Rivera sighed. “Ma’am. Please take this seriously. According to the agreement between House Rogan and House Etterson . . .”
“Yes, yes. I’ve been stuck in the guardhouse on a chance someone at this wedding will get poisoned for the last two weeks. Let me have a little fun.”
Runa raised her hands. A faint green mist spread from her, passed through the refrigerators, and dissipated. She stepped forward, took a tub of ice-white fondant out, opened it, pinched some fondant off, and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm, delicious cyanide. Old school. Histotoxic hypoxia on you, histotoxic hypoxia on your house, histotoxic hypoxia on your cow. Wait.” She held her hand up. “What is this fishy aftertaste?”
Runa ate a little more and smacked her lips loudly. “It’s on the tip of my tongue. Ooo. Tetrodotoxin. Sneaky. Cyanide would kill you in minutes, but if you happened to somehow take an antidote, tetrodotoxin would still get you.”
Runa held out her hands. “Every tub in here is poisoned. All of the fondant. If the poisoner wanted to simply assassinate the happy couple, they could have used thallium. It is odorless, tasteless, lethal, and it takes several days to kick in. What this person did is about as subtle as taking a hammer and smashing the bride and groom on the head with it. You are looking for someone for whom Connor’s and Nevada’s death is deeply personal. This person wants to see them suffer and die. They will likely be in the wedding party or near it. They want to inflict pain and witness it so badly, they are willing to risk their personal safety. They can’t wait to do it. There is glee in this and a horrible malice.”
This aligned with everything I was thinking so far. I pulled up my main suspect and showed the tablet to Rivera and Leon. Rivera’s eyes narrowed.
“Makes sense,” he said.
A crazy grin tugged at Leon’s mouth. “Oh, I hope so. I really hope so.”
“Who is responsible for the fondant?” I asked.
“Jeremy,” Carlos said. “But he’s a good kid. He wouldn’t do this.”
Rivera spoke into his phone. “Bug, I need a full workup on Jeremy Wagner. Payments, debt history, any connection to Rogan or Baylor. I want to know where he was and what he was doing since Valentina’s was hired for the wedding. Anything you can dig up.”
We had done a background check on every employee. Jeremy Wagner had come back clean, which meant that either we were incompetent, or his darkness was well hidden. Trying to retrace Jeremy’s steps in the last few days, even with Bug’s talent, would take time. We didn’t have time. Right now, in Mountain Rose, Mrs. Rogan could be serving the children poisoned lemonade.
I had to use my magic. I felt cold and nauseous and sticky, as if I had been poisoned. It was an awful feeling. My heart was hammering in my chest. I wanted to go somewhere alone and quiet, anywhere but here. I wanted this to be somebody else’s problem.
They were going to poison my sister. And Rogan. And his mother. And all their friends, relatives, and children. Mia Rosa with her bedazzled unicorn. I could think of only one person who had that kind of hate.
“I will interview Jeremy.”
Rivera startled. Leon frowned at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“The real target is the person who hired Jeremy,” Rivera said.
“I’m aware of that. The background will take time and may not turn up anything. It’s a simple matter of what would be quickest and produce the best results. If I ask him, he will tell me.”
Rivera spoke slowly and deliberately. “If I wanted to poison someone by tampering with the wedding cake, I would watch the bakery to make sure the tampering was not discovered. The moment you question Jeremy, we will have to sit on him. If the poisoner suspects that we know about the cake, they will try again, and this time we may not find it in time. Tracing Jeremy’s employer through Bug is cleaner and carries less risk.”
“And what if Bug doesn’t find anything?” Leon asked.
Whatever happened, my cousin was in my corner.
“If he doesn’t find anything, then we squeeze Jeremy,” Rivera said.
“I can question Jeremy and make sure he won’t remember it.”
Leon’s eyebrows crept up.
“Are you sure?” Rivera asked.
I wasn’t sure, but sooner or later I had to try it. It had to work. My sister’s life depended on it.
“Yes. It’s plausible that we would talk to all of the employees after the break-in.”
“If Catalina says she can do it, she can do it,” Leon said.
“Okay,” Rivera said.
I turned to Valentina. “Please call in your employees. Let them know that there has been a burglary and they will be interviewed. Meanwhile, I need you to replace all of the fondant with an identical product. If Jeremy is in on it, he will not taste the fondant, because he knows it’s lethal, so he’ll have no way of knowing it was switched.”
“Ahem,” Runa said. “Or you could let me purify the fondant for you, no need to replace or dispose of anything.”
“But will it be safe?” Valentina asked.
The smile vanished from Runa’s face. Suddenly her expression turned cold and harsh. “Let me introduce myself again. Runa Etterson of House Etterson, Prime Venenata. I have walked into a house filled with sarin and after I was done, the family hiding upstairs in the safe room, walked out and made coffee for me in their kitchen. Mad Rogan trusts my House with the safety of the people who are most precious to him. If I say the fondant is safe to use, it’s safe to use. Stand back please.”
Runa pulled out chalk and began drawing an arcane circle on the floor.
Chapter 6
I sat in the small office on the other side of the building. Normally this room was used to meet with clients and go over menus and cake books. Today there would be questions about cakes, but they would have a different flavor.
Rivera took his job as chief of security very seriously. He and two of his guys wouldn’t budge from their position behind me. Runa perched on the chair, flipping through a photo album filled with beautiful cakes, on the off chance Jeremy tried to poison me.
Leon leaned on the table next to me. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.” I would have to use my magic with finesse. The few times I’d actively used it required power. Finesse was entirely different.
When I was born, the nurse who helped deliver me picked me up out of the crib by my mother’s side and ran. They caught her before she made it off the floor, and when they took me away from her, she screamed and cried. In twenty years of nursing, she had never done anything like that. That woman lost her career because I was born with the kind of magic that made people love me.
She was the first but not the last. Over the years, there had been others. A dentist who examined my teeth tried to hide me in his office and then claimed that I ran away. I was two years old. The preschool teacher loaded me into her car and tried to run my mother over when she attempted to stop her. When we would go shopping, strangers would follow me as I rode in the cart and employees would try to give me things for free.
Other babies and toddlers were encouraged to be cute. I was taught to never draw attention to myself, not to smile at strangers, and not to make friends. If I liked another child, they would abandon everything to play with me. But soon playing wouldn’t be enough. They would follow me, mesmerized, and then they would want a piece of me, a piece of my dress, a lock of my hair, some skin, maybe a finger. Once it started, I didn’t know how to stop it. Only my family and my primary doctor were immune.
I was homeschooled until high school, when it became clear that I could control my power well enough to keep it from leaking. I had practiced controlling my magic since the moment I understood that I ruined lives. My talent was extremely rare, but I studied similar magics, I practiced arcane circles, and I read all about magic theory, but theory, by definition, wasn’t practice.
I had experimented before on my sisters, because they were immune, and I had no way of knowing if a
nything I learned would actually work. Rivera shouldn’t have bothered with the lecture. I needed him and his guys here. He knew what I could do. If I failed to control my power and besotted Jeremy snapped, they would pull him off me.
The door swung open and Jeremy Wagner walked in. Just like in his pictures, which I had reviewed when we vetted him, Jeremy was a tall, dark-haired Caucasian man in his midtwenties. He had one of those generic faces, neither ugly nor handsome, but overall pleasant. There was something soft and sheepish about his demeanor. He seemed like a timid man who knew he was timid and decided to use it to his advantage.
He should have been nervous, concerned at the very least, possibly defensive. Most people would have their guard up. Instead he looked slightly sleepy. It might have been because he’d spent the night breaking into the bakery, but his pictures confirmed that he always looked that way.
“Please sit down,” I said.
“Hi.” He sat and gave me a smile. Even the way he smiled at me reinforced the sheepishness, as if he were trying to say, “Boy, I’m a mess, but aren’t I cute?”
“You are here because someone broke into the shop last night.”
“Oh yeah? Did they take anything?”
When my magic was evaluated by a panel of Primes, the Keeper of Records, who registered the members of every House in Houston, had to come up with a name for my brand of power. He called me Siren. Most people thought of sirens as mermaids, but in the original myths, they had feathers and wings. I had wings too. Mesmerizing, beautiful wings that glittered with magic. Nobody ever saw them, except me, but when I opened them, people focused on me and forgot about everything else.
For most people using magic required conscious thought and effort. Like punching a bag or doing a push-up. They practiced and got stronger. For me, it was the opposite. Keeping my wings closed when I was around strangers was like always holding my breath. Opening them was effortless.
I didn’t need my full power for Jeremy. I only need a tiny bit of it, so I let him see a bare hint of my feathers. He blinked and smiled at me.
I opened my mouth and my magic stretched forward, fused with my voice, and wound about him, an invisible thread that lured him in. The effort to hold back my power, only letting a tiny bit through, was exhausting.
“They smashed some wine bottles. Do you like wine, Jeremy?”
He was focused completely on me now. “I’m more of a beer guy. I like all kinds of beer. I like IPAs the best. You know, when you can really taste the hops. It’s a real beer. It’s like studying surrealism. You drink an IPA and there is nothing abstract or vague about it. It’s citrus and hops . . .”
I had him. In the corner Runa sat up straighter and put her photo book down.
“. . . a baseline against which all other beers should be compared. Like is it stronger than an IPA? Is it sweeter or less hoppy? Do you like beer? There is a great biergarten we can go to right now and I will buy you an IPA.”
“Jeremy, are you good at decorating cakes?”
“I’m the best at decorating cakes. Better than people on tv.” Jeremy’s eyes went wide. “I watch The Cake Tournament and most of that shit is pure crap. I am a fucking wizard with fondant. If we had some fondant right now, I could really show you something.”
“There is fondant in the bakery,” I said.
“Oh no, we can’t use that. It’s poisoned.”
Leon smiled.
“That’s weird. Who poisoned it?”
Jeremy waved his hand. “My younger bro and two of his buddies from high school. That’s not important. I did all the hard work. I set this up.”
My voice wrapped around him, seductive and reassuring. “Wow, you must be very smart, Jeremy. Why would you set it up?”
“I never liked Primes. They act like they’re so much better than us. Oh, and this woman paid me a hundred grand in cash. I’ve got it buried in my backyard. I’m rich. I don’t have to work here. You should let me take you out. We could go to South Padre.”
I turned my tablet on and showed him the picture I had pulled up.
“That’s her,” he said. “Do you know her? Did she give you money? I would give you money. I’ve got money.”
“Do you know how she’s getting into the wedding?” I asked.
“Nah. She just gave me a bunch of syringes with stuff in them and said to inject the fondant. And she told me not to poke myself with them and to wear plastic gloves.” He rolled his eyes. “Duh, like I’m stupid.”
Now came the most difficult part.
I opened my mouth and sang. The words didn’t matter, only the magic did. Jeremy listened, his jaw hanging slack. The magic wrapped around him, like a glittering veil, and he began to sing with me. “Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full . . .”
I fell silent and gently untangled my magic from him, as it whispered into his mind. Forget, forget, forget.
His head drooped, his chin falling to his chest. He pitched forward slowly. His stomach touched the table. Jeremy jerked awake. He blinked at me, his eyes looking wild.
“They smashed some wine bottles,” I said. “Do you like wine, Jeremy?”
“I’m more of a beer guy.”
“Did you have anything to do with the break-in?” I asked him.
“Nope. It’s a shame though. I mean who would be dumb enough to break into a bakery?”
“Where were you last night between one and two?” I was so tired now. My voice was shaking.
“I was home. My brother will vouch for me. We stayed up playing video games.”
“Okay, Jeremy, you’re free to go.”
“Great.” He got up and offered me his hand. I shook it. His handshake was limp. “Great to meet you.” He walked out.
Nobody said anything. Rivera stared at his phone. Leon was grinning at me like a lunatic and holding two thumbs up.
Rivera looked up. “Okay, he went into the kitchen.”
“Well, that was something else,” Runa said.
A wild thought occurred to me. I stuck my hand out. “Catalina Baylor, of House Baylor, Prime Siren.”
Runa looked at my hand, took it carefully, and shook it. “Stay out of my head.”
“Don’t poison anybody I know, and I will.”
“Is the memory loss permanent?” Rivera asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“We’re going to watch him,” Rivera said. “My guess is he told you everything he knows, and she’s too smart to give him anything that could lead us to her. We’re going to proceed as if we bought the teenager wine story. We’re going to put guards here, because it’s expected.”
“If she wants to get into the wedding, it will have to be the waitstaff,” I said.
Rivera nodded. “That seems most likely.”
Leon stirred. “Carlos will be a problem. If he suspects Jeremy did this, he won’t be able to control himself.”
Rivera smiled. “We will tell him that he passed with flying colors. You already got them to sign the NDA.”
Rogan had emailed me a nondisclosure agreement that forbade Valentina and Carlos to even mention the word poison for the next two weeks. If they broke this agreement, we would immediately terminate our contract. If they managed to stick to it, Rogan would pay for the smashed wine bottles. I had to explain to them in excruciating detail that they, their online communications, and their phone calls would be monitored until after the wedding. It made me feel like a corporate gangster. Like I had come into their shop and smashed it demanding protection money, but it was all legal and binding.
“I think I would like to go now,” I told Leon.
Leon drove, while I fought my way through my text messages. Mrs. Rogan wanted to know if there was any progress on finding Sealight. There wasn’t, so I told her we were working on it. Rogan wanted to know if I was okay. I wasn’t, so I told him I was fine. Mom wanted to know if we were coming home for dinner. We were, and I said yes. Arabella wanted to know if she could put a p
iece of duct tape over Nevada’s mouth and fingers, so she would stop changing the stupid wedding. I told her no. I got a very nice email from Mia Rosa typed by her mother, which thanked me for the bedazzler. Which was awesome. Someone had asked me for something, I did it, and they were happy and said thank you.
The last text was from Bern. “Where are you?”
“In the car, with Leon.”
“Are you going back to Mountain Rose?”
“Yes, but only for a minute.” I needed to make sure they finished the tent like they were supposed to.
“I need you to find a safe place to pull over. I’m sending you some footage you need to see before you get there.”
What? “Send it. I’ll just look at it while Leon is driving.”
“No, I need you to pull over.”
I sighed. “Your brother is being weird.”
“And this is news how?”
“Can you take the next exit and find a good spot to pull over?”
Two minutes later, Leon pulled over from 281 into a gas station lot and parked. I sent Bern a text. My email dinged, and I started the download on my phone. It was taking forever.
“That was awesome back there,” Leon said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I didn’t know I could either.”
“Does it feel good when you use your magic?”
“It feels good to not hide it.”
If we weren’t in a parking lot in public, I would open my wings and just rest. I was even afraid to do it while we were driving. I couldn’t take a chance on someone fixating on me and wrecking their car.
“He was going to poison all of us, Leon. When I think about it, it kind of freaks me out. Anybody, everybody who ate that cake would have died. Little kids would have died. And he didn’t care. I could tell when he was talking, that part of it was the money but not all of it. He did it because he hates us. He doesn’t even know us. He didn’t feel bad about it, Leon—he was proud of it.”
Leon leaned back in his seat. “Everybody in our family has magic. Aunt Penelope, Grandma Frida, you, your sisters, Bern . . . I thought I didn’t have magic. I thought I was a dud. I used to climb to the top of the warehouse. There is a way to get to the roof from the attic. I would walk on the edge of the roof.”
Diamond Fire: A Hidden Legacy Novella Page 7
