“Isn’t it?” she said. “Your killer might disagree.”

“You know what I mean. You should have told us immediately, warned us—”

“So you’d have left a few minutes earlier? I intended to explain myself, Paige. I simply didn’t see the need to rush.”

“You—”

Lucas glanced over, telling me to ignore Cassandra, but I couldn’t.

“A young man might be dead and you didn’t see the need to rush!”

Her green eyes met mine, sculpted eyebrows arching. “Well, if he’s dead, there’s certainly no reason to hurry, is there? If you mean that you might have saved him had I told you sooner, I can hardly imagine that sixty seconds would make a difference one way or the other. Yes, a young man is in danger. Yes, he might die. Tragic, but certainly nothing that doesn’t happen every hour of every day.”

“Oh, well, then that makes it okay.”

“I didn’t say it did, Paige. I was merely pointing out that death is a tragedy but, ultimately, an unavoidable one. You can’t save everyone, as difficult as that may be for you to accept.”

“I’m not—” I snapped my jaw shut, swallowed the rest of the sentence, and forced myself to face the windshield again.

Lucas’s cell phone rang. He handed it to me.

“Paige Winterbourne,” I answered.

A slight pause. Then Benicio asked, “Is Lucas there?”

“He’s driving. Did you get in touch with Lionel St. Cloud?”

Another pause, as if considering whether to insist I pass him over to his son. “Yes, I called him, and he tried to call Stephen, but there’s been no answer. Both of Stephen’s uncles came to search for Tyler, but we did manage to find a cousin still at the hotel. He reports that Stephen’s room is locked and no one’s answering the door. Now, Paige, I’ve dispatched my search team to the Fairfield. They may be a few minutes behind you, but they will be there quickly. I—” He paused. “The killer may still be at that hotel. I don’t want Lucas going inside.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I can ask him to stay out while I go in, but—”

“I mean for you to both stay out, at least until you’re accompanied by the search team. An extra minute or two isn’t going to make much difference.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “But I’m not willing to take that chance. Just tell your team to hurry and meet us inside.”

I pressed the disconnect button. As I was passing the phone back to Lucas, it rang. He reached over and turned it off.

After another minute, we moved into the center lane. To our left stood a large Spanish-style villa. A discreet sign near the palm-flanked drive announced we’d arrived at the Fairfield.

Unnatural-Born Killer

THE FAIRFIELD WASN’T NEARLY AS OPULENT AS THE BOYDS’ hotel, though I suspected the price was still at least double what we were paying. It had that kind of graciously understated atmosphere that doesn’t come at an understated price. Stephen St. Cloud’s room was on the third floor. When the elevator was slow in coming, we took the stairs.

We emerged at the far end of a quiet corridor. At the opposite end, a dark-haired man in his twenties lounged by the elevators. He didn’t glance over until we stopped outside Stephen’s room. Then he did a double take, and strode toward us, glowering.

“Good morning, Tony,” Lucas said.

“What the hell are you doing—”

“My father sent me. Have you been able to get into Stephen’s room yet?”

“Not unless I can walk through walls. We need a locksmith.”

“No,” I said. “You just need a witch.”

I cast my top-level unlock spell. The last words were still leaving my mouth as Cassandra reached for the door handle. When I finished, she pushed it open and walked inside, leaving us in the hall.

“No deadbolt or chain,” I said, checking the lock mechanism as I walked through. “Gotta love these card-locks. Any witch could walk right in.”

Cassandra strode from the living area into the bedroom. We’d barely made it out of the front hall when Cassandra walked from the bedroom and brushed past us on her way to the door again.

“I have it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Guess that means he’s not here,” I said. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle, so he seems to have left on his own. Tony? Any idea where he might have gone?”

Tony glanced at me, then turned to Lucas.

“What?” I said. “Is my voice pitched outside a sorcerer’s range? Lucas, please, interpret.”

“Do you know where Stephen might be?” Lucas asked.

“Out grabbing breakfast, I guess. Everyone else left to search for Tyler, and Step was bitching about being left behind. He hates being treated like a child.”

“So he pulled a snit fit and took off,” I said. “Very mature. Please tell me he has a bodyguard with him.”

“Does he have a bodyguard?” Lucas interpreted for the invisible witch.

“Uh, yeah,” Tony said. “Me.”

We stared at him.

Tony shrugged. “Well, his dad needed Step’s regular guard to help in the search, so he told me to watch him, make sure he stayed in his room.”

“Which you did admirably,” I said.

Tony glared at me. “He’s eighteen, an adult. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”