Audrey Duarte was an influencer. She specialized in “total look” tutorials, combining trendy fashion with the right makeup and hair, and made a lot of money promoting cosmetics and clothes labels. Her 1.2 million followers thought she walked on water.
About two months ago, she contacted our firm. She’d been receiving threatening letters promising to disfigure her. Leon had taken the case, because its “noir nature” appealed to him. Somewhere in his head a 1930s soundtrack must’ve been playing while a rich baritone announced, “A beautiful dame walked into my office. She was trouble. Dames always are.” He quickly determined that the threatening mail had come from her competitor, which was fortunate since real stalking cases were difficult to resolve. Convincing someone to let go of the object of their affection took a long time and often ended badly.
Leon closed the case and moved on. Audrey didn’t. Leon was attractive and dangerous, and she decided he should belong to her. She was used to being adored for things like curling her hair and she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t falling at her feet and promising her the world. In an ironic twist, she developed stalker tendencies. She sent him hundreds of texts a week. He blocked her number, so she went on a disposable phone spree. She showed up at our place, but security blocked her. We watched her try to charm, then pout, then scream at our guards, until they threatened to call the cops. She bought him a motorcycle and had it delivered to us, and we refused the delivery.
Her latest strategy was to bombard Leon with emergencies from her numerous burner cells. The last time it was a fire. The time before that, she heard strange noises in the garage. No matter what the emergency was, the request was always the same—her life was in danger, and Leon had to come and save her.
With the emergencies, Audrey graduated to threats of harm, in her case, to herself. Once was an isolated occurrence, twice could be coincidence, but the third time constituted “a pattern of behavior.” Stalking was a third-degree felony in the state of Texas, and she had just given us enough ammunition. Tomorrow I would authorize Sabrian Turner, our House counsel, to contact Audrey’s family and arrange for a heart-to-heart.
Cornelius looked at me. “I saw Tatyana Pierce.”
Ah. That explained his expression. House Harrison and House Pierce didn’t get along. Nevada knew more about it than I did, but she told me before that both Cornelius and his older sister Diana detested the Pierce family.
“Is she involved in this matter?” Cornelius asked.
“She is. I’ll understand if you choose to avoid this one.” Cornelius had full discretion when it came to our cases. Some he claimed, others he passed on.
Cornelius locked his jaw. “Oh no. Quite the opposite.”
Rosebud pulled on his hair and trilled at me for emphasis, clearly ready to do battle.
Well, we had a pint-size battle monkey on our side. This case was as good as solved.
Leon strode around the bend of the wall, his face annoyed. He saw me and grimaced. “I handled it.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. She sounded really freaked out. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe her.”
“But you do know better. You called 911. They’ll take it from here.”
He puffed his cheeks and blew the air out slowly. “What’s next?”
“I have to go see Linus.”
“Do you want me to take you?” Leon asked.
“No, he sent a car. Could the two of you take Rosebud to Maya?”
“Linus will wait,” Leon said. “Come be a hero with us.”
“You barely slept for three days,” Cornelius added. “You worked really hard on this. You deserve to be there when Maya gets her back.”
I wanted to. So much. “I can’t. Take a video for me. Please?”
“This sucks,” Leon said.
Cornelius shook his head. “Video is not the same. Happy moments like these don’t happen very often. You should be there.”
I should, but Linus couldn’t wait. “I would if I could. I’ll see you tomorrow, Cornelius.”
I started down the hallway. A stray thought made me turn and I walked backward. “Leon, don’t go over there. Don’t go to Audrey’s.”
“Give me some credit.”
“I mean it.”
He waved me off. “Stop worrying.”
I turned and headed for the elevator.
It was so simple to say. Stop worrying about this. Stop worrying about that. It will be fine. But often it wasn’t fine. Sometimes I felt like a spider who’d spun a web across a bottomless drop. My family was walking across, balancing on hair-thin strands, and it was my job to keep them from falling.
Of all the ritzy neighborhoods in Houston, River Oaks was the most exclusive and the most expensive. The minimum home price ran upward of three million, and yard space was worth its weight in gold. Common wisdom said one should never own the nicest house in the neighborhood. Linus Duncan didn’t give a damn.
The ostentatious mansions rolled past the armored window as the Rolls Royce Cullinan glided up the picturesque road. In the driver’s seat, Pete checked the rearview mirror for the seventh time since I started counting. Six feet three inches tall, with pale skin and light hair cropped short, he was in his late forties. He could throw me over his shoulder, run eight hundred meters at full speed in under three minutes, set me down, do forty pull-ups, then drop and do fifty push-ups. He also fired a gun with deadly accuracy and could kill a skilled opponent with his hands, which was why he was one of two people Duncan trusted with his personal safety. And now Pete was cautious.
I didn’t ask why. The home defense turrets Linus made emitted a specific sound, a magic twang, followed by the crack of a bullet leaving the barrel. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. I hadn’t imagined hearing it during our phone call. Whatever had happened wasn’t good. Pete had to concentrate on keeping me safe, and nobody won if I made his job harder by asking questions. I texted Runa Etterson instead.
Six months ago, we had helped Runa find her kidnapped sister and avenge her mother’s murder. Runa had been working on her postgraduate degree at UCLA. But now both her sister and her brother needed a lot of support, and therapy, and reassurance. Their life was here in Houston, and she’d decided not to force them to abandon everything by dragging them to California. A great deal of paperwork later, she walked away from her research at UCLA and ended up starting over at Rice. I saw her every week and her siblings, Ragnar and Halle, every other week or so. For the first time in my life, I had a best friend. It was weird as hell.
I need a favor.
The phone chimed back. Shoot.
Do you know anybody doing work on merging of organic matter and metal? I need something assessed and I have to keep it quiet.
Linus?
Yes.
Runa had been at the center of the investigation into her mother’s death. She’d very quickly figured out that Linus and I were connected; she’d watched me stumble, shell-shocked, through my first couple of cases, and she’d grown more and more worried. Eventually I broke down and told her about the Deputy Warden thing. I shouldn’t have, but I had to tell someone and it made things so much easier.
I know someone, Runa texted back. Do you want me to take the thing to her?
Thank you. I’ll ask Cornelius to drop it off at your place.
Are you okay?
I was pretty damn far from okay, but I didn’t want to do this over text. I’ll live. Thanks for asking.
Pete steered the Rolls Royce around the bend and Linus’ house came into view.
The sturdy wrought-iron gates hung askew, wrenched from their mounts by some powerful force. Behind them, unnaturally bright blood smeared the paver stones of a wide circular driveway. Normally, in the center of the driveway a white fountain rose from the middle of an artfully landscaped flower bed, water cascading out of its top and spilling into the triple basin. Right now, the fountain was dry, its top scattered in pieces across the driveway. A broken turret jutted on the right between the decorative shrubs, knocked off its retractable mount. Ahead a palatial mansion waited like a castle from an animated fairy tale. The blood smears stopped ten yards short of the door. No assailants had reached the front steps.
Pete parked, exited the car, and held my door open. I stepped out and he led me to the front door. There was a momentary pause as the security system recognized my face, then the locks clicked, and Pete opened the door and ushered me into a three-story foyer.
The interior of the house was as grand as the outside promised it would be. The polished white marble floor gleamed like a mirror, reflecting walls of Venetian plaster in white and cream decorated with acanthus-leaf molding. Another ornate fountain rose in the middle of the foyer, cradled by a double grand staircase twisting to the second floor on both sides. Above it, a stained-glass dome offered white clouds floating over the blue sky. An enormous chandelier dripped long strands of crystal from the center of the dome, illuminating the fountain, and the entire place glowed, white and elegant despite its opulence.
“He’s waiting in the study,” Pete said.
“Thank you.” I turned right and crossed the foyer to the side doorway, then walked through a small sitting room, through another hallway, and entered the study.