“I need to ask you something,” the reporter said. “In private.”
What now? Beatrix suppressed a groan, looked into the nearest meeting room and found it was empty.
“Come in,” she told Hickok, wishing the day would end.
Hickok got rightto the point. “Have you been bugged?”
“Uh—what?” Peter said, unable to think of anything better.
“I’m hearing from League sources that Washington tapped your phone and placed recording devices in your house,” she said to Beatrix. “Is that true, and if so, why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Beatrix glanced at him. He sighed. “Because we don’t have any evidence that would definitively prove they did it. A wizard was clearly involved—everything’s under invisibility spells—but Gray asked me how he was supposed to know thatIdidn’t put them in when we discovered he’s bugged as well. So?—”
“Gray,too?”
“Office and house,” Beatrix said.
“What about your place, Omnimancer?”
He nodded. “My phone is tapped.”
Hickok gave a low whistle. Then she scowled. “How the heck am I going to confirmthis?”
“Have you heard of a wizard named Morse?” Beatrix asked. “M-O-R-S-E?”
Hickok shook her head. “Who is he?”
“The one who bugged us. My house, that is,” Beatrix said. “He?—”
The door opened without so much as a warning knock. The reporter with the yellow fedora strode in, an unhappy-looking photographer trailing him.
“I have more questions,” he announced.
Peter frowned. “The press conference is over, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, you’ll want to hear this.” Yellow Fedora smirked. “Unless you’d rather just read about it in my column tomorrow.”
Peter didn’t have the slightest idea who he was or what paper he worked for, but he had the air of a man who thought everyone knew his name. Asking would probably not help matters.
“Two words,” the man added. “Theodore Garrett.”
For a deeply unpleasant second or two, Peter thought he couldn’t breathe—that Beatrix’s panic attacks had found their way to him. Then he realized he’d simply been too shocked to make the attempt.
The reporter cleared his throat. “Do you remember anything about his attack on you, Omnimancer?”
“We really can’t place the investigation at risk by discussing?—”
“How well did you know him?”
“I don’t think we should be talking about anything related to?—”
“Are you afraid for Miss Harper’s safety?”
“Sir, I’m telling you, we can’t?—”
“Why did you turn down Garrett’s offer of marriage, Miss Harper?” the man asked, swiveling toward her. “When did your feelings make the leap from one man to the other? Whatisit, exactly, that makes you soirresistibleto wizards?”
Beatrix, who never backed down from a challenge, who always put her chin up and faced it head on, looked down at her hands with a stricken expression and said nothing.
