Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(35)

“Of course.” Cornelius fiddled with the phone. “Here it is.”

He put the phone on speaker. Ring . . . Ring . . . “You have reached the Margolis . . .”

I waited until the tone. “This message is for Penelope Baylor. Please call me immediately.” I left my new phone number and Cornelius hung up.

The traffic funneled into a single lane. We crawled past the left lane blocked off with cones and white pickup trucks.

“Of course there is construction,” I said. My voice was so calm, it was almost robotic.

“Different cities are famous for different things,” Cornelius said. “San Antonio is known for the River Walk and the Alamo. Austin is famous or infamous for 6th Street with its bars and shootings. We have construction and floods.”

The lane narrowed, hemmed in by concrete barriers on the right. I steered Rhino with laser precision, caught between the nonexistent shoulder and the row of traffic cones.

“Catalina,” Cornelius said quietly. “Your hands have gone white.”

“Thank you.” I eased my grip on the wheel.

“You are exceptionally calm,” he observed.

“Alessandro got into a car with a man who is supposedly working for Lenora Jordan but could’ve been an illusion mage, because the Harris DA evidently has an emergency with strikingly convenient timing. Leon was supposed to shadow the FBI, but I didn’t see any sign of him at the Cabera mansion. My mother is outside of the Compound, and none of them are answering their phones. The Compound is under attack. I can’t afford anything but calm right now.”

“They separated us and are hitting us one by one?” Cornelius guessed.

“That’s how I would do it.”

“I’ll try Alessandro and Leon again.” He tapped the phone.

We passed Richmond Avenue.

“No response,” Cornelius reported.

If I thought about it for too long, I’d panic.

The phone lit up. An incoming call. “Accept!”

“Catalina?” Mom asked.

Finally. “Where are you?”

“I am in an office in Dr. Amandi’s lab.” Her voice was eerily calm. My mother had gone into that serene place she always visited just before she lined up a shot through her scope.

“Where are your guards?”

“Tyler called from the airport. His car didn’t show up.”

Tyler was Pete’s son.

“I sent the guys to pick him up. That was an hour ago. They’re not answering their phones and I can’t reach the house. My phone isn’t working. I am using their landline. There is an armored vehicle in the parking lot. They’ve been sitting there for ten minutes, and nobody has gotten out.”

They’d found her.

“It’s Xavier.” Xavier wouldn’t have passed up a chance to catch my mother. He would come in person and probably not alone. “Arkan is attacking us. Our phones are compromised.”

“Ah. That explains things.”

My voice was flat and calm. “Xavier will wait for you to come out, but he’s impatient. He will come into the lab to get you.”

“Staying put isn’t an option.”

“No.”

I crunched through our options. The Woman’s Hospital had a large campus, sprawling between Greenbriar and Fannin Street and cut off by Old Spanish Trail in the north. I was still at least fifteen minutes away. Even if she hid in the building, they would find her. And if I pulled into that parking lot, Xavier would hurl the nearest lamppost through my windshield. I had to get Mom and get out alive.

What was around the Woman’s Hospital? On the east side of Fannin, it was all medical buildings. On the west side, across Greenbriar, there was . . . Yes. That would work.

“Mom, can you cross to a different building without exiting into the parking lot?”

“Hold on.” I heard a door open. My mother said something. A male voice answered.

She came back on the line. “Yes.”

“I need you to get away from that building and cross Greenbriar to the Office of Records. Big building shaped like a quill. Go in there and tell them that I’m coming to set up an appointment and that you are waiting for me. Don’t leave the building no matter what happens. They won’t help you if you step one foot outside, but they will defend the building and they won’t allow anyone to take you out of there.”

The Office of Records kept the database of the Houses and magic users. It was a neutral institution, incorruptible and independent of all other powers in Texas, magic and civilian. It was stewarded by the Keeper of Records, whom I’d met only once and had hoped to never meet again. Nobody in their right mind would attack the Office of Records. Xavier wasn’t in his right mind, and if we were very lucky, he’d try.

Mom spoke to someone. “Okay. On my way.”

The call ended.

She would have to walk south through the medical complex and then cross Greenbriar out of the view of the parking lot, and then cross another large parking lot in front of the Office of Records. Her top speed was about five miles per hour. I wanted to step on the gas and knock the cars in front of me out of the way, so I could drive faster. Instead, I carefully steered Rhino out of the construction zone and veered through traffic, fighting for every second.