Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)(13)

I scrolled through the file. Pierce had an incentive trust fund. He could draw money only while he was in college pursuing a master’s degree or after obtaining it. According to the file, the family had cut him off cold turkey. A note marked ASM—probably Augustine Something Montgomery—read, Confirmed with the family. Stressed importance of financial incentive as means of bringing him in.

I called Bern. “Hey, have you pulled Pierce’s record?”

“Does ice float?” Bern’s voice had a measured cadence to it, which usually meant he was doing about six other things on the computer screens while talking.

“Who posted his bail?”

“One of his college buddies. Cornelius Maddox Harrison.”

Quite a name. Someone’s parents had ambitions.

“I’m emailing his home address now,” Bern said. “You can catch him at the house. According to his tax return, he’s a stay-at-home dad.”

“Thanks. I’ll swing by his house now.”

“Wait,” Bern said, his voice suddenly flat.

Uh-oh.

“Can you come by the house instead? I need to show you something.”

“This doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t good,” Bern said.

How could it possibly get any worse?

I found Bern in the Hut of Evil, otherwise known as our computer room. Soundproof and equipped with its own air-conditioning unit, the room occupied the space at the north of the warehouse, directly behind the offices. It was raised five feet off the floor, like a house on stilts, because Bern found it convenient to mess with the wiring underneath it. We used to joke that if the warehouse got flooded, we’d all race to the Hut of Evil to stay dry. From the outside, it looked like a separate tiny house within the larger space of the warehouse, complete with a ten-step stairway leading to it. At first we called it the House of Evil, but over the years it somehow became the Hut of Evil.

I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Bern called.

I went inside and shut the door. The air here was at least five degrees cooler. Bern sat ensconced among four different monitors on swiveling mounts. Three computer towers blinked with red, white, and green lights. Across from him, Leon’s station, a smaller desk with a triple monitor, stood empty. He and the girls were in school.

Bern turned to me, his handsome face tinted with blue by the glow of the largest monitor. There was always something a little comical about seeing his big frame next to the computer screens. The keyboards and monitors seemed too small for him.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“While I was talking to you, I ran the background check on the kid implicated in the arson.”

“Gavin Waller.”

Bern nodded. “I pulled his lineage.”

In our world, lineage was everything. The magical families owned corporations, and most major cities were divided into family territories. Some families influenced only a few city blocks, others controlled entire neighborhoods. Your last name and your family tree could open doors or get you killed. If the family became prominent enough, it was considered a house. House Montgomery. House Pierce.

“Gavin’s father is Thomas Waller. His mother is Kelly Waller. Neither is magically significant.” Bern paused.

I waited. Bern stored information in logical chains. When asked something, he would start at the beginning of the chain and pull it all out link by link until the relevant information finally emerged. If the house were on fire, Bern would begin by describing how he went to get the box of matches to light the candle that started it. Trying to hurry this process up wasn’t only futile, it was counterproductive. Interruptions derailed Bern. He would get back on track in his methodical way, and he couldn’t understand why you jumped up and down and foamed at the mouth in sheer frustration while he took his time doing it.

“Kelly Waller’s maiden name was Lancey.”

Mhm.

“Her father was William Lancey.”

Mhm.

“Her mother was Carolina Rogan.”

Mhm. Wait, what? “Rogan? As in House Rogan?”

Bern nodded. “Mad Rogan is Kelly Waller’s cousin. That makes him Gavin’s first cousin once removed.”

My legs decided that this would be a fine time to go on strike. I landed in a chair.

The United States hadn’t officially declared war in the last seventy years. Instead it got itself involved in armed conflicts, peacekeeping actions, and armed interventions, which, for all intents and purposes, were wars without having a scary label attached to them: Europe, the Middle East, and then the so-called South American Wars, which broke out when the discovery of magically potent mineral deposits in Belize destabilized the neighboring region. Mexico, already a magical powerhouse, invaded tiny Belize. Honduras, Nicaragua, and Brazil formed a coalition to oppose the invasion. Both the United States and the United Native Tribes joined the anti-Mexican coalition, even though the territories of the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana were nowhere near the border and even though UNT usually went against the USA in just about every policy decision. Everyone paid lip service to the brave soldiers of Belize, but the true reason was clear: nobody wanted Mexico, the magical juggernaut, to be more powerful than it already was.

The war was terrible. In the end Mexico relinquished its hold on Belize, but the ripples of that invasion spread through South America. Armed conflicts flared and died down across half a dozen nations. Mad Rogan made his name in those conflicts. He was off the charts even for the Primes. Nobody knew exactly what he was capable of, but everyone knew the name. Mad Rogan. The Butcher of Merida. Huracan.