Still smiling, I rolled to my feet and padded into the living room to get the phone before the machine picked it up. Poor Nick. I was sure he felt that last one.

"Nick," I blurted before he could say anything. "I'm sorry. Jenks's kids had me under the kitchen table and were throwing splat balls at me. God help me, but it was funny. They're in the garden right now, making rings around the ash tree and singing about cold steel."

"Rachel?"

It was Glenn, and my mirth died at his worried tone. "What?" I said, looking at the trees through the shoulder-high windows. The spots of water covering me were suddenly cold, and I clasped an arm around myself.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," he said. "Can you be ready?"

I pushed my damp hair back. "Why? What's happened?" I asked.

I heard him cover the receiver and shout something at someone. "You got your warrant to search Kalamack's property," he said when he returned.

"How?" I questioned, not believing Edden had caved. "Not that I'm complaining!"

Glenn hesitated. He took a slow breath, and I heard excited voices in the background. "Dr. Anders called me last night," he said. "She knew you were going to follow her, so she moved her presentation to last night and asked me to go with her instead."

"The witch," I exclaimed softly, wishing I could have seen what Glenn had worn. I bet it had been sharp. But when he remained silent, the cold feeling in my stomach solidified into a sour lump.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," Glenn said softly. "Her car went off Roebling Bridge this morning, pushed over the rail by what appeared to be a huge bubble of ley line force. They just pulled her car from the river. We're still looking for the body."

Nineteen

My foot jiggled as I impatiently stood beside the stack of manuals and empty paper cups that lined the sill of Trent's gatehouse. Jenks was on my earring, muttering darkly as he watched Quen punch a button on the phone. I'd seen Quen only once before—possibly twice. The first time, he was masquerading as a gardener, actually managing to catch Jenks in a glass ball. I had a growing suspicion that Quen had been the third rider who tried to run me down on horseback the night I stole my blackmail disc from Trent. It was a feeling that solidified when Jenks told me Quen smelled just like Trent and Jonathan.

Quen reached in front of me for a pen, and I jerked back, not wanting him to touch me. Still on the phone, he smiled carefully, showing me extremely white, even teeth. This one, I thought, knew what I was capable of. This one wouldn't underestimate me as Jonathan continually did. And though it was nice being taken seriously for once, I wished Quen was as egotistical and chauvinistic as Jonathan was.

Trent had once said Quen was willing to take me on as a student—after the security officer got over his desire to kill me for infiltrating the Kalamack compound. I wondered if I would have survived having him as a teacher.

Quen looked about the age my father would be if he were still alive. He had very dark hair that curled about his ears, green eyes that always seemed to be watching me, and a dancer's grace that I knew came from a lifetime of martial arts practice. Dressed in a black security uniform with no insignia, he looked like he belonged to the night. He was a shade taller than I was in heels, and the strength in his lightly wrinkled physique had me on edge. His fingers were quick on a keyboard and his eyes were faster. The only weakness I'd noticed was a slight limp. And unlike everyone else in the room besides me, he had no weapon that I could see.

Captain Edden stood beside me, looking squat but capable in his khaki pants and white shirt. Glenn was in another of his black suits, trying to look collected despite his obvious nervousness. Edden, too, looked worried that he was going to have egg on his face if we didn't find anything.

I adjusted my bag higher onto my shoulder and fidgeted. It was full of charms to find Dr. Anders, dead or alive. I had made Glenn wait while I whipped them up, using the paper she had written her address on as the focal object. If there was a shoe box left of her, the charms would light red. With them was a lie amulet, my wire-framed glasses to see through ley line disguises, and a spell checker. I was going to take the opportunity while talking to Trent to see if he used a charm to disguise his appearance. Nobody looks that good without help.

Outside, parked in the lot beside the gatehouse, were three FIB vans. The doors were open and the officers looked hot as they waited in the heat of an unseasonably warm afternoon. The breeze from Jenks's wings sent a wisp of hair to tickle my neck. "Can you hear him?" I breathed as Quen turned away and began speaking into the phone.

"Oh, yeah," the pixy muttered. "He's talking to Jonathan. Quen is telling him he's standing in the gatehouse with you and Edden with a warrant to search the property and he bloody well just better wake him up."

"Him being Trent?" I guessed, and felt my earring swing as Jenks nodded. I looked at the clock over the door, seeing it was a little after two. Must be nice.

Edden cleared his throat as Quen hung up. Trent's security officer made no bones about letting us know he was unhappy. His light wrinkles deepened as his jaw clenched, and his green eyes were hard. "Captain Edden, Mr. Kalamack is understandably upset, and would like to speak with you while your people carry out your search."

"Of course," Edden said, and a small sound of disbelief escaped me.

"Why are you being so nice?" I muttered as Quen ushered us through the heavy glass and metal doors and back into the strong sun.

"Rachel," Edden breathed, tension carrying through his whisper, "you will be polite and gracious or you will wait in the car."

Gracious, I thought. Since when were ex–Navy SEALs gracious? Hard-nosed, aggressive, politically correct to the point of being anal. Ah…he was being politically correct.

Edden leaned close as he held the door to one of the vans for me. "And then we're going to nail his ass to a tree," he added, confirming my suspicions. "If Kalamack murdered her, we'll get him," he said, his eyes on Quen as the man swung into an estate vehicle. "But if we bull in here like storm troopers, a jury will let him go even if he confesses. It's all in the procedure. I've stopped traffic in and out. No one leaves without a search."

I squinted at him, putting a hand to my hat to keep it from blowing off. I'd much rather have screamed in with twenty cars and sirens blazing, but I'd have to be satisfied with this.

The drive up the three-mile entry road through the wood Trent maintained about his estate was quiet since Jenks had gone with Glenn in the estate car to try and figure out what kind of Inderlander Quen was. We followed Quen's security vehicle around the last turn and pulled into the empty visitor's parking lot.

I couldn't help but be impressed by Trent's main building. The three-story edifice was settled in among the surrounding vegetation as if it had been here for hundreds of years rather than forty. The white marble sent glints of sunlight to pool against the trees like a sunrise from the west. Large pillars and wide shallow steps made an inviting entry. Surrounded by trees and gardens, the office buildings had a sense of permanence those in the city lacked. Several smaller buildings sprawled from the main one, attached by covered walkways. Trent's renowned walled gardens took up much of the side and back, the acres of well-tended plants surrounded by fields of grass and then his eerie planned-out forest.

I was the first one out of the van, my gaze crossing the road to the distant low-slung buildings where Trent raised his thoroughbreds. A tour bus was just leaving, obnoxiously noisy and emblazoned with advertisements to visit Trent's gardens.