White Hot
Page 70
He pointed his index finger at the screen, winked, and pretended to shoot. The video stopped.
The world had gone red and for a second I couldn’t even see.
“She is four years old.” Catalina’s lips trembled with barely contained rage.
“Has Cornelius seen this?”
“No.”
“Talk to Bern and tell him to scrub that email out of Matilda’s email box and off the server. This was designed to make all of us lose it and do something rash.”
Cornelius was already not in a good place. This email could push him over the edge.
Catalina grabbed the tablet. “You kill him, Nevada. Kill him, or I will. He isn’t touching one hair on Matilda’s head.”
“I will,” I promised her.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed, and suitably armed, I climbed into the passenger seat of Rogan’s Range Rover. Melosa nodded at me from the back seat. Normally I’d hide my gun in a canvas bag or a purse. Today I didn’t bother. My Baby Desert Eagle rested in a hip holster. Its magazine held twelve rounds, .40 S&W, and I’d brought two spare magazines, in the interior pocket within the lining of my jacket.
We drove downtown in silence, Houston sliding past our windows under an overcast sky. Lenora Jordan’s new HQ was a far cry from the marble elegance of the old Justice Center. Rogan had leveled it while trying to save Houston. The new Justice Center had been raised by one of the larger Houses as a business high-rise and bought by the city of Houston three days before it was set to open.
The new Justice Center was built with polished sunset-red granite, its facade a complex pattern of rectangles and triangles of insulated tinted glass. When the sun caught it just right, the entire building glowed, its tint changing with the time of day and color of the sky. Sometimes it was fiery orange, sometimes almost purple, and sometimes red. It stabbed at the clouds, a sharply cornered, massive obelisk taking up the entire block between Travis and Capitol streets. A meaner, leaner, harder tower, a monument to Houston’s resolve, daring any enemies to take a shot at it. People called it the Spire. The name fit.
As Rogan slid the Range Rover into a parking space two blocks away, the Spire loomed above the city, and the overcast sky turned it a reddish purple, the color of a fresh bruise. A bad feeling came over me. I wished we could have brought more backup. Unfortunately, this part of the downtown was a no-escort zone by mutual agreement between the Houses. We’d brought Melosa, who could be viewed as our driver, but that was it.
Theoretically the restriction made the downtown safe. Practically, we had been attacked only a few blocks from the old Justice Center and the no-escort policy didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
“Good luck,” Melosa said.
Yeah. I hoped we wouldn’t need it.
We walked to the building without incident, I surrendered my firearm to security, then we crossed the Spire’s cavernous lobby—polished white marble floor and red granite columns rising to a dizzying height. We selected the right elevator and let it carry us to the twenty-third floor without incident. Lenora Jordan’s gatekeeper, a Native American woman about forty or so, gave us a long once-over and nodded toward the door. We stepped into her office and I almost did a double take.
Nothing had changed. Same massive bookcases, same leather visitor chairs, same deep red curtains. Even the massive desk of reclaimed wood looked the same. It wasn’t just like her old office. This was an exact duplicate of it, as if the collapse had never happened.
Lenora Jordan sat in her chair, typing on her computer. The first time I’d met her, I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Lenora was the hero of my adolescence. Incorruptible, powerful, confident, she bound criminals in magic chains and dragged them to justice. As Rogan once said, Law and Order were her gods and she prayed to them sincerely and often.
Maybe it was because this was the third time we’d spoken, or maybe too much had happened, but I couldn’t muster any hero worship. Instead I noted faint lines around her mouth and a touch of puffiness around her eyes. Her curly black hair was still perfect and the makeup enhancing her deep brown skin was still flawless, but fatigue smudged the perfection. The Harris County DA was working overtime.
“Yes?” she asked without raising her head.
Rogan took out his phone, flicked his finger across the screen to start the recording of Senator Garza’s death, and held it between Lenora’s eyes and her computer screen. She snapped the phone out of his hand. Recorded moments ticked away. Lenora’s gaze sharpened. She focused on the video like a bird of prey, a powerful eagle ready to strike.
The video ended.
“Do you want to be made aware of this?” Rogan said.
Lenora raised her head. Fury drowned her eyes. All of the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Oh wow.
“I’m aware of it now,” she snapped.
Rogan placed a USB drive on her desk. Lenora took it and placed it into her desk drawer.
“How did you get this video?”
“Before his death, Gabriel Baranovsky indicated to Ms. Baylor that Elena de Trevino, an employee of House Forsberg, shared this recording with him. He and Elena were lovers. He intended to make the video public and shared it with Ms. Baylor.”
Looking at Rogan, I could’ve never guessed he’d just lied.
“That’s a nice lie.” Lenora pinned me with her stare. “What really happened?”
“Baranovsky admitted to having the video but he was assassinated before we could get to it,” I said. “So we used a covert team of ferrets to break into the house and retrieve it from his computer.”
Lenora stared at me. I felt two inches tall.
“Ferrets?”
“Yes.”
“To be accurate, two ferrets and one ferret-badger,” Rogan said.
She closed her eyes and slowly opened them. I wondered if she was counting in her head, trying to calm down.
Rogan opened the black zip-up folder he was carrying and put a piece of paper in front of Lenora. “This is a copy of the police report indicating that four attorneys of House Forsberg were killed in Hotel Sha Sha on December 13. Among them were Elena de Trevino and Nari Harrison, wife of Cornelius Harrison, the third scion of House Harrison.”
Another piece of paper.
“This is a mutual cooperation agreement between House Rogan and House Harrison in an effort to discover the identity of the parties responsible for the death of Nari Harrison.”
The papers just kept coming.
“This is a copy of a police report indicating evidence of psychrokinetic activity at the scene of Nari Harrison’s and Elena de Trevino’s murders.
“This is a sworn statement from me, Connor Rogan, head of House Rogan, describing the evidence in my possession that indicates an egocissor and a psychrokinetic combined efforts to bring about said murders. This is a sworn statement from Abraham Levin, my employee and chief of surveillance, in support of my assessment.”
I had no idea Bug’s real name was Abraham Levin.
“This is an incident report and sworn statements from Troy Linman, an employee of my House, and Nevada Baylor, a contractor hired by House Harrison to pursue an inquiry into the death of Nari Harrison. These statements describe an unprovoked attack by the third scion of House Howling, David Howling, with the purpose of killing Mr. Linman and Ms. Baylor.
The world had gone red and for a second I couldn’t even see.
“She is four years old.” Catalina’s lips trembled with barely contained rage.
“Has Cornelius seen this?”
“No.”
“Talk to Bern and tell him to scrub that email out of Matilda’s email box and off the server. This was designed to make all of us lose it and do something rash.”
Cornelius was already not in a good place. This email could push him over the edge.
Catalina grabbed the tablet. “You kill him, Nevada. Kill him, or I will. He isn’t touching one hair on Matilda’s head.”
“I will,” I promised her.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed, and suitably armed, I climbed into the passenger seat of Rogan’s Range Rover. Melosa nodded at me from the back seat. Normally I’d hide my gun in a canvas bag or a purse. Today I didn’t bother. My Baby Desert Eagle rested in a hip holster. Its magazine held twelve rounds, .40 S&W, and I’d brought two spare magazines, in the interior pocket within the lining of my jacket.
We drove downtown in silence, Houston sliding past our windows under an overcast sky. Lenora Jordan’s new HQ was a far cry from the marble elegance of the old Justice Center. Rogan had leveled it while trying to save Houston. The new Justice Center had been raised by one of the larger Houses as a business high-rise and bought by the city of Houston three days before it was set to open.
The new Justice Center was built with polished sunset-red granite, its facade a complex pattern of rectangles and triangles of insulated tinted glass. When the sun caught it just right, the entire building glowed, its tint changing with the time of day and color of the sky. Sometimes it was fiery orange, sometimes almost purple, and sometimes red. It stabbed at the clouds, a sharply cornered, massive obelisk taking up the entire block between Travis and Capitol streets. A meaner, leaner, harder tower, a monument to Houston’s resolve, daring any enemies to take a shot at it. People called it the Spire. The name fit.
As Rogan slid the Range Rover into a parking space two blocks away, the Spire loomed above the city, and the overcast sky turned it a reddish purple, the color of a fresh bruise. A bad feeling came over me. I wished we could have brought more backup. Unfortunately, this part of the downtown was a no-escort zone by mutual agreement between the Houses. We’d brought Melosa, who could be viewed as our driver, but that was it.
Theoretically the restriction made the downtown safe. Practically, we had been attacked only a few blocks from the old Justice Center and the no-escort policy didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
“Good luck,” Melosa said.
Yeah. I hoped we wouldn’t need it.
We walked to the building without incident, I surrendered my firearm to security, then we crossed the Spire’s cavernous lobby—polished white marble floor and red granite columns rising to a dizzying height. We selected the right elevator and let it carry us to the twenty-third floor without incident. Lenora Jordan’s gatekeeper, a Native American woman about forty or so, gave us a long once-over and nodded toward the door. We stepped into her office and I almost did a double take.
Nothing had changed. Same massive bookcases, same leather visitor chairs, same deep red curtains. Even the massive desk of reclaimed wood looked the same. It wasn’t just like her old office. This was an exact duplicate of it, as if the collapse had never happened.
Lenora Jordan sat in her chair, typing on her computer. The first time I’d met her, I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Lenora was the hero of my adolescence. Incorruptible, powerful, confident, she bound criminals in magic chains and dragged them to justice. As Rogan once said, Law and Order were her gods and she prayed to them sincerely and often.
Maybe it was because this was the third time we’d spoken, or maybe too much had happened, but I couldn’t muster any hero worship. Instead I noted faint lines around her mouth and a touch of puffiness around her eyes. Her curly black hair was still perfect and the makeup enhancing her deep brown skin was still flawless, but fatigue smudged the perfection. The Harris County DA was working overtime.
“Yes?” she asked without raising her head.
Rogan took out his phone, flicked his finger across the screen to start the recording of Senator Garza’s death, and held it between Lenora’s eyes and her computer screen. She snapped the phone out of his hand. Recorded moments ticked away. Lenora’s gaze sharpened. She focused on the video like a bird of prey, a powerful eagle ready to strike.
The video ended.
“Do you want to be made aware of this?” Rogan said.
Lenora raised her head. Fury drowned her eyes. All of the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Oh wow.
“I’m aware of it now,” she snapped.
Rogan placed a USB drive on her desk. Lenora took it and placed it into her desk drawer.
“How did you get this video?”
“Before his death, Gabriel Baranovsky indicated to Ms. Baylor that Elena de Trevino, an employee of House Forsberg, shared this recording with him. He and Elena were lovers. He intended to make the video public and shared it with Ms. Baylor.”
Looking at Rogan, I could’ve never guessed he’d just lied.
“That’s a nice lie.” Lenora pinned me with her stare. “What really happened?”
“Baranovsky admitted to having the video but he was assassinated before we could get to it,” I said. “So we used a covert team of ferrets to break into the house and retrieve it from his computer.”
Lenora stared at me. I felt two inches tall.
“Ferrets?”
“Yes.”
“To be accurate, two ferrets and one ferret-badger,” Rogan said.
She closed her eyes and slowly opened them. I wondered if she was counting in her head, trying to calm down.
Rogan opened the black zip-up folder he was carrying and put a piece of paper in front of Lenora. “This is a copy of the police report indicating that four attorneys of House Forsberg were killed in Hotel Sha Sha on December 13. Among them were Elena de Trevino and Nari Harrison, wife of Cornelius Harrison, the third scion of House Harrison.”
Another piece of paper.
“This is a mutual cooperation agreement between House Rogan and House Harrison in an effort to discover the identity of the parties responsible for the death of Nari Harrison.”
The papers just kept coming.
“This is a copy of a police report indicating evidence of psychrokinetic activity at the scene of Nari Harrison’s and Elena de Trevino’s murders.
“This is a sworn statement from me, Connor Rogan, head of House Rogan, describing the evidence in my possession that indicates an egocissor and a psychrokinetic combined efforts to bring about said murders. This is a sworn statement from Abraham Levin, my employee and chief of surveillance, in support of my assessment.”
I had no idea Bug’s real name was Abraham Levin.
“This is an incident report and sworn statements from Troy Linman, an employee of my House, and Nevada Baylor, a contractor hired by House Harrison to pursue an inquiry into the death of Nari Harrison. These statements describe an unprovoked attack by the third scion of House Howling, David Howling, with the purpose of killing Mr. Linman and Ms. Baylor.
