“Sure. Does this happen a lot?”

“Is three or four times a week a lot?”

“Are you serious?”

She nodded. “Now, I have to admit, most aren’t middle-aged admirers, just folks who want me to contact someone for them. I don’t do private consultations, but people don’t believe me. They think they just aren’t offering enough money. There was this woman once, a friend of Nancy Reagan’s. You remember Nancy…or are you too young for that?”

“She had a thing for psychics.” I’d read this somewhere, having been in preschool during the Reagan administration, but I doubted Jaime would appreciate a reminder of our age difference.

“Well, Nancy had this friend—Is this where we’re parked?”

“Next lot.”

“Jesus, my memory lately…I swear, the holes are getting bigger.”

We walked into the parking lot. Though it was midday, tall buildings surrounded the tiny strip of land, wrapping it in shadow.

“What? Buggers too cheap for hydro?” Jaime said, squinting into the half-filled lot. “Hey, our city has only the second-highest crime rate in the nation. When we hit number one, we’ll celebrate by springing for security lights.”

“I’d cast a light spell,” I murmured. “But I hear footsteps.”

As Jaime shoulder-checked, a car door slammed. We both jumped.

“I didn’t see a car turn in here, did you?” I said.

She shook her head. I glanced around, but saw no one.

“Let’s just—” Jaime began.

The slam of a second door cut her off. She followed the noise and swore under her breath.

“Walk fast and don’t look,” she whispered. “Two very big guys bearing down fast.”

“How big?”

“Huge.”

I stopped and turned around. “Hey, Troy.”

Troy lifted his sunglasses onto his head. “Hey, Paige. Morris, this is Paige.”

The temp bodyguard was the same one who’d been at the courthouse yesterday. He was several inches shorter than Troy, broader in the shoulders, and black, which ruined the whole bookend-bodyguard effect. Morris did, however, share Griffin’s stone-faced demeanor, responding to the introduction with a nod so abrupt I thought it might be a hiccup.

Across the lot, our middle-aged stalker headed for a Mercedes. Troy lifted a hand in greeting. The man waved back, confirming what I’d only just suspected, that he was a Cabal employee sent to follow not Jaime, but me.

I completed the introductions by identifying Jaime. Troy smiled and shook her hand.

“The celebrity necro,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jaime said, surreptitiously tucking in the back of her T-shirt. “So I’m guessing you guys are Cabal security?”

“Benicio’s bodyguards,” I said.“And I’m guessing the boss is in the SUV waiting for me.”

“Yeah, different city, same plan. I told you, he likes routine.”

“Benicio Cortez? Here?” Jaime glanced at the Cadillac SUV. “Oh, shit.”

“It’s more like ‘aww, shit,’” I said. “Now comes the boring part. I have to send Troy back to say I want Benicio to come here, then he’ll insist I come there, and poor Troy will get his daily dose of jogging running between us.”

Troy grinned. “True, but the good part is that it’s definitely not routine. Most times, when I say Mr. Cortez wants to speak to someone, they trip over me running to get to him.”

“It’s getting late, so let me make this easy on you. Wait here and I’ll see what he wants.”

I walked to the SUV, tapped the rear window, and motioned for the driver to lower it. Instead, Benicio opened the door.

“Come around the other side and get in please, Paige.”

“No, thanks.” I held the door open and stepped into the gap. “Let me guess: The clinic called you when I showed up, then you had one of your security guys hang around outside and follow me when I left.”

“I wanted to speak—”

“I’m not done. My point was that you knew the moment you got that call that Lucas wasn’t with me, and he’d already told you he wasn’t happy about your approaching me in Portland. So now, when he’s probably never been more pissed off with you, you decide this is a good time to follow me into an empty parking lot, corner me, and strong-arm me into talking to you.”

“I would like to speak—”

“Am I talking to myself? Did you hear anything I just said? No, forget it. You go ahead and talk, and then Lucas will find out about it, and you can save yourself one place setting at Christmas dinner for the next umpteen years.” I tried to stop there, but couldn’t help adding, “Do you have any idea how upset he is right now?”

“Having my phone calls automatically blocked was a good clue. I want to explain myself, but I can’t do that if he won’t speak to me. So I hoped perhaps I could speak to you instead.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be your go-between.”

“I’m not asking for that. What I’m saying is that I recognize you’re a full partner in Lucas’s life and in this investigation, and I’m speaking to you as such. You’re an intelligent young—”

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t insult me and don’t play me. You have something to say? Fine. But you’ll say it to both of us. You’ll follow me back to the hotel and I’ll take you to Lucas. We’ll tell him you met up with us outside the clinic and, seeing he wasn’t with me, you asked if you could speak to us both at the hotel.”