“So, what you’re telling me,” the Elkman said, tenting his fingers, “is that you lost all that remained of Benny and burned down the warehouse that was your only lead to find his killer?”

“I think you’re picking and choosing my words. I didn’t burn down that warehouse. Some psycho Firestarter did, and it was the same psycho that nearly blew me up and killed two dozen of Benny’s men in Los Angeles. What I’m saying is that whoever killed Benny is working with the demon that set me up. They’re connected.”

“Hrm.” The Elkman leaned back. “It seems like a bit of a leap.”

I pushed out my chair and stood up. As I did, several guns locked on me from around the restaurant. “Are you kidding me? It’s the same chick both times!”

The Elkman furrowed his brow. “Understood, but if I’m not mistaken, you also worked for those demons, didn’t you? I mean, didn’t they hire you to retrieve the dagger?”

“Well yes, but—”

“And you also worked for us. By your logic, you are working to betray us, too. Is that right?”

“Well, no.” I had to admit his logic made some sense. Even the Firestarter had said she was working both sides of the aisle. “But—I see your point, I guess, I just don’t like it.”

“And isn’t it just as likely that this ‘Firestarter,’ as you call her, simply has contracts with two different organizations, just as you did?”

“You’re twisting my words again.”

He sighed. “This is the problem with people like you.” He straightened his red tie, which was at most a centimeter off dead center. “You follow your gut. You shoot from the hip.” The Elkman tapped his temple. “I think with my head, and I try not to go off half-cocked. That’s why I’m leading this organization, and you have a dozen guns trained on you.” His eyes narrowed as a waiter placed a salad in front of him then skittered off, away from the fray. “Now, unless you have anything else, I will ask you to leave. You’re ruining a perfectly good lunch.”

I did have more. I had the photo I’d taken from the warehouse. But the Elkman made a great point. He was in charge. He had means, motive, and opportunity to put a hit on Benny, and he had just become suspect number one.

If it was true, I certainly didn’t want to share that I was onto him until I had more data to support my claim. I decided to cut my losses and leave. He had all the power at the moment, and power was as good a motive for murder as anything. Now, I just had to prove it.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I left Lily in Seattle and went back to Phil’s house in Los Angeles. Candy was curled up in Phil’s bed as he typed away with one hand while stroking her hair with the other, and Mom was asleep on the couch. Phil turned to me when I entered his room.

“That is surprisingly sweet,” I said, sitting down on the bed next to his desk.

“Candy is surprisingly sweet, it turns out, and incredibly helpful. She has the dexterity of a Tyibion Mytril, and that is a great compliment where I am from.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “You know she’s probably playing you.”

“I calculate that at a fourteen percent likelihood, down from forty-three percent yesterday. By tomorrow it will be statistically insignificant.”

“And what if your calculations are off?”

He shrugged. “That is the problem with predicting the future. There are just too many variables to isolate any single one. Eventually, you can use the modeling, but you must also have something else.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Trust.”

“Never been a strong suit of mine.”

“No, and I appreciate having earned it,” Phil said. “Now, I assume you have not come to discuss the possibility of Candace being a black widow. What do you need?”

My lip twitched at his question. “Do I really just come here when I need something?”

“You would like me to say that you do not, and yet I cannot say that, which means I should not say anything, though you can likely infer the truth from my silence.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I would like to believe you, but this interaction happens often enough and is never followed by any action to correct it, so you have to forgive me for not believing you.”

“That’s a fair hit. I’m a bad friend.”

“You are not a bad friend. Otherwise, I would have bad taste in friends. We simply have a specific kind of friendship, and I prefer it to not seeing you at all. Besides, I do very much love when you present me with a puzzle to solve, which is what I assume you have come to me with.”

I nodded, pulling the picture out of my coat. “I took this from a warehouse before it burned down. I need to know who the woman is.”

He looked at it. “She looks like a standard human female to me. Her blonde hair is somewhat unique, in that only about three percent of women in the world have blonde hair. Accounting for the same ratio in Seattle, a city of roughly 500,000 people, that would mean there are 7,500 women with naturally blonde hair in Seattle.” He paused. “Though that is significantly lower than the number of women that dye their hair blond. Upwards of sixty percent of women color their hair.” He handed the image back to me. “I appreciate that you think I can work miracles, but I cannot.”

“But—you’re Phil. Can’t you just hack into something and pull down information?”

“Only if that information is available and connected to the internet. Unfortunately, at present, there is no repository of photographs of every human on the planet. Soon, I hope, but not today, which limits my analysis in this matter.”

“So, you’re saying I need to do boots on the groundwork, then?” I said. “I thought you were magic.”

“No, but you are. If only there were a spell to track a human by face alone.” Phil frowned. “But wouldn’t it be easier to just wait at the location for the owner to show up or follow the police as they conduct their investigation?”

“Yes. Yes, it would.” I smiled. “Phil, you are a genius.”