Rowan sighed heavily. “You’re all so fucking tedious. You know why you’re here. You know your son was a stalker. You know your father-in-law and son hired a hit squad and you know your family is deeply involved in things so illegal the Conclave is paying attention.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Rowan had been up against people like Bess scores of times. They always thought they were better than everyone else and that was their weakness.

  “Whatever it might be, Bess,” Genevieve said, so cold and remote it sliced through the air, “it was enough to respond to with a mage firebomb that destroyed your home and killed six of your employees. A mage firebomb with a trigger spell so complicated it took three Genetic witches on-site to ignite.”

  Bess had emotion in her eyes then. Rage and then terror.

  Rowan watched her fight herself. Neither emotion was going to do her a favor, so Rowan let Bess be her own worst enemy.

  Genevieve said, “I looked Fiona Clare in the eyes when we talked about the bomb and how you didn’t die. I watched her guilt and then I saw her put it away. But that doesn’t matter because I have her magical signature. And Gerald’s. And, in a twist, Rose Sansbury. I was thinking it was Joseph. I was married to Tristan so I’m familiar with the way the Sansbury magic looks. But I was assuming. It was Rose there with at least one of the Salazars and the others to create the spell that blew your home to bits.”

  “What are you saying?” Bess, wide-eyed, stared as if she willed them to deny it.

  “I’m saying your business partners, the Clares, Salazars, and Sansburys, got fed up with the Procella family after a series of disastrous and reckless actions including a murder attempt in full camera view in front of two dozen tourists. Sergio and Hugo have gotten high on all that entitlement and privilege, and they’ve gotten you all tarred with that brush.”

  Rowan loved the way the truth seemed to wash over her and stripped away her defiance.

  A text showed up on Rowan’s phone. From Genevieve. It said, “I just realized the splinter of magic from Dorothy’s house belongs to Rose S.”

  Well, now. Two weeks before when they’d come looking for Dorothy and her roommates, they’d found a suspiciously clean-of-magic space, except for one tiny fleck that had been missed.

  And it was another connection to the Sansburys.

  Bess said, her voice starting to fray with emotion, “My home has been destroyed? How have I not heard?”

  Rowan slid several photographs of the burned-out shell of the Procella mansion across the table. “I guess you should be glad you were all in custody at the time or you’d be dead too. But they know you’re alive now, so I’m going to guess they’re working on that. Whatever are you up to, Bess?”

  “Just cargo. That’s it.”

  “What sort of cargo has the people moving it using hidden rooms and under bed rigs? Oh, I should mention I found the ones at your house before it was blown up. So much data on those phones and cards. Fortunately the bombers don’t know about the ranch home where Sergio kept all his incriminating evidence, or that love nest he has out in the Lakes that he keeps for...what’s her name again?”

  Rowan pretended to look for it just to draw it out longer and mess with Bess’s head. “Teresa Davis. We’re looking for her now, but it appears she left her three-million-dollar town house, and hasn’t been back for several days. No sign of the Mercedes Sergio gave her.” They’d only just learned that right before they started the interview and it hit Bess hard.

  “This can’t be happening,” Bess murmured with more emotion than she’d shown up to that point. “Teresa. Are you saying she’s involved?”

  “What’s her story anyway?” Rowan asked instead.

  “She used to work for Fiona. She was with Hugo first. Then when Sergio’s first mistress, Greta, was put out to pasture with a big fat payoff and a warning to never come back, Teresa found her way into his bed within weeks. She’s been with him for the past several years. He’s been talking about marrying her, but he’s never even had her at the mansion, so I’m not convinced. Alfonso and Hugo are opposed for obvious reasons.”

  “Which are?”

  “She’s a...secretary! What does she know about anything but fucking the men in the family?”

  “Including Alfonso?”

  Darius asked that, surprising Rowan enough she had to steel herself to keep still and not gape at him.

  “No! Not for lack of trying.”

  “She’s the one who brought you all together for this...business venture that’s just cargo?”

  “We’d done some business together over the years. When we ran ships across the Atlantic to bring people here from European ports and into the modern age. But.”

  Bess seemed to realize she’d been sharing and shut her mouth.

  “So in between trying to nail Alfonso and then dumping Hugo, her second choice, for Sergio, who wants to marry her, making her your...mother-in-law, Teresa is just in your words, a secretary. So you’re all responsible for whatever you’re up to.”

  Bess sat forward, spurred on by the specter of having to bear responsibility for something she’d done wrong. “No! She and Fiona started a side business with Rose and that’s when she convinced Hugo and Sergio to buy in.”

  “Buy in to what?” Genevieve asked.

  She started to speak but then couldn’t. Over and over again. She tried to write but the page remained blank.

  Finally Rowan said, “Are you under a geas?” A geas was a spell that prevented someone from discussing something out loud. It could be a person or a topic. Or an event. They were old magic. Very strong and only broken by the death of whoever laid it, or upon their release of the magic. Theo had been bound by one for centuries. Rowan had killed the Vampire witch who’d put it on him, freeing him.

  Clearly pissed off, Bess nodded.

  Alfonso was similarly bound. Which left them with an understanding there was some shady business going on but not exactly what.

  “We need to find Rose Sansbury.”

  “As it is already midnight, I’m going to suggest we stay here overnight. The house is only about twenty minutes by car and Clive can reach it in about half that time should he fly instead,” Alice said quietly as they went back to the conference room they’d been in previously.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rowan paced a little as she ran through what they knew. “So, current girlfriend used to work for Fiona. Fiona, who is also distantly related to Bess. Let’s figure out if old Terry is really a secretary, or if that was just Bess’s jealousy talking. Via Fiona, Teresa meets Rose. And at some point, Hugo sees Teresa and they start a thing. Goddess, I hope it was consensual. Even if Teresa is a scumbag, no one deserves what he tried to do to you and the other women he stalked.”

  Genevieve made one of those French sounds. A grunt, but less vulgar. An acknowledgment she’d heard and also agreed.

  Rowan said, “I should have an answer quickly with Rose’s address. She’s got to be either here or in Las Vegas. Her magic was at the house on Holly and at the Procella mansion. She could still live in England with the other Sansburys. But I doubt it. Speaking of doubt, are we sure which Clare and Salazar were the ones doing the spell?”

  “Until we talked with Fiona, I would have said Gerard. He’s the public face of their family. But she’s the power. I don’t think she’d have allowed him to do it and mess things up.”

  Rowan agreed with Genevieve on that.

  “Her magic has hints of blueberry in it,” Darius rumbled. “His was raspberry. The part of the trigger the Clares wielded was hers. Her spell and her power.”

  “Well, that’s very helpful,” Genevieve said. “I don’t know which Salazar. I’ve only met them a few times over the years so I’m afraid I’m not much help on that. However, Samaya was running a search to see which one of them flew out of Miami to come help perform the working. That’ll be our answer. And then we can get that to Zara so she can use it when she arrives in Miami.”

  Samaya came in just five minutes later. “I’ve got Rose’s address. And it was Javier who flew out to Las Vegas. He hasn’t gone back yet. His return isn’t for three more days. I called their business line asking for him. They said he was on the West Coast for business. I got the hotel information. Konrad is sending a team to apprehend him now.”

  Rowan looked up Rose’s address. “She’s in Manhattan Beach. That’s about twenty-five minutes or so from here. Holy fuck, her rent is eighteen thousand dollars a month. Damn. I guess whatever nefarious criming she’s up to pays well. Let’s go say hello.”

  When Genevieve got out of the car and the salt from the nearby ocean met her senses, her power seemed to double and redouble. Salt in the desert along veins, salt in the ocean—she’d found out only recently that she was a salt witch, able to use ambient salt in the atmosphere as fuel for her workings.

  As salt repelled a lot of magic, it was the sort of hidden weapon that elevated her magical power to levels she’d not even contemplated before.

  “For over two hundred grand a year in rent, you think there’d be a doorman,” Rowan grumbled.

  “There’s decent security,” Clive said as he took the eight-unit building in. “Three floors, she’s in the middle. North side on the corner. I see external cameras on the front on both corners of the building and over the front entry.”

  “A moment,” David said, and they all paused. Three minutes later he said, “Vanessa has taken over the surveillance system here. On our approach she’ll buzz us in and get us access to Rose’s floor.”

  “Overwatch in place,” Pru said over Rowan’s earpiece.

  “Let’s go ruin Rose’s day.”

  Genevieve took the lead because there was simply no way she was allowing Rowan to get attacked by a witch again. Not on her watch. Naturally, Darius took the lead in front of her. The entire evening had been bizarre. Each new revelation worse than the last. And now she was about to come face-to-face with her ex-sister-in-law, who was up to something bad enough they blew up a house and everyone in it to keep it secret.

  “There’s no one at home but in that apartment on this floor,” Clive said, and they all stepped to the side so she could ring the bell.

  No one responded so Genevieve knocked.

  Rowan stepped up. “I got this.” She pressed her finger on the doorbell button, and after noting it was a long tone, she pressed again and kept the pressure as the bell continued to sound on the other side of the closed door.

  “I’ve got all night, Rose. Answer the door because you aren’t going back to sleep until you do.”

  In the background, Clive snickered, and Genevieve allowed a smile.

  Then she began to alternate three kicks, three pounds and continued to ring the bell.

  “Normally, I’d climb up onto her balcony and kick my way in but that’s a little out of my physical limits just now. Genevieve, are there any spells on this door?”

  Genevieve used her othersight and noted the apartment was far better warded than any of the Procellas’ properties had been.

  “Hold.”

  The warding used salt as a way to frustrate a witch trying to unravel the protections. But Genevieve’s magic gobbled all that salt working up and it simply amplified her own. Within six minutes, she’d managed to clear away every layer of complex warding until the door was safe.

  “Clive? Kick this door in,” Rowan said while looking right into the doorbell camera. “Back up, Rose, this big heavy door is about to demolish whatever’s behind it. Hope it’s not art. Or people.”

  Rowan was so delightfully devious.

  * * *

  As Rowan had figured, the sound of bolts sliding free and locks being flipped came, and the big door slowly opened to reveal the same woman from the photographs. Only in person, her eyes weren’t flat and emotionless, they were brimming with malice.

  Rowan walked inside, bumping Rose’s shoulder on the way. “Hope we didn’t wake you up.”

  “Get out of my house!”

  Ugh, a screecher. “Eat shit.” Recorder on, Rowan gave a slow turn to take the front entry in. She didn’t want to go farther until Genevieve had assured them there were no spelltraps because Rowan was sick and tired of getting the crap beat out of her by witches and their sneaky spellcasting.

  “She’s with me,” Genevieve said as she closed the door at her back and stepped fully into the foyer. “It’s very rude to keep a guest waiting.”

  “It’s nearly one in the morning. I was sleeping. You can’t just harass me like this. There are rules.”

  Rowan turned and sneered in Rose’s direction. For someone who’d been sleeping she had a full face of makeup, and her hair was still in place. She’d been awake and trying to duck their visit.

  “The greatest irony in the world is how people who break rules right and left without a fucking thought or care as to how that might affect others are always the first to claim rules when they get caught out in their bullshit.” Rowan raised one shoulder. “So, yes let’s have a discussion about rules.”

  Genevieve made a sound as she went through a series of hand and wrist movements. Her bracelets clacked and jingled, and her eyes stared at something far off in the distance. Then she stomped and yanked on the air and Rowan felt the warding all around them fall to the ground like rain and then it was gone.

  “That was really impressive,” she said to Genevieve, who looked very pleased with herself.

  “I made it myself,” Genevieve teased back. “Now, Rosemary, shall we move to your office or a sitting room?”

  “No, you may not. You need to leave, or I’ll call the police.”

  Rowan and Genevieve froze at those words and then anger came.

  “Oh, you will?” Rowan asked. “You’ll call the human police?”

  “If you think I won’t, you’re wrong.”

  “I think all I needed to know was that you were willing to involve humans in a supernatural matter, which is a violation of the Treaty. I’m Rowan Summerwaite and in a cruel twist of fate for you, it’s my job to be sure it’s not violated.”

  Genevieve said, “Exposing us to humans is a violation. You’re going to be taken into custody now. Then we’ll see you in about two hours to have a chat.”

  Because main Conclave operations were in Southern California, there’d already been a team waiting to take her in and Samaya showed them to the apartment.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “You all say that.” Rowan shrugged. “I’m here. Free to come and go. You’re under arrest and I’m about to riffle through all your things. Understand this. You aren’t in charge. I am. See you in a bit, Rose. Can’t wait to get to know you better.”

  They searched the two-bedroom apartment from top to bottom. Warding indicated multiple hiding spots rich in all sorts of things. Phones. Data cards and storage. In the last was jewelry and watches.

  On the way back, they talked through what they had.

  Rowan said, “On the surface, there are many things about this situation that aren’t unusual. Lots of warding? She’s a single woman living alone. Same with the secure building. Rich people love to have hidey-holes to keep their treasures near to look at and also not get stolen from the top of the dresser. A hundred grand seems like an excessive amount of cash to have on hand, but I bet it isn’t to a certain level of businessperson.” At her side, Clive made a sound that said they probably had that much cash in a safe at her house and she chose to pretend not to hear it. “Eight phones though? All hidden. All used regularly. There is a system with the calls. You can see that with each one. Steps in a process of some type.”

  “Some of them are to the various parties in this little conspiracy,” Genevieve said. “I recognize Sergio’s number, as well as one of those belonging to the Clares. We know they do business together. But this seems an unusual process.”

  “It does. Maybe it’s a legit business thing and she keeps it all separate for tax purposes or whatever. Why hide the phones though? Corporate espionage? She’s worried someone will steal something proprietary?” Rowan didn’t think so. But it was always useful to figure out what sort of excuses someone might give in advance to be prepared to refute or clarify.

  “Go back to the house whenever you need to,” she told Clive quietly once they arrived.

  “Sun won’t be up for three and a half hours. I’ll stay until the last moment and hope to drive home with you. If not, you’ll have Darius, Genevieve, and David with you on the ride back since they’re all staying with us. I know they’ll be safe with you.”

  He deliberately chose to say it that way. Instead of them protecting her, which was far more likely.

  Satisfied he’d take care of himself, they went inside.

  * * *

  “You’re going to regret this,” Rosemary said as she and Genevieve entered the room a few hours later.

  “One of us will, certainly,” Genevieve said as they sat.

  “You didn’t have a warrant. You can’t just arrest me like this. I need a lawyer.”

  “Dorothy Decker.”

  Genevieve lobbed the name of the witch they’d found, brutalized. The witch whose home they’d found a bit of Rosemary’s magic in.

  Rose froze for a moment and then shook it off.

  “Should I know that name?”

  Rowan took a leap. “You should. It was on several of the lists kept on more than one of those data cards you had hidden.”

  They hadn’t had a chance to open those before they arrived. David and Samaya and one of the tech people from the Conclave were on that just a few doors down and Rowan was fairly sure she’d just told the truth.

  “Surely you saw there were many lists with many names. How could I possibly remember them all? If you told me what this was about, I might have the context to remember.”