Page 61 of Cold Curses

“The thing is,” Connor said, “we don’t think it was officialconstruction work. We think someone was looking for, basically, magical treasure.”

“Really?” she asked, and sounded skeptical.

“Really. So, we need to find the people who did it, because there may be”—he leaned forward a little— “supernatural repercussions.”

I held up a hand. “We’d better not get into the confidential details,” I said, playing the bad cop.

Connor rolled his eyes. “Sometimes you have to do what’s right, even if it’s not to the letter of the law. Anyway, if you could try again to remember, that could be a big help.”

The human sighed, pushed away her screen, and closed her eyes. She chewed on her lip for a moment; then her eyes popped open. “It was a guy.”

“Oh, yeah?” Connor asked. “What kind of guy? Tall? Short? Light skin? Dark?”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.” She gestured to a shelf of candy beside the door. “I was stocking candy when he came in. I didn’t really look at him, just saw the fabric and thought it was crazy bright. Oh!” she added animatedly. “It was a vest thing.”

I thought of our female upstart. “You’re sure it was a male?”

Her mouth made an O shape. “Well, I assumed it was a guy. But I didn’t see his face, I guess. Or her face.”

“But he definitely wore a reflective vest?” Connor asked, and she nodded.

“Absolutely.”

“What about surveillance cameras?” I asked.

“We don’t have any.”

“Was your dad working that night?” I asked.

“Wasn’t night,” she said. “It was daytime. I go to Northwestern, and my class got canceled, so I was here.”

That only eliminated vampires. While other sups lived nocturnally, vamps were the only ones physically injured by going into the sun.

“Anything else you can think of?” I asked.

She shook her head.

I nodded. “Okay. Thanks for your time. If you do think of anything, you can call the Ombudsman’s office.”

“Okay, sure.” There was movement behind the door, and she settled back into her pose of boredom. “You should go. Dad hates loiterers.”

So we rang our way outside again.

* * *

“My sword and my face don’t match,” I said, sipping my can of coffee as we walked back to the park. Not as good as actual Leo’s, but handy in a crunch. “What do you think that means?”

“That you’re unique,” Connor said, which cleared nothing up.

“How did you think to play up the magic angle?” I asked.

He laughed. “You didn’t see? She was reading one of those sexy fairy stories.”

I stopped, looked at him. “Sexy fairy stories?”

“Supernatural romance or whatever. Not my bag. But Dan reads them.”

Of course he did. Romance was Dan’sraison d’être.