Trace of Magic (20 page)

Dizziness caught me, and I pulled out of the trace.

Girlfriend, you need to sit down.

I know
.

I’ll work my magic fast. She’ll vomit everything.

I repeated Cass’s message to Price. I swayed, and the floor rose and fell like the deck of a ship.

Price took me by the shoulders.

“Can you do this?”

“Yes.” Maybe. Probably.

How reassuring
, Cass said.

I cracked a lopsided grin. I must have looked like I was losing it, because Price nudged me up against the wall.

“Wait here,” he said.

“How are you going to get in?”

“Don’t worry. She’ll let me in,” he said.

Oh, right. Cop. Badge. The ultimate lockpick.

He hesitated, his hands clenching on my shoulders. He looked uncharacteristically nervous.

“What’s wrong?”

“I know her—Shana Darlington.”

I blinked. “What?”

“She was a job. Touray sent me in to get close to her.” He chewed his lip. “I was her fiancé.”

Questions pinballed off the swelter of emotions erupting in my brain. “Fiancé? You? Why?” I don’t know if I was asking why he’d been her fiancé or why Touray sent him to get close to her. I don’t even know which I wanted the answer to more. The big ones I didn’t dare ask—had he cared about her? Did he still?

He glanced at the door and back at me. “The stuff in Josh’s safe. They’re—” He broke off and grimaced. “I’ll have to explain later. Just . . . trust me. Please.”

He didn’t wait for my answer. Not that I had one. I was reeling from the double-punch news that he knew Shana Darlington—he was her ex-fiancé for fuck’s sake—and that he knew about the magical artifacts we’d retrieved from Josh’s office.

I was still trying to process the news when Price knuckled the door. He waited five seconds, then knocked again. The latch clicked, and the door swung open, quietly, with no fuss or fanfare.

“It’s about time you found me, Clay. I’d almost given up on you. I’ve missed you more than I can ever say. I’ve positively
ached
to be with you.”

I turned my head in time to see a beautiful woman with waist-length mahogany hair slide her arms around Price’s neck and kiss him, and not just a quick smack on the cheek or lips. She was checking his tonsils. I’d like to say it was against his will, but as far as I could tell, he was giving as good as he was getting.

Chapter 18

I’D LIKE TO SAY that I clocked them both with my baton. Truth was, I was too wasted from destroying the null wall to do more than blink ferociously at them. As they kept on sucking face, I really wished I hadn’t nulled my gun. I could have at least let go a couple of shots into the ceiling to break them up.

Finally Price lifted his head. “We have to talk, Shana,” he said. That’s when he finally looked at me.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were turbulent with emotion. I tried not to look as jealous as I felt. He’d said she was a job. I was doing my best to believe it, despite the kiss.

He really looked like he enjoyed it.

“Who’s your friend, Clay?” Shana curled her arm through Price’s and leaned into him, her breasts plumping up against his bicep.

I wanted to throw up. Preferably on her.

She was beautiful. Her skin was olive, complementing high cheekbones, a straight nose, and perfect lips. She wore a chunky gold necklace and a big diamond ring on her left ring finger. Had Price given it to her? It matched the little one in her nose. She smelled of an exotic, rich perfume.

“This is Riley,” Price said, reaching out to take my elbow and pull me into the apartment.

He disentangled himself from Shana and guided me to a chair. He pushed me down onto the cushy seat, giving me a questioning look. I opened to the trace. Her teal ribbon looped everywhere. I plucked it up into my hand and squeezed. Not that she’d notice. She was excited and triumphant. Like she’d won a prize.

Cass?

Got her.

I nodded the okay to Price.

“What’s going on, Shana?” Price demanded, turning to face the other woman. “Where have you been? Why are you hiding out? Your parents are going out of their minds.”

She fluttered her lashes at him—seriously, she did—and sank gracefully down onto the black leather couch. A zebra skin covered the back of it. Poor beast.

“Oh, Clay, I had no choice. You have to know that by now. I wanted to tell you. I
told
them you’d want to join us. They didn’t believe me. I’m so glad they changed their minds and sent you to me. I’ve missed you so much!” She held out her hands to him. Her long fingernails were painted shell pink. More diamonds twinkled from them. “Lover, you must know I didn’t mean it when I broke things off. You know how I feel about you.”

Price ignored her. “Who did you join?”

Her face blanked and her mouth trembled.

Someone’s tampered with her. They booby-trapped her head. She’ll go nuts if I’m not careful. Have Price play along with her fairy tale. It’ll help me get her to open up without breaking her.

Lovely. I stood up, figuring I could kill two birds with one stone. I’d interrupt their moment before Shana’s head exploded, and I’d find the kitchen. I thought I might literally be dying of thirst. “I hope you don’t mind,” I told Shana, hoping she did mind, “I need something to drink. Got anything to eat?” I gave Price a pointed look and went in search of the kitchen.

I shuffled through the dining room with its gaudy chandelier and spindly French furniture and into the kitchen. The refrigerator took up a wall. Half of it was a big freezer, the other half a refrigerator. It was ridiculous. If Shana knew how to boil water, I’d be stunned.

I started opening cupboards, searching for a cup. I found what I was looking for in a cabinet left of the fridge.

“Riley?”

There was a wealth of concern in the way Price said my name. He stood in the wide entry as if uncertain whether he should come closer or not. After all, the knives were within my reach on the counter. I took my glass to the sink. I dropped the tire iron on the granite. The stone didn’t crack. Too bad. I filled my glass, leaving the water running. I drank four glasses in quick succession before I could even think of slowing down.

“Where’s your fiancée?” I asked finally, feeling the liquid seeping into my parched tissues.

“Riley,” he said roughly. “I told you—”

I interrupted before he could say anything that might set Shana off. She was hovering just behind him. “You should sort this out with her. Remember what Cass said about letting her know that you care and that you haven’t given up on her.”

I flicked a look at him, then to her. She had a faint faraway look. Cass’s handiwork was my bet. “I’ll be fine. You got any peanut butter?” I asked her and didn’t wait for her reply before I started foraging in the cupboards.

“Who’s Cass?” Shana asked.

“My sister,” I said blithely. “Her fiancé kicked her to the curb, too. She and Price here have been sharing the misery.”

“Sharing?” Shana glared at him. “You’re seeing someone else?”

“What if I am?” he drawled, but he seemed to have gotten the message. “You’re the one who broke it off with me. Why shouldn’t I see another woman?” He took her back to the living room, frowning over his shoulder at me. I ignored him and continued to search for food.

I decided that Shana didn’t really eat. She did drink coffee, and like me, loaded with cream, as both were readily available. She had some ice cream in the freezer, and a variety of delivery boxes in the refrigerator. Thai, Italian, Chinese, and more. I checked a Thai container and made a face. It was covered with green fuzz and smelled like a sewer. I put it back.

I resorted to eating the ice cream. I hauled myself and the carton of chocolate espresso ice cream back into the living room, hoping that Price had discovered where Josh was.

He hasn’t
. Cass sounded almost as exhausted as I was.
I am tired
, she admitted in response to my thought.
I’m getting close to breaking through the booby trap on Shana’s mind. Hold on just few more minutes.

I didn’t bother telling her I didn’t have anything else to do. I sat back in the easy chair. Price was back on the couch with Shana in his lap. He looked at me when I came in, then back at her, as if she was the most important person in his world.

I’ll admit that I’d have preferred torturing the information out of the woman with boiling oil and sharp sticks rather than watching her rubbing herself all over Price.

I forced myself to ignore the way she stroked her hand over his chest, and the way his arm curved around her waist. I tried to focus on the conversation. All the same, I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. I needed to see them.

“So you said you got recruited a little over eighteen months ago,” he said. “Before we met. The pay was spectacular, and what did they want you to do?”

“I was told that the FBI was investigating all the banks and investment firms in Diamond City. I was supposed to review the books for my bank and make sure everything in our system was spotless. There had to be one bank that could survive the audit. All the deposits and withdrawals had to be accurate and above board with clean transactions based on solid paper trails from stocks, bonds, real estate, and other investments. I had to create unbreakable trails for shell corporations so they could funnel all their funds out of the other banks, out of the country, and then back as clean money into the new shell companies. All done quietly and clean as a whistle.

“That money had to look like it had been sitting there awhile. That way, when the feds moved in and the banks got probed, their money would still be liquid. I had to create a few nonthreatening problems that wouldn’t shut down the bank. My job was to make the tampering easy to overlook. No bank is clean. I couldn’t make it spotless, but nothing too dirty. If I did as they asked, I would receive a stipend of one percent of all funds passed through me, plus a bunch of perks, like this apartment. Discretion was fundamental. I couldn’t tell you anything, because, well, we weren’t playing for the same team.”

“If the banks were probed and taken over by the feds because the money laundering was systemic, the Diamond City economy would drop into the sewer,” Price mused aloud. “Real estate, bonds, businesses—everyone would be on the hook. It would ripple out into the international stock markets.”

“Creating opportunity in the market, if you know the collapse is coming. I assume the consortium I’m working for has taken a lot of short positions,” Shana confirmed. “If they filtered the orders through a broad enough spectrum of investment firms and shell companies, the SEC wouldn’t notice what they were doing. It also puts them in a position to take over the SD trade.”

I had no idea what they were talking about. I didn’t do investing. I barely had a savings account, and since it wasn’t with Shana’s bank, apparently I wouldn’t have it long if I didn’t do a fast withdrawal. I could imagine the chaos though. If the FBI froze all the bank assets, tons of businesses wouldn’t survive. They couldn’t pay their bills. There’d be mass layoffs, and nobody would be buying anything or paying debts. I wondered how it would affect the mines. If they had to close up, that would be a disaster of epic proportions. The diamond dole would dry up and so would all the thousands upon thousands of jobs that grew out of mining. What it would do to the national economy, I couldn’t begin to guess.

As for the drug trade . . . whoever had the money could basically buy up control of all the operations, or at least buy an army to steal the operations.

“So why did you disappear without a word?”

Shana’s words were beginning to come faster. She’d slid back over onto the couch and sat stiffly, like her body didn’t really belong to her. She stared at Price as if she’d do anything for him.

She would
, Cass said.
She really has a thing for him. So I pulled the fatally desperate need to be loyal to her bosses over onto him. I’ve got to cement it a little more, but in a minute she’ll beg to tell him all her secrets. It still might trigger a breakdown, but it’s the best I can do at this point.

Cass seemed utterly delighted by her accomplishment. I was pleased to be making progress, especially if we could get some news on Josh, but at the same time, my stomach revolted at the way she could manipulate Shana’s mind.

“I realized that someone besides me and the contractors I’d hired was nosing around. He was really good, but he couldn’t hide his access from the fine-toothed comb I was using on the system. He was picking up on what I was doing.”

“That doesn’t explain why you broke it off with me and disappeared. Why did you?”

“My bosses didn’t like me getting so close to you. I told them you loved me and that you’d come around. But they didn’t want you to stop me, so . . .” Her hands locked together, and she pressed them to her chest. “I didn’t want to do it. You have to believe me, Clay.” She turned and pressed closed to him. “I had to do it. You were starting to ask questions. If you had found out what was going on, they’d have killed you. I just couldn’t let them. I had to break it off to protect you.”

“Who, Shana? Who are you working for?”

That’s the moment that the lightbulb went on over my head and I realized questioning Shana wasn’t just about getting Josh back. It probably wasn’t even mostly about getting Josh back. Price was working, I thought, feeling utterly stupid for not recognizing it earlier. His Tyet boss, Gregg Touray, told him to get close to her. Touray must’ve picked up on what she was doing and sent Price to investigate. Just because she’d vanished, didn’t mean the job was over. In fact, he’d been out to find her before Josh even disappeared.

I was too tired to be irritated, though I probably had a right to be. On the other hand, it’s not like I didn’t know he worked for the Tyet. Sure, he hadn’t told me Shana had been a job until ten minutes ago, but it’s not like I’d told him my life story either.

All I knew was that before he kissed me again, he was going to have to rinse his mouth out with bleach.

“Cass?”

I jerked back to the moment. Price was holding Shana by the shoulders. She was twitching, and her head lolled and flopped to the side.

There’s nothing I can do. If I had more time . . . She’s done for.

I repeated Cass’s message to Price. Shana spasmed and slumped, her body going slack. Price lowered her down to the couch.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

Her brain is
, Cass said, sounding thready and thin.
She’s toast. You two need to get out of there. I’m not going to be able to help much longer.

“She’s breathing,” Price said. “What the hell happened to her?”

“Cass says they messed with her head. Made her uber loyal. It was impossible for her to say who she was working for. Cass tried to divert the loyalty onto you so she could talk, but it didn’t work.”

Does that about cover it
? I asked Cass.

Pretty much. Except the part where you need to get the fuck out of there before I can’t help you anymore.

“She says we need to hurry.”

Amazingly, I sounded perfectly normal, especially given that Cass was in my head and Shana’s meltdown terrified me. Somebody had been in my head. What had they done to me? Was I a ticking time bomb?

Suddenly, I needed to get out of the building and get Cass out of my head. I tossed aside the ice-cream carton and stood. “I’m done. I want to go.”

I started for the door.

“You said you needed a change of shirt,” Price said.

“I’ll live without it.”

He grabbed my elbow, pulling me back around. I could hear Shana’s uneasy breathing. One of her feet hung off the edge of the couch. Her platform stiletto had fallen off. My stomach twisted, and I stared instead at Price’s throat.

“Riley? Talk to me.” He sounded angry.

“I want to go,” I said, barely able to unclench my teeth. “This was a total bust. I’m not sure she ever knew anything about Josh. Not that you asked. Now I’m back to square one.”