He shrugged one shoulder. “I make a living.”
“Stalking?”
“Not much money in stalking.”
“So you’re what, a detective? An economic spy? Why would my father hire an economic spy?”
“The only reason your father had one of his men approach me was because I know the neighborhoods in North Portland and he knew you had done some Hounding jobs there.” He went back to staring out the window and drinking coffee.
He was lying. I could smell the sour tang of it on his skin. Plus, I knew my dad wouldn’t do anything, not in his personal life, not in his business life, not in any other part of his life, so haphazardly. He didn’t even choose his socks so casually.
Any sane woman would have cut her losses and called it a day. But it intrigued me that he would tell such an obvious lie, and then look away like he was sort of sorry when he did it. He didn’t strike me as a stupid man. As a matter of fact, I was sure the harmless-tramp bit was a ruse. He had to know I was familiar with my father’s fastidious attention to detail in all matters of business. So why lie?
“How many years have you been working for him?”
Zayvion did me the favor of eye contact. Then, quietly, “Four.”
That smelled closer to the truth. I nodded. “Just me?”
He shook his head.
“Gonna tell me who else you tailed?”
He took a drink of coffee. “Buy you dessert?”
Back to avoidance mode. “How sweet. Tell me about the hit on Boy.”
“What makes you think I know anything about Boy? You Hounded the hit. You tell me.” Those eyes were all brown and fool’s gold, and my stomach flipped.
Sweet loves, he was good-looking.
It would be so easy to put some Influence behind my questions and pry the truth out of him. Well, except I hurt, and was fatigued from using magic. I’d probably blow a vein if I tried to use any kind of magic, even the easy stuff that was most natural for me.
I rubbed my hand over my lips, which were still swollen.
“Listen,” I said, changing tactics. “I’m tired. I want to go home and get some sleep. I’m not going to be able to do that knowing that a five-year-old child is dying because my father decided to Offload magic on the poor kid. You’ve been following me around. If you’re any good at what you do, you know I think Mama is a decent human being. You know how I feel about Boy, and you probably even know exactly how I feel about my father and his business practices.”
“Everyone knows how you feel about your father and his business, Allie. Dropping out of college, publicly disowning any contact with him, then going into hiding for the last few years paints a pretty clear picture.”
Like I needed to be reminded of any of that. Still, it prickled. I just sat there, wondering how he could get under my skin so fast.
“So there’s no mystery about how much I hate my dad.” I smiled and told myself he didn’t know, could never know, what it was like growing up under my father’s Influence. There was a reason my mother changed her name and lived overseas, and hadn’t ever tried to contact me. There was a reason he’d married and divorced four times since then. People in my father’s life were commodities to be consumed and discarded. And I, his only child, was tired of being recyclable goods.
“Since you just quit your job and no longer work for Beckstrom Enterprises, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t tell me what you know about the hit. Why they did it and why Boy was the target.”
He frowned and looked down at his hands.
“Zayvion,” I said, “I don’t want the kid to die. I’d like to think you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t want a little kid to die either.”
“You Hounded the hit,” he said. “Are you sure it was your father’s signature?”
“Yes.”
He looked back up and there was a fierceness in his eyes. “Do you think it could have been a forgery? Or someone else’s signature? Something magically forged?”
“I know my father’s mark intimately.” End of discussion.
Zayvion glanced back out the window again, and I wondered if he were watching for someone, or maybe if he thought he was being watched by someone. Economics, my ass. This man was either a PI or an undercover cop.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I have no idea why your father would Offload illegally. It seems like there would be too high a risk that he would be found out. He’s a careful man.”
That was an understatement.
“You know him better than I do.” He looked back at me. “Why would your father do such a thing?”
And hearing someone else ask it brought a dozen answers to my mind. Maybe he knew I’d been nice to Mama and wanted to hurt me through her. Maybe Mama was indebted to him and had agreed to let him do it. Maybe he thought hurting the kid would get me storming into his office after seven years of avoiding him.
Maybe he’d done it for no reason at all.
I wanted to take the easy way and just believe my father was thoughtless in his cruelty, but I knew that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t have put a hit on Boy without weighing the risks and deciding the odds were on his side. And there was no way it could have been a random mistake—he was not that sloppy.
But what did he have to gain from Boy dying?
I shook my head, frustrated. “Do you think I’d be sitting here having lunch with you if I knew the answer to that?”
Zayvion’s expression went carefully blank. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose you would.”
I rubbed at my eyes and regretted it because they started to water. My head was pounding.
“Sorry. Don’t take it personally. I wasn’t kidding about having no social life. I’m a little rusty on the finer points of polite conversation. But tell me this: you weren’t going to really help me, were you? Because you’re still working for my father, right?” It was a hunch, but I was pretty sure I was right.
“I told you I quit.”
“You told me you quit tailing me for money. Didn’t say you quit working for Beckstrom Enterprises.”
A little bit of sadness, or maybe guilt, seeped through the cracks of his calm expression. “No, I didn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.” I stood. It took me some time and effort to put my coat back on without grimacing, but I did it.
Zayvion didn’t help me, which was smart since I would have smacked him if he touched me with so much as a single pinky. I should have known better than to like him. When people spent too much time around my father, they tended to get infected with his rotten morals and scruples. Too bad Zayvion hadn’t gotten out when he had the chance.
“You should go see a doctor, Allie,” he said softly.
“Is that you or my father talking?”
He just shook his head.
“Good-bye, Zayvion Jones.” I zipped my coat. “Thanks for lunch.”
I walked between the tables and made it out to the sidewalk, into the smell of smoke, oil, and wet, dirty concrete. People on their way to or from lunch moved around me, and I tried to decide if I could sweet-talk a cabbie into a ride home. I had zero money on me, zero money in my bank account, and my crappy apartment was miles away in Old Town.
Lovely.
I stood there, sore, hating the rain, hating my father, hating Portland. But mostly hating that someone who was nearly a stranger to me could make me like him so much in so short a time.
One thing I was clear about—I was a good Hound. One of the best. I knew how to do my job. And no soft- talking, mint-fingered Zen economist was going to convince me that I was wrong about that hit. My dad was behind it.
“Taxi!” Zayvion called out.
I hadn’t even heard him come up beside me. That man was quiet when he wanted to be. “Don’t bother,” I
