Cold Burn of Magic(74)

I stayed where I was, scanning the sights and sounds of the Midway, just in case Blake had decided to follow his sister and was waiting in some shadow for me to walk by. But I didn’t see anything suspicious, so I headed toward the parking lot. Grant and Devon were probably getting impatient—

My phone rang. I thought about not answering it, but there was only one person who would be calling me. He’d want to know all the dirty details about tonight. So I pulled my phone out of my purse and answered it.

“Hey, kid.” Mo’s voice filled my ear. “So how was your first Family dinner?”

“Tense.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I can imagine. So fill me in.”

I told him a few things, including how Victor was pushing Claudia and the other Families for new protection taxes on the mortals.

“You saw Victor?” Mo asked in a sharp voice. “You were in the same room with him?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything, although I could hear him tap-tap-tapping his fingers on the counter through the phone, something he only did when he was worried. We never talked about it, but Mo knew exactly what Victor and Blake had done to my mom.

“You can tell me more about that later,” he said. “There’s another reason I’m calling. I finally found out who that accountant works for, the one whose guards were here at the pawnshop when Devon was attacked.”

He paused, rather dramatically. Even though he couldn’t see me, I still rolled my eyes.

“And that would be . . .”

“The Sinclairs. The accountant works for the Sinclair Family.”

I frowned. “The Sinclairs? But why would guards who worked for a Sinclair accountant attack Devon? It doesn’t make any sense . . .”

A sign on top of the ice cream shack lit up, the deep red light reminding me of the ruby necklace I’d stolen—a necklace someone had joked about at dinner tonight.

But how would any of the Sinclairs have even known about the necklace? It wasn’t like I had mentioned it to anyone, and Mo would never gossip about something like that. With the three guards dead, the only way . . . the only way anyone could know was if the accountant had told about it. I doubted that, since the accountant would want to save face and keep his affair as quiet as possible. But what if the three guards had blabbed between the night of the theft and the attack at the Razzle Dazzle? What if they’d shared that juicy bit of gossip with the person who’d hired them to attack Devon?

My steps faltered, my mind reeling at the implications. But once I made that first connection, another one quickly fell into place, like a tumbler on a lock. The identity of the person joking about the accountant with Reginald.

Click.

My eyes zoomed over to the arcade entrance. And I remembered that I’d seen that same someone who knew about the ruby necklace talking to Volkov guards a few days later, right before Devon’s first fake date with Poppy.

Click.

Someone who probably knew all about Devon’s Talent, since he lived under the same roof with Devon.

Click.

“Grant,” I whispered.

“What? What did you say, Lila?” Mo asked.

“It’s Grant,” I repeated. “He’s the one behind the attacks on Devon. He arranged them all.”

“Are you sure? Why would he do that? He’s the Family broker. He’s about as high up on the food chain as you can get.”

“Exactly,” I murmured. “So Grant would know the accountant and his guards. Well enough to hire the guards for a side job, anyway. And since he is the broker, he has access to all the Sinclair money. Including enough to hire some Volkov guards for the second attempt.”

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Then another, more chilling thought filled my mind.

“Oh no,” I whispered, more to myself than to Mo. “Grant is with Devon right now.”

Alone. In a dark parking lot. The same place where Devon had already been ambushed once before, the night his father was killed after that New Year’s Eve party.

“Grant’s going to try again,” I said, starting to run. “Call Claudia! Tell her what’s going on! And track my phone!”

“Lila, wait—”

I hung up on Mo, yanked up my jacket, and slid my phone into one of the hidden slots in my belt. Then I sucked down a breath and raced toward the parking lot. My heels clack-clack-clacked on the cobblestones, making far too much noise for me to sneak up on anyone, so I stopped long enough to yank them off. My purse fell from my hand and tumbled away, so did my shoes, but I ran on. The cobblestones were still warm from the heat of the day, although small bits of dirt, gravel, and glass scraped into the soles of my bare feet. I gritted my teeth against the uncomfortable sensations and kept going.

I reached the edge of the parking lot and forced myself to stop and hunker down in the shadows. Only a few cars remained, since most of the Family members had already left, but I was able to creep from one pool of darkness to the next, easing closer and closer to the Sinclair section. Finally, I stopped, crouched down, and peered around the corner of a black sports car with the Salazar hacienda emblazoned on the door.

Thirty feet away, Grant and Devon were leaning against the side of the SUV. I let out a breath. Maybe I wasn’t too late after all. Still, I stayed where I was in the shadows, staring into the darkness around me. Because if Grant was going to ambush Devon, then he wouldn’t do it alone. He was too much of a coward for that.