Sapphire Flames

Chapter 5

“Most people tend to back up specific files or folders.” Bern set his laptop in front of Runa. “Your mother went a step further. She backed up the entire hard drive. For all intents and purposes, this is an exact copy of her computer. The last session happened on the day she died.”

I picked up my tablet. “We were able to view her activity log. She moved three files out of documents to the desktop. Here they are: Will, Financial Summary, and Bills and Utilities.”

Runa clicked on the financial summary and scanned the contents. Bern and I had already looked at the file. It listed House Etterson’s investments, the amounts current as of last Sunday. A short note at the bottom identified a financial adviser, Dennis Moody, with a notation, “Ask him if you have any questions.” The other file documented the monthly bills, including utilities, insurance, and Ragnar’s tuition.

Runa raised her head. “She knew she was going to die. That’s why she moved the files where I would see them right away.”

“It looks that way,” Bern said.

“I don’t understand.” Runa leaned forward, her hands rolled into fists. “Why didn’t she tell me? All she had to do was pick up the phone. Why didn’t she hire somebody? Some sort of bodyguard?”

Those were all good questions. “There is more.”

Bern reached over and tapped a couple of keys. A video filled the screen.

“Your mother recorded this on the day of her death just before midnight,” Bern said.

“We haven’t watched it,” I said. “Would you like some privacy?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Bern and I stepped out into the hallway and I shut the door behind us.

“That financial summary bothers me,” I said quietly. “Sigourney dumped a two-million-dollar investment with Diatheke, Ltd., on the day she died.”

“I saw that,” Bern said. “That’s a large amount.”

“It was also Sunday. What sort of investment firm or bank is open on Sunday?”

“A good question.”

So far, we had this mysterious payment and Alessandro. Those were our only leads. If only I had gotten to Conway in time.

“Did you have time to look into Conway?” I asked.

Bern frowned. “I pulled his credit report. He has a line of credit from Texas State Employee Credit Union. Most likely, his accounts are there. All the first responders, cops, and firefighters bank there. They shell out the big bucks for online security. The guy who set up their system is a Significant cryptomage. It will take days to break, if I can do it at all. Not only is it illegal, but they’ll come after me. Do you still want me to do it?”

Too risky. If they caught Bern, they would make an example out of him. He would be the dirty hacker who compromised the hard-earned money of Texas heroes. Bern would serve real time and we would be done as a firm and a House.

“No,” I told him. “Conway is a dead end. It’s not worth it.”

“Okay,” he said.

The door swung open. Runa stood in the doorway. Tears wet her face. “You need to see this.”

Bern and I followed her into the conference room. She reached toward the keyboard with trembling fingers and pressed enter. Sigourney Etterson filled the screen. She looked like an older copy of Runa: same wild red hair, same almost translucent skin, and same sharp green eyes.

“Hi sweetheart,” Sigourney said. “I’m afraid this isn’t a happy message, but I don’t want you to be sad. Sometimes bad things happen. I don’t regret my actions. I did what I felt was right. I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. You grew up to be a great person. You’re kind, and responsible, and so smart. I couldn’t wish for a better daughter.”

Her words were like claws scratching on my heart.

“If I don’t make it, you have to take care of your brother and sister. You have to be the Head of the House. It’s a lot, but you can do it, darling.”

A dark shadow moved behind Sigourney, approaching from the depths of the house, little more than a silhouette.

“I’ve named you as the executor of my estate. There will be a sharp learning curve. Dennis can answer some of your questions, but the primary burden will be on you. I don’t trust anyone else enough to put them in charge of your inheritance.”

The shadow glided forward.

“I’m sorry—” Sigourney fell silent in mid-sentence. Her gaze turned blank. Thick red drops slid from her eyes, ears, and mouth, painting crimson tracks down her pale face.

A gloved hand reached over Sigourney’s shoulder to the keyboard. The video stopped.

He’d killed her. I couldn’t explain how I knew it was a he, but I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach. He’d murdered Sigourney and he hadn’t bothered to delete the video. The brutality of it was shocking. He just erased her like she was never there. Without laying a finger on her.

If he came for my family and I wasn’t here, he would slaughter everyone.

Runa wiped her tears with her fingers. Her words came out sharp, as if they cut her mouth. “What kind of magic is that?”

“Probably a carnifex mage,” I said. The instant internal injury fit their MO. Carnifexes normally went for the heart, not the brain. Anything protected by bone presented difficulty to them. If he was a carnifex, he was experienced and powerful.

“What’s a carnifex?”

“A butcher,” Bern said. “They cause lesions in internal organs.”

She wiped her eyes again. The tears just kept running, and she kept flicking them away, her gaze locked on the screen.

A long, torturous minute slid by. I wished I could make it better. I wished so much that I could hug her, wave a magic wand, and undo all of this.

“What do we do now?” Runa asked.

“We go through your mother’s accounts and her forensic testimony files.”

“She kept meticulous records,” Bern said.

“That’s it?” Runa’s voice vibrated with anger. “We look at files?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“I just watched some prick murder my mother! We need to find him, so I can kill him. I’ll poison him and fix him and poison him again until he can’t take any more.”

I understood. I wanted to find him too and make him regret ever being born. And when I found him, I would make sure he would never do that to another person. But right now, Runa needed cold water, not more gas on the fire.

“Okay,” I said. “Where do we start looking?”

“I don’t know. You’re the investigator.”

I stepped to the laptop, rewinded the video, and restarted it just as the shadow entered the room. “What we have here is a human dressed in dark grey. His face is covered with a mask, his hands are gloved. We can’t even be certain it’s a he, although judging by the height, this is probably an adult male. It could be a very tall woman. We don’t know the exact nature of his magic, who he works for, or why he killed your mother.”

The killer reached over Sigourney. That gloved hand looked odd, misshapen somehow . . .

“Then we need to find out! Don’t you have someone? Like a snitch or an informant? Something!”

“This isn’t a TV show,” I said gently. Also, we were not hardened NY detectives who didn’t play by the rules. “Confidential informants typically report on neighborhood and gang crime, because the people involved in those crimes don’t know how to keep their mouths shut. This is a professional hit by a high-caliber magic user.”

Runa squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled. Her fists relaxed. She opened her eyes. A little bit of the crazy had gone out, and I jumped on the chance.

“Your mother said she had no regrets. She was aware that her actions carried consequences. She did something, Runa, something that led to this murder. The sooner we figure out what that something is, the sooner we can find her killer. The answer is probably somewhere in her files.”

“Okay,” she said.

The forensic review didn’t yield any results. After three hours, my eyes started to glaze over.

I turned down the sound and pulled up the video of Sigourney’s murder in video editing software. Bump up the contrast, sharpen, levels, zoom . . . I ran the clip again. The glove’s details came into focus.

It didn’t look like a glove, more like a hand with greenish skin mottled with brown and orange, like a carapace of some beetle or the tail of a raw lobster. The tapered fingernails resembled claws, sharp and black.

This made zero sense.

A century and a half ago, several labs across Europe synthesized the Osiris serum. The Spanish were the first, followed by the English, Russians, and Chinese. They came to the discovery almost simultaneously, following up on the same research trail, with Germans and Americans being only slightly behind. Those who failed to discover the serum bought it or stole it.

An injection of the Osiris serum brought about one of three equally likely results: you died, you became a monster and then died, or your latent magical powers awakened. Despite the horrific odds of success, the serum spread across the planet like wildfire. The World War loomed on the horizon, and the major powers scrambled to crank out mages in hopes of gaining the upper hand. They gave it to everyone: the soldiers, the fading aristocracy, the captains of industry, people who had everything and those who had nothing.

Then the World War hit, bringing nightmares and atrocities beyond anyone’s imagination, and it was quickly and unanimously decided that having people who could incinerate entire city blocks and spit poisonous gas into the trenches was a really bad idea. The Osiris serum was locked away, but by then it was too late. The magic proved to be hereditary.

The serum was inaccessible, but the experimentation into enhancing one’s powers never stopped. Countless families and labs kept trying to find a way to make their magic stronger, and the only way to do it was to experiment on human beings, preferably those with some magic and very little money. Sometimes that experimentation caused a cataclysmic response, twisting the bodies of the research volunteers into inhuman monstrosities. The majority died on the spot. The few who survived were no longer human, physically or mentally. They became warped.

According to the numerous articles and scientific papers I’d read, the transformation permanently altered the subject’s magic. Instead of their original powers, all their magic was now dedicated to keeping their warped bodies functioning. The constant magic drain killed them within two to three years.

No one magic-warped could have a magical talent by definition. Yet Sigourney’s killer clearly did.

Not only that, but a warped human couldn’t have pulled off this hit. It required critical thinking and performing a succession of tasks: break in, move quietly, kill the target, turn off the computer, stage the scene, set the house on fire. Nevada knew a warped woman, Cherry. Before Cherry died a couple of years ago, she’d spent her days swimming in the brackish water in a flooded part of Houston, eating fish and garbage. She couldn’t carry on a conversation for longer than a minute. If you somehow convinced, bribed, or forced Cherry into assaulting a House, she would probably crash through a window or bang on the door until she forgot what she was doing there.

Maybe it wasn’t a clawed hand. Maybe it was some sort of specialized glove. I peered at the screen.

My cell rang.

Across from me, Runa groaned. “Please answer it. My head hurts.”

I took the call.

“Greetings, Ms. Baylor,” Mr. Fullerton’s precise voice said.

I put the call on speaker. “Hello, Mr. Fullerton. I hadn’t expected to hear from you so soon.” He had told me it would take at least twenty-four hours for the DNA results.

“The official results will be available tomorrow; however, under the circumstances, I felt urgency was in order. Is Ms. Etterson present?”

“Yes,” Runa said.

“Very well. I can confirm that one of the bodies is that of Sigourney Etterson.”

As expected.

“The other body doesn’t match any of the profiles in House Etterson. It shares no similar genetic markers.”

Runa jerked upright in her seat.

“Could you please repeat that?” I asked.

“The other body isn’t Halle Etterson.”

“Where is she then?” Runa demanded.

“I don’t know. I know where she isn’t. She isn’t in the Forensic Institute’s morgue. I hope this was helpful. Ms. Baylor, Ms. Etterson, good day.”

Holy shit.

The three of us, Bern, Runa, and I, stared at each other.

Leon strode into the kitchen. He wore his bloodstained T-shirt on his head, like a turban, and his bare chest peeked through the gap of his open jacket. He was carrying a bucket of fried chicken in one hand and a bank deposit slip in the other.

“I closed Yarrow,” he said. “The three of you look like you’ve just been slapped by a ghost.”

“Neither of the bodies from the Etterson fire belongs to Halle Etterson,” Bern said.

“Wow.” Leon put the deposit slip in front of me, dropped into a chair, pulled the cardboard lid from the bucket, and fished out a drumstick.

“So, does this mean Halle’s alive?” Runa asked.

I glanced at Bern, sitting at the table, but he apparently decided to impersonate a statue from Easter Island, because all I got back was an enigmatic look. I was on my own.

“No. It means that the other body in the morgue isn’t your sister.”

“So she could be alive?”

Runa jumped up and paced around the kitchen, circling the island. She was desperate and drowning in grief. The small chance that Halle might have survived was a lifeline and she clung to it. She was irrational before, and she would be completely unpredictable now. I had to make sure she stayed put. The last thing we needed was her running out to “investigate.”

“She could be alive. If they killed her, why go through the trouble of planting a body? However, we aren’t sure where she is or what condition she’s in. Somebody went to great lengths to make sure she was officially dead. They didn’t want anyone to look for her. We have to tread carefully here. We may endanger her by our actions.”

Runa stopped pacing and stared at me. “Catalina, if there is the slightest chance that my sister is alive, we have to find her. Nothing else matters; not revenge, not finding the murderer, nothing except Halle’s life.”

“I understand. Halle is the first priority.” I turned to Bern. “Were you able to find that two million Sigourney liquidated on the day of her death?”

Bern frowned.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I’ve checked all of our accounts,” Runa said. “It’s not there. It wasn’t wired in and then wired out or withdrawn. It didn’t come in as a big chunk or in smaller deposits.”

“Ramma munnuf,” Leon said.

“Swallow your food,” Bern told him.

Leon gulped his iced tea. “Ransom money.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Just because we hadn’t blurted it out in front of the client didn’t mean we all weren’t quietly thinking it.

Runa froze. “Do you think Halle was kidnapped and Mom withdrew the money to pay the ransom?”

“It’s a possibility,” I said, keeping my tone measured.

“Catalina, stop treating me like I’m made of glass! Everything is ‘may’ and ‘possibility’ and ‘we’re not sure’! I deserve an honest answer.”

You know what, fine.

“Okay. Here is the truth: I don’t know. I’m trying not to get your hopes up, because you’re grieving, and it makes you prone to rash decisions.” There, that was honest.

“Dun dun dun,” Leon intoned dramatically.

“Rash decisions? Like what?” Runa demanded.

“Like poisoning the man who could’ve told us who hired him to cover up this murder.”

Runa waved her arms. “My mother’s body attacked us, I freaked out! And besides, it was your boyfriend who stabbed him.”

“Please. Conway was a dead man walking before he left the room. You poisoned him so well that his body grew an inch of black fuzz after he was already dead. And for the last time, Alessandro isn’t my boyfriend.”

Runa’s eyes narrowed. “When I saw you, you had your hand on his arm, as if you were walking into prom. You had that look on your face.”

Leon and Bern looked like they were watching a great movie and had just come to the best part. Ugh.

“What look?” I asked.

“The I’m-touching-the-dreamiest-guy-in-the-universe look.”

“I was flustered. I’d just watched him stab a man and then smile at me like nothing happened.”

“Well, I was flustered too!”

Arabella walked into the kitchen. “I smell chicken. Give.”

“You’re gonna want to sit down for this,” Leon told her. “Catalina and Runa are having a fight. We’re about an inch from hair pulling.”

“A fight?” Arabella’s eyes widened. “A real fight?”

“Yes,” Bern told her.

“Pass the popcorn,” my sister said.

Why did I put up with all of this? Oh yeah, they were family and I loved them no matter what. But sometimes, like right now, I loved them significantly less.

I turned to Runa. “Your sister could have been kidnapped. The ransom would explain where the money went. But this scenario has problems.”

“Okay,” she said. “Like what?”

“First, if someone kidnapped Halle, and your mother paid the ransom, why kill her and why plant a fake Halle? If your mother failed to pay the ransom, where is the money, and again, why the decoy? It would make much more sense to contact you and say that they killed your mother and they have your sister. You would pay whatever they asked. Also, your mother says in the video that she didn’t regret her actions and that she did what she felt was right. That suggests that the fire was an act of punishment. She expected to be in danger, but she says nothing about your sister, and she made no effort to shield Halle by sending her away, for example, which implies your mother thought she was the only one in trouble. So no, none of this makes sense.”

Runa pondered it. The silence stretched.

“Fair enough,” she said finally. “What about this Diatheke thing?”

Bern cleared his throat. “On paper, they’re an investment firm ‘seeking partnership with high net worth individuals, families, and firms.’ They mainly invest in enterprises in South America. Average Web site, pictures of corporate officers, which are old white guy, younger white guy, and some people in their thirties with good dentists and above average income.”

So far, pretty average.

“There are no reviews or testimonials, which isn’t unusual for a private investment firm,” Bern continued. “Their Glassdoor listing is vague. Employees: one to eighty. Net worth: unknown. Revenue: unknown. Salaries: unknown. Again, not unusual. Bloomberg, which gets its info from S&P Global Market Intelligence, lists Randall Baker as a founder. He doesn’t belong to any House and he isn’t on Herald. He hasn’t been indicted. He hasn’t declared bankruptcy. The company never declared bankruptcy and has never been sued or sanctioned. They’re a private equity firm like dozens of others in Houston. The only thing notable about them is that their founder is likely a figurehead.”

“Why do you think that?” Runa asked.

“Because Randall Baker is ninety-two years old and his primary residence is in Naples, Florida,” Bern said. “I broke into his home network and read his email. He hasn’t been to Houston since before we became a House.”

I rubbed my face. “Tomorrow I’ll go to Diatheke and see what I can find out. They probably won’t tell me where they wired the money, if they wired it, but at least we can confirm that the funds were transferred.”

Runa looked at me. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” the four of us all said at the same time.

She threw her hands up. “I won’t poison anybody.”

“If you go there with Catalina,” Bern said, “she’ll have to concentrate on keeping you safe instead of finding your sister.”

“What he said,” Arabella said.

“Please stay here,” I told Runa. “Besides, if Ragnar wakes up, he’ll need to see you. He’ll be in a strange place, with strange people, and waking up after my magic will be confusing enough.”

“Okay,” Runa said. “I’ll stay here and sit on my hands. Doing nothing. While you go into danger on my behalf. Happy?”

“Ecstatic. Arabella, will you come talk to me upstairs?”

I marched into the hallway. As I climbed the ladder to my loft suite, I heard Bern behind me rumble, “She really wants to help you. Personal confrontations are very difficult for her.”

Great. Look at all this respect I was getting as Head of House. So much respect.

Arabella knocked on the ladder and climbed up. “I’m so tired. What did you need?”

“Could you look into Halle Etterson for me?”

Arabella grimaced. “You think she killed her mother, planted a corpse, and made off with a cool two mil?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

My face felt too hot. I went to the window, unlatched it, and slid it open. The night exhaled cold air, cooling my skin. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Bern was right. I didn’t like confrontations. Especially with people I cared about.

“Did Alessandro actually stab somebody?”

“Yes. He did it well too.”

Arabella exhaled. “Well, I’m shook.”

Shook was a good way to put it.

My window opened onto a street, behind which rose tall brick buildings. Between the buildings and the road an old oak tree spread its branches, its massive trunk encircled by a four-foot-high stone wall. A lone streetlamp fought a valiant battle against the night, illuminating some of the street and the tips of the branches.

I sighed. It was a long, long day, and I had so much work to do tomorrow . . .

Arabella said something.

“What?” I asked.

“I said you should have some chicken. Don’t be pulling a Nevada on me.”

“I will. I just didn’t want to ask you in front of Runa.”

Movement troubled the oak. I focused on it.

Alessandro sat on the thick branch directly across from my window. He wore charcoal grey, and his hair was brushed back from his face.

He raised his hand and waved at me.

I caught my hand rising to wave back and spun to my sister. “He’s here!”

“Who?”

“Alessandro! He’s sitting in the oak.”

Arabella dashed to the window. “Where?”

The tree was empty.

I pointed to where he had been a moment before. “Right there. He waved at me.”

I grabbed my phone and dialed the emergency contact for Abarca.

“Chicken,” my sister said. “Lots and lots of chicken. Helps with hunger-induced hallucinations.”

“I saw him.” The phone rang and rang.

“I believe that you think you saw him. The heart wants what the heart wants, Catalina.”

“My heart doesn’t want anything. I saw him stab a man in the chest and now he’s in the oak, bypassing our security like it’s not even there.”

“Chicken and then a nap. How about a nice long nap?”

“I’ll put you into a nice long nap.”

She snorted. “You and what army?”

“Abarca!” the phone said.

“There is an intruder on the premises.”

“Are you sure?” Abarca asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. He was in the tree by my window. If he was a sniper, I would be dead, or Arabella would be dead.”

“I find it highly unlikely,” Abarca said. “We’ve got the place locked down tight. Are you sure . . .”

“My sister said she saw an intruder,” Arabella yelled. “Do something!”

“We’re on it.” Abarca hung up.

I dialed Bug.

“If you’re calling about that ass clown, I don’t have him yet. He got away from me this afternoon, but I’ll find him . . .”

Ass clown. What did that even mean . . . “He was in the oak by my window twenty seconds ago.”

“Dickfucker!”

Bug hung up.

“Food. Now,” Arabella ordered.

“Okay, okay.” I headed for the door. “I did see him.”

“Maybe you’ll see him in your dreams. By the way, I called our insurance company to give them a heads-up about the Yarrow case.”

“Why?”

“We rammed a house with Brick.”

I made a one-eighty. “You what?”

“It was a hostage situation,” she said. “The damages aren’t that bad.”

“How bad?”

“We took out a wall and a panic room door.”

I opened my mouth. Too many words tried to come out at once, and I just stood there, trying to sort them out.

“Anyway, our insurance is canceled as of last month.”

“What? Are they claiming we didn’t pay the bill? Because I had them on direct deposit!”

My sister sighed. “No, they canceled because our grace period expires tomorrow, and we’re ‘high risk.’”

“Nice. Do they expect us to immediately die in horrible ways?”

Arabella nodded. “Pretty much. Let’s go get some dinner.”