Hartgrave sighed. “The Organization’s found me.”
The effect was immediate. Bernie choked and coughed. Willi pushed out of his chair with surprising speed for one so portly and shouted,“Wo sind sie?”
“Long gone, both of them,” Hartgrave said, apparently answering the question. He laid his cell phone on the table. A map of the country—colorless, with the exception of several blood-red dots on the West Coast—filled the screen.
“Wizards,” he said to her, pointing to the dots. “As for the ones we’re particularly interested in ...”
He selected “Crawford, Gwendolyn” from a list of names on a pull-down menu. The map spun, stopped at England and zoomed in on an area at the southwest tip—the dots so numerous there, they formed a red blob, like a wound. She sucked in a breath, startled and disturbed. Cornwall.
Hartgrave moved his cursor into the mass. Names popped up and disappeared, too quickly for her to read, until he got to the one labeled “Crawford, Gwendolyn.”
“And where there’s Crawford”—he inched to the dot next to hers—“aha.”
“Shaw, Verity,” read the screen. Emily wondered which was Snow White and which was Rose Red. Also, how Hartgrave got his hands on the same sort of tracking system they had. He might have worked out how to make one, once he’d learned it was possible, but she preferred to imagine a more interesting origin. Pushed into his hands by a reformed-but-doomed member of the group—take it, they’re about to come after you...
“And Kincaid makes three,” Hartgrave said, bringing her back to reality, which was plenty interesting enough. “That ought to be quite a conversation they’re having.”
“Alexander!” Willi banged his fist on the table, staring daggers at Hartgrave. “Enough! Will you explain please what has happened!”
“Yes, damn it,” Bernie said, clutching the cheery yellow table. “Do they know about the plan? Do they know aboutus?”
Hartgrave put his phone away. “No. It’s not as bad as that.”
He then summarized the events of the evening—leaving Willi even more agitated. The man was all but tearing his hair out. “They will be on guard now! It will never work!”
She jumped in. “What won’t work?Whatplan?”
That silenced everyone. Willi and Bernie looked at Hartgrave, who scowled in a manner that telegraphed a complete unwillingness to explain.
“Oh, go ahead,” Bernie said. He leaned toward her and added, “I thought he ought to tell you the wholestory as soon as you found out about his extracurricular activities, but I was overruled.”
“And you know whatIthought,” Willi snapped at Hartgrave, gesturing aggressively.
“I remember quite well, thank you,” Hartgrave said, an unmistakable warning there.
She crossed her arms. “So we’re back to ‘stop asking questions,’ are we?”
It hit the mark. He looked away, rubbing his neck. “We’re trying to prevent—”
“No, no, start at the beginning,” Bernie said.
“She knows the gist of my situation,” Hartgrave said. Through clenched teeth.
“Yes,” Bernie said, “but what aboutoursituations?”
Hartgrave glanced at Willi.
“I get us something to eat,” the restaurateur murmured, disappearing stoop-shouldered behind the kitchen doors. From enraged to subdued in thirty seconds.
“As you have already guessed,” Hartgrave said, his voice even softer than Willi’s, “this group of wizards—the ‘Organization,’ as they call themselves—eliminates other magic-users as they crop up. Their victims are, you understand, perfectly innocent people who stumbled upon magic in one way or another.”
“Wait,” she said, suddenly cold. “Do you mean they—they eliminateallother magic-users? How many people have they killed?”
He made a helpless gesture. “Only they know. Possibly hundreds.”
Oh God.Hundreds.She couldn’t get her mind around hundreds. She’d assumed they were targeting a select few, the people with potential to become threats.
“One of them,” Hartgrave added, “was Willi’s wife.”
