Inked

national.”
    “Has Cullen met him?”
    “Not precisely met, no. If you want to know if Friar has a Gift, Cullen couldn’t read him.”
    “What?” Her head jerked to look at him. “What does that mean?”
    “Apparently Friar has some sort of natural shield. Cullen says that may indicate a blocked Gift of the psychic sort—telepathy, empathy, that sort of thing. There was something unusual about Friar’s shield, something that puzzled Cullen. He wasn’t able to explain what that was.”
    She frowned, considering. “I need to shake the man’s hand. According to his file, his wife died eight years ago. He’s never remarried. He likes women?”
    “He likes them compliant and well-endowed, from what I’ve seen. I believe sex is his weakness.”
    “What do you mean? Shit. Hold on a minute.”
    Her phone was chiming. It was the ringtone she’d assigned to Martin Croft, who was running the Unit with Ruben gone. She tapped the screen to accept the call. “Yu here.”
    “Yes, I am. And you’ve got to stop answering your phone that way. It brings out the worst in me.” Croft’s voice was smooth, but the humor seemed strained. “Have you listened to the news this afternoon?”
    “No. Kind of busy here.” Ah, there it was—a small gravel road, well graded, snaking off to the left. Opposite it was a small house with the porch light on. Lupe Valdez’s place, Lily thought, from what the woman had said at the end of that interview. Rule turned onto the gravel road. In the beam of his headlights, she could see that there was a gate across the road, but it had been left open.
    Croft wanted an update on her investigation. She complied, wondering about the connection between the news and Hilliard’s death. When she’d finished, Croft said, “So there is reason to suspect magic was involved, even if gado wasn’t. That the tattoo was some kind of spell.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking. I’m waiting to hear from Arjenie in research, see if the design is on record as being spell-based.”
    “We’ll need that, since your personal ability doesn’t give us admissible evidence. Be cautious in interviewing Friar. He’d like to take a bite out of us.”
    Then he told her why he’d called. It wasn’t good news.
    Rule spoke as soon as she’d disconnected. “Two days isn’t much time.”
    “No.” She drummed her fingers on her phone’s case, unsurprised that he’d heard both sides of the conversation. He usually did.
    Croft had told her that another Unit agent, a precog, had played a hunch that hadn’t worked out. That happened; precognition was probably the least consistent Gift. Unfortunately, she’d climbed out on a limb backing her hunch, using her authority to override the local cops in a ham-handed way. As a result, the real culprit had fled the country; the man she’d arrested had had a heart attack in jail; and the press was after blood. Croft was preparing for some congressional critters to use the incident to try to cut back the Unit’s authority.
    So he’d given her two days for her investigation. Two days to find concrete evidence that magic was involved in Hilliard’s death, making this a federal crime. With luck, Arjenie’s research would provide that evidence.
    But luck was a fickle bitch. Lily didn’t like to count on it.
    Rule eased the car to a stop. They hadn’t quite reached their destination, but it lay directly ahead. Looked like Friar went for what Lily called millionaire rustic: two stories of wood and glass; an enormous, staggered veranda; three gables; and steeply pitched roof sections to slough off the snow that so seldom arrived. The exterior was professionally lit and landscaped. The gravel road made a wide curve in front of the house before heading to the back, where presumably there was a garage.
    An elderly, mud-spattered Bronco was parked directly out front. It didn’t look like a rich man’s car, not even as an off-the-road toy. “Help usually parks out of sight. You think Friar has company?”
    “Friar has a live-in housekeeper who parks in the five-bay garage out back. That isn’t her car, or one of his. You still want me to come in? My presence in the investigation may give him ammunition.”
    She glanced at him. Sounded like he was keeping pretty careful track of Robert Friar. Maybe she should ask to see his file on the man.
    But for now…did she play it safe, keep Rule in the car? Or give Friar something to bitch about, knowing he might bitch to the