In Plain Sight

Her eyes were hard and fixed on Warner as she entered, and the young man leaned back against the wall as if he wished it would give way and let him escape. She held that gaze for a long moment, then turned to Alex and smiled. The smile was warm enough, but Alex felt a chill go down his back. Sorcerers were immensely powerful and equally dangerous. Most people would take a poke at you if you insulted them, but a sorcerer could turn you into a toad for any perceived offense — and there wasn’t much the law would do if you were a nobody. New York was full of nobodies, more than they could ever use, but sorcerers were rare and valuable commodities. Only an especially egregious breach of the law would bring one to account. Alex resolved to choose his words very carefully.

“I must admit, Mr. Lockerby, I’m impressed.” Sorsha sat down in the chair in front of his desk and crossed her legs. If she’d been wearing a skirt, that movement would have been quite sensual, but with the Ice Queen, she wore pants and there wasn’t any flirting involved. “I had supposed that a runewright who became a private detective must not have been a very good runewright. Seems I was wrong.”

Alex inclined his head in her direction. ‘I appreciate the compliment,” he said. “But you still haven’t answered my question. What is the Archimedean Monograph?”

The Ice Queen smiled. Her lips were demurely together, but Alex could have sworn he saw teeth.

“I’m afraid that’s a government secret, Mr. Lockerby.”

“Alex.”

“What I need to know, Mr. Lockerby, is what you know about these runes,” she indicated the photos on his desk. Alex sat back in his chair.

“I know who these boys are, Miss Kincaid,” he said, indicating Davis and Warner. “But I don’t remember hearing that you joined the FBI.”

Sorsha smiled. Not the cold, mocking smile she’d worn earlier but a warm smile of amusement.

God, she’s gorgeous.

“I help the FBI as a consultant,” she said. “Much the same way as you do the New York police department, though the FBI actually wants my help.”

Alex let the dig go by, but the fact that she knew about his rocky past with the police meant that she’d done some homework about him.

“Now,” she said, getting back to the topic at hand. “Tell me what you know about these pictures. Please,” she added.

“I’ve already told your agents what I know about them, Miss Kincaid,” he said sweeping them back into the manila folder and holding it out to her. “So, if that’s everything…”

“Why were you at Thomas Rockwell’s apartment yesterday?”

Alex smiled. He’d been right to have Leslie hide Thomas’ Lore book.

“So that’s what all this is about,” he said.

Sorsha reached into thin air and pulled a small flip notebook into her hand. It was such a casual display of magic that it appeared ordinary, but Alex couldn’t do anything like that on his best day. He didn’t want to be impressed, but he couldn’t help it. She flipped a few pages and began reading.

“You were seen entering Mr. Rockwell’s building yesterday afternoon around two and you didn’t leave until after five. You appear to have combed through the apartment very thoroughly, despite its being in a disheveled state, and the only thing you removed was Mr. Rockwell’s blue Lore book.”

“I wondered why I kept feeling as though I was being watched,” Alex said. The thought that Sorsha could have been actually watching him while he worked was disturbing. He made a mental note to add a short-term privacy rune to his little book and use it when he did his investigations.

“You’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Lockerby,” Sorsha said, the cold smile returning to her lovely face. “We’ve got you on breaking and entering and theft. Now I’m perfectly willing to forget that, provided you tell me what brought you to Thomas Rockwell’s apartment.”

Alex tried to keep the relief off his face. Sorsha Kincaid, New York’s most dangerous woman, would have to do better than that if she wanted to put the arm on him. Also, her threats meant that she hadn’t been watching him with magic, some Fed had been staking out the building and had seen Alex go in. If she’d been watching him, she’d already know what he was there for. The finding rune was a dead giveaway.

“Someone reported Thomas missing,” he said. “They asked me to look into it, find him if I could.”

“Why didn’t they just go to the police?” Warner asked. Alex laughed.

“The police don’t have time to track down missing people unless some crime is involved,” he said. “They usually send these exact cases to me.”

“Who hired you?” Agent Davis asked. Alex put on his most charming smile.

“Agent Davis,” he said, in a wounded voice. “You know I can’t divulge the names of my clients. Not without a warrant.”

“I can get one in an hour,” he said, his tone hard and flat.

“Of course you can,” Alex said. “You’ve got New York’s celebrity Sorceress working for you, no judge in the city will turn you down.”

“Then why not save us all some trouble and tell us who hired you?” Sorsha asked.