“Cornelius . . .”

“If you are planning on telling me that revenge doesn’t make one feel better . . .”

“It depends on the revenge,” I said. “Punching Adam Pierce was one of the best moments of my life. Every time I think about it, it makes me smile. But revenge has a price. My grandmother almost burned to death. My oldest cousin nearly died in the collapse of downtown. I nearly died half a dozen times. The price for this will be too high.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

His eyes had that steely cold look to them. He wasn’t going to back down.

I leaned back. “Very well. But you’ll have to find someone else to help you with your suicide mission.”

“I would like your help,” he said.

“No. I understand that you are determined to hang yourself, but I won’t be holding the rope for you. Not only that, but Baylor Investigative Agency is a very small firm. We specialize in low-risk investigations. I’m not qualified.”

He pointed at the ME’s report. “You seem very qualified.”

“I know about guns, Mr. Harrison, because there is a long tradition of military service on my mother’s side of the family. My mother and my grandmother are both veterans. It doesn’t mean I’m capable of taking on this investigation. Hire someone else.”

“Who?”

“Augustine.”

“I’ve already spoken with Augustine. He did me the courtesy of being candid. With the amount of money at my disposal, I can’t afford a full investigation. My money will buy me some surveillance and the due diligence of his people, but it’s not really lucrative enough for him to throw the full power of his team behind it. Even if he does so, House Forsberg is very well prepared for any traditional level of scrutiny. This means a drawn-out, expensive investigation, and I would run out of money before we obtained any results. According to Augustine, you’re capable of nontraditional scrutiny. He said that you were able, professional, and honest, and that you had good instincts when it came to people.”

Thanks, Augustine. “No.”

“My finances aren’t enough for MII but they allow me to make a very attractive proposal to a smaller firm.”

“The answer is no.”

“I mortgaged our house.”

I put my hand over my eyes.

“I can pay you a million today. Another million when you explain to me why my wife was murdered and who was responsible.”

Absolutely not. “Good-bye, Mr. Harrison.”

“My wife is dead.” His voice shook with barely controlled emotion. His eyes glistened. “She’s my light. She found me in the darkest time of my life and she saw something in me . . . She believed I could be a better man. I didn’t deserve her or the happiness we had. She loved me, Nevada. She loved me so much, in spite of my faults, and I was the luckiest man alive because when I opened my eyes in the morning, I saw her next to me. She had integrity. She was kind and intelligent, and she tried her hardest to do the right thing so this world would be a better place for our child to grow up in. She didn’t deserve this. She deserved to be happy. She deserved a full and long life. Nobody had the right to rob her of it.”

His face contorted with raw pain and grief. I was trying so hard not to cry.

“I love her determination. I love her spirit. I’m proud to have been her husband. And now she’s dead. Someone took this wonderful—this truly beautiful—human being and turned her into a corpse. I saw her on the morgue table. She’s just . . . cold and lifeless as if she never was. Everything is gone except for our daughter and my memories. I have to strive to be the man she thought I was. When my daughter grows up, she’ll ask me why her mother was murdered and I’ll have to answer her. I have to account for my actions. I want to tell her that I found those responsible and I made sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

He brushed moisture from his eyes with a furious swipe of his hand. “Nobody else will do this. Her family doesn’t have the means, my family doesn’t care, and her employer might have murdered her. There is only me. Will you help me? Please.”

He fell silent. He was sitting here asking for my help and I couldn’t throw him out of my office. I just couldn’t. I remembered when Mom sold our house to pay for Dad’s bills. I remembered when we mortgaged the business and kept it from him, because it would’ve killed him faster than any disease. If someone I loved was murdered, I would do the same thing Cornelius did. He had nowhere to turn. If I slammed the door in his face now, I wouldn’t be able to look my reflection in the eye.

I reached into the top drawer of my desk and took out the blue new-client folder. I opened it so it faced him, placed it on the table, and wrote $50,000 in the margins on the front. “This is my retainer. This stays with the agency no matter what happens. It’s nonnegotiable.” I used my pen to circle the bottom number on the right side. “These are our rates. This job is likely to be high-risk, so the top rate right here will apply. As you can see, it’s a daily and not hourly rate. Depending on the situation, I may have to charge you hazard pay or additional expenses. The retainer acts like a deductible. Once the amount billed to you exceeds it, you will make additional payments in installments of $10,000. After we’re done here, you may want to go to the bank and withdraw at least $20,000 in cash. We may have to bribe people . . .”

“Thank you.”

“This is a bad idea. Please reconsider.”

He shook his head. “No.”

I walked him through the privacy policy and had him sign all of the waivers. “What happens once we find whoever is responsible?”

“I’ll take care of things from there.”

“Meaning you’ll kill your wife’s murderer.”

“It’s the way Houses handle things,” Cornelius said.

“Well, I’m not a House. I’m a person with a family, and I respect and try to obey the laws of this country. I won’t hesitate to defend you or myself, but I won’t condone murder.”

“Understood,” Cornelius said. “How do we start?”

“I need to be able to speak to Matthias Forsberg. I need face-to-face time so I can ask him some questions. I can make the necessary calls tomorrow, but he’ll refuse to see me.”

“You don’t have the social status and you work for his competitor.” Cornelius nodded. “Matthias is an active participant in the Assembly. He never misses a session. Tomorrow happens to be December 15th. The session starts at 9:00 a.m.”

“I don’t have admission to the Assembly.” The Assembly was an unofficial executive body that governed the magic users at state and national levels. The Texas State Assembly met in Houston. A family had to have at least two Prime-caliber magic users in three generations to be considered a House and each House had a single seat. Technically the Assembly had no power within the U.S. government, but, practically, when the Houses spoke in one collective voice, both Congress and the White House listened.

“A family name has to be good for something, right?” Cornelius smiled. It never reached his eyes. They stayed bitter and haunted. “As a Significant and a scion of a House, I’m free to attend the Assembly and bring a companion of my choice. I intend to be an active participant in this investigation, Ms. Baylor.”

“Call me Nevada,” I told him. “Good. Then we’ll meet here tomorrow at seven.”

Cornelius and Matilda left, the hellhound Bunny in tow. I sat at my desk for a few moments, long enough to shoot a quick email to Bern with everyone’s names and a brief description of what happened, then took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. Breaking this to my family would be hard. My mother might disown me.

I fished the dollar-sign bride out of the trash, smoothed her out the best I could, and stuck her and the ME report into a manila folder. This job would affect the entire family. They had the right to know the risk. Besides, experience proved that keeping secrets when you were a Baylor didn’t work. Sooner or later all your hidden schemes exploded into the light, and then there was hell to pay and hurt feelings.