the glass to drain the orange juice to a thin film of gold. “You do. All you had to do was walk away and let that hole collapse on those poor bastards, and nobody would have known.”

“Nobody but me.”

“Yes. That’s my point.”

Something he said rang a bell. “You said, a murderer can run into a burning building and grab a baby… you were thinking of Quinn, weren’t you?”

He was silent for a moment, reluctant to say it out loud. “There was something about the way he did it. Standing there in the street, calculating the angles. There was a crowd, there was a mother begging him for help, but it was like some little computer inside of him was adding up benefits. Look, I wasn’t lying to you. Quinn was a good guy. I liked him. But being a good guy doesn’t mean you’re not a bad man.”

“Detective, if you’re not careful, you might start sounding deep.”

He gave me a faint, strange smile. “No chance of that. I’m a good cop. If I can’t see it, feel it, taste it, explain it to the jury, I don’t believe it. Quinn, he was intuitive. Mind like a jumping bean. It was all like a game to him. A contest; see who’s the smartest guy in the room.” His hands were clasped now, his thumbs rubbing slow circles on each other. He bent his head and watched them at work. “Can I believe he was a wrong guy? Yeah. I can believe it. I didn’t want to, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve been watching you. You don’t change when nobody’s looking. You say what you mean, and you say it to anybody who’ll listen.”

“Are you saying I’m not subtle?”

“You’re about as subtle as a brick. But you can take that as a compliment. Hero-types generally aren’t that subtle.”

Hero-types? “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The greasy-looking kid who was in your apartment last night ripped off some cash from the flour jar in your kitchen. And the guy you were talking to before you left for work made him put it back.”

Kevin and Lewis, each acting according to their natures. It made me smile.

“Also,” Rodriguez finished, “you looked totally hot on TV, and your sister looks pretty good naked. Now. Tell me about what really happened with Quinn.”

I realized, about two sentences into it, that I couldn’t not tell him about the Wardens, and especially the Djinn. He had to understand what we were dealing with, and the stakes we played for. He had to understand that Quinn was doing something far beyond the capacity of the justice system to punish.

It took a long time. When my voice ran hoarse, Rodriguez got me a cold bottled water, and when I started trembling from nerves, he switched me to cold beer.

The air conditioner kicked in with a dry rattle at some point, drying the sweat trickling down into the neckline of my white tank top.

It was a strangely quiet interrogation. He just listened, except for those small acts of kindness. Occasionally, he’d ask for a clarification if I wasn’t getting something across, but he never disputed, never doubted, never accused me of being a lunatic straight off the funny farm.

Which I would have, if I’d been in the less-comfy chair hearing someone spout the same explanation.

When I got to the part that talked about his partner’s death, I saw his eyes go cool and hooded, but his expression stayed neutral. Then it was over, and I was clutching an empty brown bottle in my hands, and all I heard was the steady whisper of the A/C fighting the Florida heat.

“You know how that sounds,” he said.

“Of course I know. Why do you think I didn’t tell you all this up front?”

He got up, as if he wanted to pace, but the van was too small and besides, I thought what he really wanted to do was put his fist through something yielding.

Like me. There was that kind of sharp angle to the way he moved.

And still, nothing in his expression. The anger was burning, but it was somewhere miles down and sealed off with a steel hatch.

“You say there’s nobody to back up this version.”

“Well, there is,” I said. “The guy that was here last night. The kid. And you saw some of it yourself last night on the beach. Hell, you could call my boss in New York if you wanted. He’d tell you it was true—well, maybe he wouldn’t, come to think of it; he’s got a hell of a lot of problems of his own. But the point is, none of these people would be credible to you. They don’t have real jobs and real identities you can check out with independent sources. They’re ciphers. Like me. So I think you’ve got to go with your gut on this one, Detective. Do you believe me or not?”

He stopped and put his hand on a leather strap hanging from the wall—the better to grab onto if the van had to move into gear, I realized. This was quite a mobile cop shop he had.

“Tell you what,” he said after a moment. “I’ll believe it if you show me something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Anything, you know, magic.”

“It’s not magic,” I said, exasperated. “It’s science. And—well, okay, the Djinn, maybe that’s magic, but really, it can all be explained if you go far enough with the physics, and—”

“You do stuff other people can’t do, and you make things happen with the power of your mind?”

“Well—um—”

“Magic,” he said, and shrugged. “So show me something.”

Truth was, I didn’t have enough power to show him much of anything. I stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said, “Okay.” I had enough energy left inside for a tiny little demonstration. Maybe.

I held out my palm and concentrated.

It should have been easy, doing this; it was a trick I’d been practicing since I’d first joined the Wardens. Nothing to it—anybody with more than a spark of talent could pull it off; the trick was controlling it and doing it with grace and elegance.

I closed my eyes, let out a slow breath, and built a tiny little rainstorm over my hand. Pulled moisture out of the surrounding air and carefully crowded it together, cooled the vibrations of the molecules just enough to make them sticky. When I opened my eyes, a faint, pale fog was forming above my palm. It was ragged and not very well established and, all in all, the crappiest demonstration I’d ever seen, but I held on and continued to draw the moisture together into a genuine little cloud.

A tiny blue spark zipped from one side to another inside of it, illuminating it like a tiny bulb, and Rodriguez drew closer, staring.

I made it rain, a tiny patter of full-size drops on my hand—they had to be full-sized, because it had to do with gravity, not scale. I only squeezed out two or three, because of the size of the source material, but enough to get the point across. The friction of molecules sparked another baby lightning bolt; this one zapped me like a static charge. I winced.

Rodriguez dragged a hand through the cloud, and stared at his damp fingers in fascination.

“Real enough for you?” I asked him, and let it go. It broke apart into fog, which rapidly evaporated into nothing in the dry, air-conditioned environment of the van. I wiped my wet palm on my leg.

He didn’t answer for a long moment, and then he reached over and picked up the empty orange juice glass. Handed it back to me.

“We’re done,” he said. “Watch your step when you get out.”

That was it. He slid the door open. The glare of sunlight startled me, as did the humidity rolling in the door. I looked at Rodriguez, who stared back, and finally stepped out and onto the hot pavement.

“That’s all?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied. “That’s all.” He started to slide the door shut, then hesitated. “Two pieces of advice; take them or leave them. First, get rid of the car. It’s a sweet ride, and it’s also hot and it attracts too much attention. Somebody’s going to figure it out.”

I nodded. Poor Mona. Well, I was really more of a Mustang girl, anyway…

“Second,” he said, “if what you told me about Quinn is true, he was in business with somebody, and he had a shipment to deliver. You might want to think about the possibility that somebody might be looking to collect, and why they wanted it so bad in the first place.”

I felt the skin tighten on the back of my neck. “You mean, collect from me?”

“You’re the visible link, Joanne. I found you. Somebody else could do the same thing. Watch your ass.”

I nodded slowly. “So this is good-bye?”

“You see me again, it’s because I found out you were lying to me, and believe me, that would be good-bye.”

He slid the van door shut. I stepped back. He slid into the driver’s side seat in the front, and the van started up with a shiver and a roar. He rolled down the window, gave me a little salute, and backed out of the parking spot.

I watched him drive away. Except for a small patch of oil on the asphalt where he’d been parked, my cop stalker was gone as if he’d never been there.

One problem down. About a million to go.

Overhead, the clouds piled thicker, darker, and more imminently threatening.

I wished I knew what to do next. If Lewis hadn’t bugged out, at least I could have mined him for information—I knew he had a lot more than he was saying—but of course holding on to Lewis was like trying to hold on to a wave in motion.

And without access to the aetheric, trying to find anyone was trouble. The Djinn were—at least for now—leaving me alone, probably too preoccupied with their own battles and problems. Jonathan, despite his threats, hadn’t come knocking for his pound of flesh. Ashan was proving the once-bitten, twice-shy cliché. I didn’t know whether that was a good sign, or bad, but at least it gave me a little more time to do whatever it was I proposed to do.

Which was… what?

I was in the middle of dithering about it when my cell phone rang, and it was Paul Giancarlo, calling from the Warden offices at the U.N.Building in New York.

“Good morning,” I said. “Before you forget to ask, thanks, I’m fine.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he grunted. “Lewis was with you last night?”

He had good sources, but then, he was the Head Hon-cho. At least for now. “Yeah. He needed someplace to stay and recover. Look, you’ve got rogue Wardens running in packs out here. Lewis has a bull’s-eye painted on his back. You need to do something, fast.”

“Would if I could. I’ve got a problem. I need your help.”

“Does the word no ring any bells with you? Because I’ve said it before.”

“Joanne, I’m not fucking around here. When I say problem to someone like you, what do you think it means?”

“Disaster,” I said briskly. “From what I’ve seen, there’s plenty of that going around, and I’m sorry about it, but I can’t help.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Seriously, I can’t.”

His voice went very quiet. Gravelly. “Did you hear me ask you a question? Short declarative statements, sweetheart. Not negotiable. This is serious business, and you’re going to get in line or I promise you, your powers get yanked. Clear?”

Fuck. Frankly, Paul sending Marion’s team after me to rip out my powers was far down my waiting list of panic attacks, but it wasn’t worth risking, either.

“Clear,” I said. “What do you need?”

“Get over to John Foster’s office. Nobody’s answering over there. I got nobody on the ground I can trust right now. Just make sure everything’s okay.”

That gave me a quiet moment of worry. “Paul? Is it that bad?”

His sigh rattled the speaker of my cell phone. “However bad you think it’s gotten, it’s worse than that. And I don’t think it’s anywhere near hitting bottom yet. Get over there, but watch your back. I’d send you cover if I could.”

“I know. Are you all right there?”

“So far. Nobody wants to uncork a Djinn around here, though. Six Wardens reported dead in the Northeast, and word is their own Djinn stood by and let it happen.”

I remembered Prada on the bridge, her defiant anger. “And once they’re free of their masters, they go after others to free them,” I said. “Packs of them.”

“Yeah. It’s a mess. Swear to God, Jo, I don’t know if we’re going to survive it. We’re warded halfway to hell around here, so I think this building’s secure, and I gave my Djinn a preemptive that her job was to protect my life from all comers until I said otherwise. I passed that along to everybody in the system; don’t know if it’ll do any good. You know how expert they are in getting around orders when they want to.”

“Yeah,” I agreed softly. “I know. Listen—be careful. I’ll call you when I know something.”

“Thanks. I can’t afford to leave the Florida stations unmanned.”

I knew. Key areas had seasonal posts of enormous responsibility. California was important all year long. Tornado-prone states like Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas got extra staffing for the spring and summer.

Florida, in hurricane season, was a key weather post, and if John was missing …

We were in big trouble.

I signed off and headed for my car.

The Warden Regional Office was located not far from the National Weather Service offices in Coral Gables, conveniently enough; we’d sometimes used them for conferences and research. But the Warden offices were unassuming, located in a seven-story building with standard-issue brown marble and sleek glass. There was no sign on the building itself, just a street number etched in brass. Security on the entrance. I didn’t have a card key, so I sat in the car and waited until someone else pulled into the parking lot and wheeled a laptop toward the front door. I didn’t recognize her—she probably didn’t work in the Warden offices, of course, because they only had a couple of small offices out of seven floors, and the others were all occupied.

I moved in behind the woman, smiled when she smiled, and she carded me into the building and took off for the stairs. I, feeling lazy, went for the elevator.

The lobby was quiet and dimly lit, going for soothing and achieving a state of restfulness usually reserved for dropping into a nap. The elevators were slow—it was a general rule of the universe that the shorter the building, the slower the elevators—and I killed time by trying to imagine what the hell I was going to do if I got up there and found a major fight in progress. I wasn’t going to be of any help, that much was sure.

I was hoping like hell that it was a downed-phone-line problem. Weak, but sometimes optimism is the only drug that works.

But it’s sadly temporary in its effects.

The front door of the Warden offices looked like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it—splintered in half, raw wood shining naked under the sleek brown finish. The lock was shattered, pieces of it scattered for ten feet down the carpeted hallway. The windows on either side were gaping, glassless holes, and I felt the crunch of broken pieces under my shoes as I walked carefully toward the destruction.

I was half afraid I was going to find everybody dead, given the state of the door, but I heard voices almost immediately. I recognized the slow, Carolina-honey voice of my ex-boss.

The tension in me let go with a rush of relief. John Foster was still alive, and I was off the hook.

I knocked on the shell of a door and leaned over to look through the opening.

John—still in a shirt and tie, which was his version of business casual—was standing, arms folded. With him was Ella, his right-hand assistant; she was a dumpy, motherly Warden with moderately weak weather skills but a stellar ability to keep John’s stubborn, independent group working together.

Speaking of which, none of the others were anywhere in sight.

Ella looked exasperated. While John dressed like he’d been interrupted on his way to a board meeting, Ella might have been called out of giving her tile a good grouting: blue jeans, a sloppy T-shirt, a flowered Hawaiian-style shirt over that. She had graying, coarse hair that looked windblown.

They both turned toward me when I knocked, and Ella’s mouth fell open. “Jo!” she yelled at ear-bleeding volume, dashed for the door, and knocked it back with a nudge of her Nike-clad foot. Before I could say “El!” she had me in a warm, soft hug, and then was dragging me over the threshold into the office.

Which was a wreck, too. Not as much as the door, but definitely not in the best of shape. Computers tossed around, papers lying everywhere, chairs overturned.

The filing cabinets had tipped over, and the big metal drawers were out, their contents spilling in waterfalls of folders to the floor. Everything looked thoroughly bashed and dented.

“Love what you’ve done with the place. Sort of Extreme Makeover meets Robot Wars,” I said. John—middle-aged, fit, graying at the temples in fine patriarchal style—smiled at me, but his heart wasn’t in it. He looked strained and a little sick. “Okay, that was lame, I admit it. What happened?”

“We’re trying to figure that out,” John said, and extended his hand. “Sorry, Joanne. Good to see you, but as you can see, we’re having a little bit of a crisis.”

“Paul was trying to raise you on the phone and couldn’t get an answer. He sent me to check up.” I looked around, eyebrows raised. “Robbery?”

“I doubt it,” Ella said, and kicked a destroyed flat-screen monitor moodily. “They didn’t take the electronics, and there wasn’t any cash here. Maybe it was kids, smashing things up.”

“You’re not going to say kids today, are you? Because I never really thought of you as grandmotherly, despite the hair.”

That earned me a filthy look.

John sighed and put his hands in his trouser pockets, watching me. “We’re fine, thanks. Tell Paul I’m sorry. My cell battery ran down hours ago. How are you?”

He sounded guarded, which wasn’t unexpected. I realized, from the wary light in his eyes, that my arrival was looking more and more suspicious. I mean, he’d taken me for a ride and practically accused me of corruption, and here we were, standing in his wrecked offices, and I was saying I’d been sent by the boss.

I could see how it could be misinterpreted.

“I didn’t do this,” I said. “You know me better than that, John.”

John and Ella exchanged looks. “Yeah,” Ella agreed. “We do.” John didn’t say anything. He kept his arms folded.

I took a deep breath and plunged in over my head. “Any trouble with the Djinn on your end?”

“What?” John frowned. “No. Of course not.” He had a Djinn, of course. Ella, so far as I knew, didn’t. Only four Wardens in Florida were equipped with magical assistants and, by last count, only about two hundred in all of North and South America. It was an alarmingly low number, until you considered two hundred Djinn who might decide to kill off Wardens, in which case it was alarmingly high. “What are you talking about? What kind of trouble?”

“Some of the Djinn are breaking free of their masters. You haven’t heard?”

Another look between the two of them. Silent communication, and me without my decoder ring. “No,” John finally said. “Not about that.”

“But you heard about some of the Wardens going rogue.”

He looked grimmer. “Yes. And that’s a subject I don’t think we should be discussing with you.”

A not-so-subtle reminder that I wasn’t in the Warden business anymore, and therefore not privy to the fun, interesting politics. I changed the subject with a wave around the trashed office. “Think this is related?”

“I doubt it.”

“Yeah? You get this kind of thing often around here?”

“Never,” Ella put in. “I guess it could be kids, though the timing’s odd. But Djinn wouldn’t have a reason to do this, and if a Warden did it, well, there must have been a reason.”

“Were they out to steal records? Destroy them?” I asked.

Oh, boy. Another significant glance.

“Again,” John said, “I think we’re on a subject that’s off limits. Look, you did what Paul asked, you checked. We’re fine. I think you should go now.”

It hurt. I’d worked for John for a long time, and we’d been friends. Not bosom-buddy friends, but strong acquaintances, good to get together for the occasional drink, chat about family and friends, exchange Christmas presents.

I’d trusted him with my life. I couldn’t believe that had changed overnight.

But maybe I should have known, considering how many things were changing overnight these days.

“Jo, don’t take it personally. You did quit, you know,” Ella said. “And I’m still finding that hard to believe, sunshine. You’re the most dedicated Warden I’ve ever met.”

“I was the most dedicated Warden you ever met,” I said. “Trust me, I had reasons.”

“Well, if you quit over some dumb disagreement, it’s a bad time for it,” she said. “Bad Bob is gone and we’ve down three Wardens around here. From what I’ve heard, half the senior members of the organization are dead or disabled, and the other half can’t decide what to do about it. We’re barely holding together.”

I hadn’t come to listen to the we-need-you-back speech, but something Ella had said stopped me. “Three team members?” I asked. “Me, Bad Bob… who else?”

“Ella,” John warned. She ignored him and kept talking.

“We lost another Weather Warden two nights ago,” Ella said. “Carol Shearer. Car accident.”

Another Djinn casualty, probably. They used natural forces to do the dirty work, not their own hands. They hit hard and fast, before a Warden could react to give their Djinn commands, and if the Djinn wasn’t commanded to be proactive, or wasn’t in the mood, then Ashan was the winner. Maybe he was systematically working his way through the ranks, testing.

Maybe John had already been targeted for death, but his Djinn had protected him without orders. The two of them had always seemed to enjoy a good professional relationship.

“I’m sorry to hear about Carol,” I said. “But I can’t come back right now even if you’d have me. And frankly, I wouldn’t be any good to you if I did. I’ve got some, ah, issues.”

John gave me the unfocused, faraway look of someone using Oversight. Whatever he saw, he went a shade graver and nodded. No comments. He’d seen the damage that had been done to me.

“Thanks for the offer, anyway,” he said. Not that I’d really made one.

“Let me help you clean up. Least I can do, after all the chaos I’ve caused over the years.”

John hesitated, but hell, he was shorthanded. I called Paul and reassured him all was well. While I was doing that, John called up his Djinn—who was a sweet-faced young man with glittering white-diamond eyes—and got the worst of the big damage repaired with a few murmured commands. I kept an eagle eye on that, believe me… but I didn’t see any indication of an impending rebellion. He and his Djinn got on well. Always had. I sensed a certain restrained fondness between them—not love, and not even friendship, but a good partnership. In many ways, John Foster was the poster child for what a Warden ought to be.

It depressed me. It reminded me of just how much I wasn’t, even when I was at my best. I was a messy, sloppy, emotional maverick. I couldn’t color inside the lines even when I wanted to.

I helped Ella with the grunt work of restoring files to the cabinets, and as I did, I realized that most of the folders had to do with personnel. Detailed records of everything that we’d done, throughout our tenure with the Wardens. Ah, so this was where all those reports went to die… nice to know that all those hours spent typing on a keyboard actually had some kind of effect. I’d half suspected all my hard work just disappeared into the aetheric, where it got eaten by hungry demons. Or malicious Free Djinn.

About the fifteenth folder I picked up—and it was huge, papers spilling everywhere—had my name on it. I paused, startled, and flipped it open. The clips that held reports in the file were missing, and everything was crammed in at odd angles, as if it had been gone through fast.

The memo on top was signed by Paul Giancarlo, National Warden Pro Tem. It was an order to keep me under close surveillance for any suspicious activities related to fraud, blackmail, and illegal trading in weather control.

I felt a wave of cold rush over me, and in its backwash came another one of heat, burning down from the top of my head and taking up residence somewhere in my gullet. In the memo, Paul practically accused me of collusion with two other Wardens—one of them Bad Bob—in carrying out a scheme to steer tropical storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes toward certain areas of the coastline, where an outfit named Paradise Kingdom seemed to be making a business of building expensive resorts and condominiums, only to have them destroyed before opening by bad weather.

For the insurance money.

The score so far: storms four, ParadiseKingdom zero. They’d never actually opened a single property.

Paradise Kingdom. I remembered that name, and it came back with a jolt… the drive out along the coast. A dead dad and kids. Tornadoes twisting the under-construction hotel to wreckage.

I flipped pages. The photos showed shoddy construction, with detailed notes.

Substandard parts. Bad wiring. Reused materials. If the buildings had ever actually opened, they’d have been deathtraps—but the insurance records showed payouts as if the construction had been to the finest possible standards.

I’d never even heard of ParadiseKingdom, but I was starting to shake with fury and a little bit of fear.

The folder was snatched out of my hands and slapped shut. John frowned at me, handed it to Ella, who mutely began straightening up the papers inside it.

“Let me guess,” I said. “I wasn’t supposed to see that.” Except Ella must have thought differently; she’d pointedly ignored the folder lying all by itself, and left it to me to pick up.

“You know I can’t talk to you about it.”

“Don’t I have the right to at least try to clear my name?”

“Nobody’s blackened your name,” he said, and crossed his arms. He looked tired.

There was more gray in his hair than I remembered. “Look, yes, there’s talk; there has been talk ever since Bad Bob died. Lots of people think you killed him to shut him up.”

“It was self-defense!” I practically yelled it. He nodded, arms folded; the body language of rejection. “Dammit, John, don’t you believe me? You knew that old bastard! He was a corrupt, scary old man—”

“He was a legend,” John said softly. “You killed a legend. You have to understand that no matter what he was, what bad things he did, nobody’s going to remember that now. What they remember are his accomplishments, not his flaws.”

He stuck a demon down my throat! I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. And it didn’t matter. John was right, Bad Bob was an untouchable saint, and I was the evil, scheming bitch who’d slaughtered a helpless old guy in his own home. No doubt the ParadiseKingdom scheme had been all his; it had all the hallmarks of his style. He’d probably involved a few other Wardens in it, for profit, but he hadn’t included me. He’d known that I would have busted him.

I could practically hear him laughing, out there in hell. I hoped it was extra hot and he was drinking Tabasco sauce to cool off.

“I don’t know anything about this,” I said. John gave me a funny look, then turned to Ella. She shot him another glance back, raised her eyebrows, and nodded toward the other side of the room. John walked silently away. His Djinn was standing there, fixing up a shattered desk with long, smooth strokes of his fingers over wood. Where it had splintered, it fused together seamlessly.

“John can’t say anything about this,” Ella said, “but I’ve only got a couple of years to retirement; I couldn’t give a shit what the Wardens do to me. Petal, claiming ignorance about ParadiseKingdom isn’t going to do you any good. You’d better come up with another story, fast.”

“What? Why?”

She straightened more papers in my file, reached for a bracket, and pushed it through the holes of the folder. Began systematically attaching reports to it.

“ParadiseKingdom’s owned by your boss, Marvin McLarty. Marvelous Marvin. You know, the ‘weatherman.’ ” She paused to give it air quotes and an eyeroll. “So you can’t exactly claim that you don’t have a connection to it. He hired you without an interview. You must have known him before you took the job.”

That bastard. That snake. That… horny, no-good little poodle! I couldn’t believe it. He was too stupid to be venal. Right? Marvelous Marvin, investing in property fraud schemes with Wardens? That meant he knew about them, in the first place… and she was right, I’d sent in a resume, and Marvin had hired me after giving me one look. I’d thought it was, well, for the cheesecake value, and I’m sure that made the deal sweeter for him. But it must have been something more.

Somebody must have told him to do it. Somebody, maybe, who wanted a convenient scapegoat if things got scary for them. Because on paper, I damn sure looked guilty.

If Marvin was involved with Bad Bob, that explained a lot. His percent accuracy rate, for one thing, which would have been a source of amusement to somebody like Bad Bob. He’d have been able to pull it off, too, without attracting Warden notice. Bad Bob’s rating had been far higher than John Foster’s, and besides, he was a legend. Who questioned a legend?

Bad Bob Biringanine had been willing to sell his ethics and reputation for a nice house, a tidy bank account, and all the comforts of organized crime. But … Marvelous Marvin? Who could take him seriously as a bad guy? And maybe that was precisely the point.

Ella was watching me, waiting for an answer. I didn’t have one.

“Don’t you believe I’m innocent?” I asked her.

“Of course I do, honey. Don’t be ridiculous!” I saw her eyes stay fixed and steady on me, in a way that only happens when the answer is a flat-out lie.

“Even if you did do it, hell, the whole organization’s falling apart. It’s pretty much every woman for herself right now.” She kept staring at me.

And I realized something fairly significant. There was still weather manipulation going on, even with Bad Bob dead. If I took myself out of the equation, there was a pretty limited pool of suspects.

Not John. I shifted my stare to him, watching the way he talked with his Djinn, the way he listened attentively, the way the Djinn moved in such an open, easy fashion. No fear, no guarding, no resistance. John was one of the good guys; I knew it in my heart.

Carol Shearer, whom I hadn’t known well, might have been in it, but I’d never know, would I? Because she was dead, killed in a car accident.

If it hadn’t been Carol…

Why was Ella still looking at me?

“Does John know?” I asked her.

“About… ?”

“Marvin.”

“Oh, sure. That’s why he won’t talk to you. It’s killing him, you know; he wants to believe in you, but… ah, hell, honey, he’s an idealist. You know how John can get. No sense of the real world.”

I decided to jump in the alligator pond. “Well,” I said, lowering my voice to a just-us-girls whisper, “confidentially, I wasn’t in on it. But you know that, right? I mean, Bad Bob told me about it that morning, and I was thinking it over, but I had no idea it was still going on. It is still going on, though. Right?”

She blinked and said, “You don’t think I have anything to do with it, do you?”

I raised my eyebrows.

And, after a split second, she lowered her eyelids and whispered, “Not while he’s here.”

I’m glad I wasn’t quite looking at her; she probably would have read the heartbreak in my eyes. But she didn’t notice. She turned away and finished putting the papers of my file in order, and bent the brackets to hold everything inside, nice and neat. I noticed there were some papers she hadn’t put back. She shifted the stack in my direction with an unmistakable take-them nod.

I felt sick, but managed to hold on to my smile. I collected the papers and stuck them into my purse, trying to look casual about it. Ella watched me with a strange little smile, then winked and turned away to grub in folders again.

We were collaborating.

I pulled in a deep breath and walked over to John and his Djinn. The Djinn focused on me, swept those white-fire eyes over me, and did such an obvious double take it was almost funny. I knew it wasn’t my outfit—it wasn’t that bad—and after the initial confusion I figured out what he was focusing so intently on.

I put a hand over my lower stomach, instinctively, as if I could somehow shield my unborn Djinn child from his stare.

He yanked his gaze back up, and I lifted my chin and dared him to say something.

He just lifted an eyebrow so dryly it almost made me laugh, then turned to John and said, “Will that be all, John?” He had an English accent, very butler-y.

John thanked him politely and poof, we were Djinn-free. I wondered what the Djinn’s name was, but it was impolite to ask. When you met a Warden and a Djinn together, you weren’t supposed to even acknowledge the Djinn.

I don’t think that was etiquette invented by the Djinn.

“I’m sorry, John, but I need to get going,” I said. He nodded and extended a hand for me to shake; I did, and then held on to it. I leaned forward and brushed a kiss across his cheek. He smelled of a dry, astringent cologne and a wisp of tobacco. “Take care,” I said, and dropped my voice to a whisper while I was next to his ear. “Don’t trust anyone. Anyone.”

I didn’t want to point the finger at Ella specifically, not yet, but a general warning never did anyone any harm. He pulled back, frowning, and then composed himself and gave me a placid nod. “You take care, now.”

“You, too,” I said, and made my way through the still-messy room to the Djinn-repaired door.

It hadn’t been a robbery. Somebody had come in here looking for records, and they’d gone through my file like a fine-toothed comb.

It looked like everybody wanted to keep track of me—good guys, bad guys, people I didn’t even recognize as being on one side or the other. Who the hell knew.

I was seriously considering grabbing David’s bottle and my sister, and fleeing the country.