Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

Damn straight. I can pull in the army if I need them, but I’d
     better really, deeply need them. How many senior agents do you really, deeply need?”
    Bergman went silent, her eyes unfocused. She was taking time to come up with a real
     number. Lily appreciated that. “Three seniors, three juniors,” she said at last. “I
     can put the three seniors to work right away, and the juniors can handle some of the
     grunt work.”
    “How fast do you need them?” Lily glanced at her watch. It was after ten in D.C. “I
     don’t want to wake Ida up if I don’t have to.” Lily could make the calls herself,
     but in a nonemergency situation it was better to let Ruben’s secretary handle things.
     She’d pull in agents in a way that didn’t disrupt their current workload too badly.
    Bergman smiled slowly. “How about by noon tomorrow?”
    “Works.” Lily made a few notes, talking as she wrote. “While you handle the heavy
     load, I’m going to be coming at this from another angle—the prototype. If we knew
     who wanted it so damn bad and why, we’d have a better ideawho the players are.” She looked up. “If no one here’s going to miss their kid’s birthday
     or an anniversary or something, I’d like to order in some food and bat this around
     while we eat.”
    That’s what they’d done. Drummond had reverted to his misty, untalking shape for most
     of the session, though he had formed up enough to comment now and then. They were
     useful comments, so Lily had passed them on. And maybe no one came up with any breakthrough
     ideas, but brainstorming got them farther along. And more invested. It put them on
     her team. Lily had felt satisfied as she rode down to the ground floor.
    Drummond joined her as she stepped out of the elevator in his fully formed version,
     his usual scowl in place. “What you did—that was creepy as hell.”
    Lily glanced around. The lobby was empty except for the security guard, but her back
     was to him as she walked away, and he was plugged into his iPod, listening to something
     with lots of bass. That made for lousy security, but came in handy at the moment.
     If she whispered…“A ghost is telling me something’s creepy?”
    “You yelled right in my mind!”
    “That’s how mindspeech is supposed to work.” Lily felt a bit smug. Mostly she couldn’t
     make the mindspeech thing work. She’d been practicing for months now with Sam, but
     her ability remained so erratic as to be useless. Maybe this was a breakthrough?
Can you hear me now?
    He winced. “Don’t do that.”
    Get used to it. I don’t want people to wonder why I keep talking to myself.
    He sighed. “I can see that. I handled it wrong up there, but I was so…why did you
     hand it off to Bergman? I could have helped. I’m supposed to help, dammit.”
    The lobby had revolving glass doors. She could see Scott waiting right out front,
     as arranged. She glanced at Drummond and shoved on the glass.
Because she’s good, and this frees me up to do what I’m good at. Unless you know something
     against her
, she added as she stepped outinto a chilly San Francisco night. Maybe Drummond had worked with Bergman and had
     some reason to object. They were roughly the same age. The age he’d been when he died,
     anyway.
    “No,” he said grudgingly. “Bergman’s competent. But you don’t get anywhere by handing
     the juicy cases off to someone else.”
    “Depends on where you want to go, doesn’t it?” Whoops—she’d forgotten and spoken out
     loud. She glanced over her shoulder—no one nearby, so maybe no one noticed.
    Not even Drummond. He’d stopped dead and was staring at the car with loathing. “I
hate
it when you go in the car,” he’d said—and winked out.
    He hadn’t come back when she called him. Lily was beginning to understand why responsible
     mediums rolled their eyes when asked about getting supernatural aid from the dead.
     Ghosts—coherent or not—just weren’t much help.
    She didn’t see him at the hotel, either. Marcus and Steve were on duty in the hall
     when Lily approached the suite trailing her own contingent of guards. She greeted
     them absently, used the key card, and opened the door.
    Joe sailed down the short entry hall to land on his back with a grunt, right at her
     feet.

TWENTY-SIX

    L ILY’S gun was in her hand before she even thought about it. Joe grinned up at her. “Whoops.
     No alarm needed. Rule’s been showing me a few tricks.”
    Joe was wearing