My cheeks warmed. “I know that’s not the only explanation, Karl. He could be-” I pushed the admission out. “He could have been at the warehouse of his own free will. He could be working with whoever is behind this. He could have delivered the bottle. I know all that. I just…”

I saw their faces: Bianca, Rodriguez, Max, Tony, Guy. Twenty-four hours, and almost everyone I’d met in the past few days was dead.

“It’s just too much. I…need to hope.”

He turned, stopping me in my path, and rubbed down the goose bumps on my arms. He leaned closer, and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he just leaned in, his voice lowering.

“I’m going to call Lucas and have them send a guard and a car. You should go to that apartment where they found Carlos, see if you can pick up anything.”

“I’ll be okay, Karl.”

“I think you should-”

“It won’t cloud my judgment. I promise.”

One last squeeze. As we walked, he snuck glances my way. Looking for signs that he should insist on doing this without me.

The trail ended at a terraced garden, with notices that confetti and rice were prohibited. Presumably a popular wedding photo site.

Sonny’s trail led across the gardens to the park beyond, which wasn’t huge-maybe a couple of acres-with playground equipment and benches.

We stood in the shadow of a storage shed beside the garden. I wished I’d brought a jacket. A chill wind blew in from the north, and the sun kept ducking behind cloud cover. Miamians, accustomed to better weather, had forsaken the park, all except a single child and her nanny on the swings, and a man slumped on a bench.

I looked at the man. At his size. At his dark blond hair, ruffled by the breeze. My heart picked up speed.

“That looks like Sonny.”

Karl crept to the garden railing, his head up, sampling the wind. He stepped back into the shadows with me.

“I think you’re right.”

The figure had his back to us, and was leaning against the corner of the bench, chin on his chest. “He could be sleeping.”

“Possible.”

I knew there was a more likely explanation. If Sonny had gone through all that trouble to avoid being seen, he’d hardly nap in a public park.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” Karl said. “I need you to stay here, Hope.”

“I will.”

He glanced my way. “I mean it.”

“I know. I’ll wait here where I can see him, and if he moves, I’ll hit my panic button to warn you.”

“Good.”

As he moved away, he stopped and looked back. His lips parted, but he shook his head. Before I could say anything, he was gone.

LUCAS: 18

“SO WE ANALYZED THE DNA and blood samples.” Warren kept his gaze on his notes, clutched in both hands. “Let’s start with the DNA. The requisition says it’s supposed to be from two magicians. But, well, sir, we didn’t find any sorcerer genetic markers.”

“They’re human?” Paige said.

“Um, we aren’t sure.” He laid the pages down, his gaze lifting as high as my cheekbones. “We’re running more tests. I wasn’t comfortable bringing you preliminary results, but I thought…”

“I’d want to know this right away. Yes, thank you. So we have two samples, from possible supernaturals-”

“Probable, sir.”

“Probable. Of one or more unknown types-”

“One, I believe. They share over 50 percent of their DNA in common.”

“They’re brothers?”

Paige pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. “Over 50 percent means full brothers, right?” She opened my satchel and took out a file folder. “Then I’d say we somehow got the wrong samples, because genetics can do some wonky things, but there’s no way these two guys-” she put the kidnap photo on the table, “-are full brothers.”

Beside it, she set the close-ups of their faces that I’d requisitioned from the computer lab. Even if one looked past the obvious coloring and ethnicity differences, there was nothing in the two young men’s faces to suggest familial relationship.

“Hey, that’s Jason.” It was the younger of the researchers. She turned to the other woman and poked a finger at Jaz’s picture. “Doesn’t that look like Jason?”

The older woman glanced at me first. Only when I nodded did she walk over. She peered at the photo, then, after another glance at me and a reciprocal nod, she picked it up and studied it.

“It looks like him, but the eyes aren’t right. Or the mouth. And the hair’s curlier.”

The younger woman took the photo. “Yeah, I see it. This guy’s even hotter than Jason.” An embarrassed giggle as she handed the photo back to Paige. “Sorry.”

“Who’s Jason?” Paige asked.

The younger woman opened her mouth, but her colleague beat her to it. “He worked in the library. Grunt work mainly-running books and reports around, filing them back on the shelves. Then he was transferred to…”

“Security division,” the younger woman said with a sigh.

The other woman cast a knowing look at Paige. “Some of our younger staff were quite taken with him. Not that it did them any good. A sweet kid, but he kept to himself.”

“Do you remember Jason’s last name?” Paige asked as she swiveled her chair to the computer behind her.

“Dumas. But he isn’t here anymore. He left about six months ago.”

Paige paused, the human resources directory on the screen, and looked over at me. I was already on the phone. As I spoke to the HR department, I typed in the proper access codes.

A moment later, Paige was sending a page to the printer. She retrieved it and set it in front of the women.

“Is this the guy you knew as Jason Dumas?”

They nodded. The staff photograph showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a somber face, dark eyes and dark wavy hair, fashionably long.

This man was not Jaz. But there was little doubt he was a relative. A close one.

I moved the two head shots side by side. “Jasper and Jason.”

“Jaz and Sonny,” Paige murmured. She picked up the kidnap photo of Sonny. “But there’s no way, even with prosthetics, that this guy could be-” She pulled over her laptop. A minute of frenetic key tapping. “The answer isn’t in there-” She waved at the books littering the table. “It’s in here.”

I moved behind her. On the screen was the interracial council database.

“Armen Haig,” she said.

“Armen…?”

“I have to call Elena.”

HOPE: TRUTH

I stood as close to the railing as I could get without stepping from the shadows. I caught glimpses of Karl as he circumnavigated the park, approaching from the side opposite the playground. A couple of times he looked my way, even shading his eyes once, and I’d lifted my hand, but I could tell he hadn’t seen me. The next time I’d slip into the light just long enough to reassure him. That is, if the sun would cooperate. It had gone dark again and-

“Hello, Faith.”

My chest constricted at the voice, but I didn’t move. Another auditory hallucination. Being here, seeing Sonny, triggered the memory, the voice, the words.

“You don’t answer to that anymore? Hope, then. I think I like Hope better. Nuh-uh. Don’t reach into your pockets. Hands up where I can see them, as the cops say.”

As I pivoted toward the voice, I kept my eyes half closed. Bracing myself? Or denying the obvious as long as I could? Even through half-lidded eyes, though, there was no mistaking who stood before me, though his curls had been cut to just below his ears and his face was devoid of expression in a way I never imagined it could be.

I licked my lips and swallowed hard, trying to conjure up enough moisture to form words.

“Jaz.”

The mask shattered then. He smiled, and it was that same smile I knew, slow and sexy, his eyes lighting up. Jaz.

My chest tightened again and my gaze slid down to his hands. To the gun pointed at me. He pulled it back, as if to hide it.