“Because if one car is bugged, the other might be. It will take time for Henrick to do a thorough check.”
“Suggesting he’s been trained for that sort of thing.”
“Indeed. He’s former military intelligence.”
The things you learn.... I finished my tea, then picked up my purse, coat, and knives, and headed for the stairs. “Have bugs been a problem in the past?”
“Corporate espionage is a problem for any successful business. We Dhar-Vals are the top at what we do.”
And what they did was run one of the largest forestry growth businesses in the UK. Basically, they tripled the growth rate of plantation forests in order to protect the remaining old growth forests from harvesting. Though Mathi was the son of a second son, his uncle had retired some eight years ago without male issue. Ruadhán normally would have taken over, but had been deemed ineligible because his ability to manipulate the energy of living flora was considered below acceptable limits. I personally doubted he’d have accepted the position anyway. He had hisown little fiefdom in the form of the daytime IIT division, and he definitely enjoyed the power it gave him over all races.
“I never really thought about that.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Do you bug competitors?”
“Of course. I would be a fool not to.”
“You know, there are so many aspects of your personality and your life I’ve not seen until recently.”
“Because until recently, neither of us realized the importance of the other in our lives.”
“That is definitely true.” I’d been comfortable with Mathi, had enjoyed our sex life and being with him in general, but that was it, really. I’d always known he was not my forever man and had been happy to keep our relationship light and uncomplicated, without realizing the true worth of it.
Of course, I was also well aware that Cynwrig was not my forever man, but our relationship, despite it only being a few weeks old, was as complicated as it could get, thanks to my stupid heart.
But then, I did have a history of falling far too quickly for totally unsuitable men.
Mathi opened the tavern’s front door for me, then rang for an Uber. I tucked my knives away, shoved on my coat, then slung my purse over my shoulder. The day was gray and rather bleak, but for the moment, there was no rain on the horizon. The wind danced lightly around me, filled with the promise of the frost that would blanket the night later, but she was thankfully clear of the scratchy noise I’d heard yesterday. Hopefully, that meant our thief wasn’t currently active. Maybe he’d found what he’d wanted in the cottage—though if that were the case, why had he been hanging around in the park?—and maybe he was simply lying low until he decided on his next target.
Instinct suggested it was the latter. It didn’t tell me why, of course. Instinct could be annoyingly obtuse sometimes.
Mathi tucked his phone away and then motioned me to the right. “He’ll meet us near the Cross.”
The Cross actually wasn’t a cross, but rather a red sandstone shaft topped by a crown, a finial, and a ball. The wide, three-stepped plinth was used as seating by tourists and pigeons alike. “Where are we meeting our dwarf guide?”
“At the community pavilion in the Water Tower Gardens.”
I glanced at him curiously. “Why there? Is it close to the woman’s house?”
“Not particularly, but there is an old access grate into the even older sewer tunnel system located there that runs under our target. Locryn assures me it won’t be much hassle to get us in.”
“Knowing Locryn,” I said wryly, “he undoubtedly demanded a very high fee for such an assurance.”
Mathi glanced at me in surprise. “You’ve met him before?”
I nodded. “He helped Lugh break into Nialle’s place a while ago. For an exorbitant fee, of course.”
“Well, he is the best at what he does, so the price reflects that.”
And what he—and Brega, his wife and partner in crime—did was tunnel, whether working as private contractors for the National Fae Museum or as freelancers willing to work with all comers. From what I’d seen, they didn’t really care about the legalities of what they were employed to do, as long as the price was right.
“Has the cottage got any sort of security system we need to worry about?” I asked as we made our way down Eastgate Street.
“Nothing that will affect us.”
“Meaning it has got something?”
“Ring doorbell devices on both front and back doors, and alarmed windows. No movement sensors inside or anything like that.”
“And you know this how?”
