‘I can’t find her,’ she says, the sheer panic in her voice spiking my pulse, too.
‘And that’s not normal?’
‘How would I know?’ she snaps. ‘I’ve never tried. Respecting privacy, as you’re aware.’
That’s better. Pissed-off Sarah Fenn is less alarming than panicky Sarah Fenn. She’s a witch! What can’t she do?!
‘Is it to do with how she hid her magic all those years?’
Fenn makes a strangulated noise. ‘What she did prevented her magic being detectable. But I’m not trying to find her Gift – I’m trying to findher. The technique works equally well on non-magical persons.’
‘So what, then?’
Silence, before ugly, choking sounds start coming from Fenn. Horror-struck, I realise what she’s thinking.
‘No,’ I say, immediately. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘You said Michael Whitman took her. He wanted us both dead back in that stadium. His son died and his wife died, and he thinks Harper was responsible both times.’
‘Thepolicetook her,’ I say, with all the authority I can muster. A calming-spooked-horses voice I’ve had to use too many times in my career. ‘Theodorou and a couple of his guys. I’ve a bone to pick with him for detaining me, but there’s no way Harper would come to harm on his watch. Come meet me here. I’ve got other ways of working out where they might have gone. We’ll find her, I promise.’
Myother waysinvolve Chester and some illicit access to our central system – the exact thing I yelled at Theo for earlier, but hey, it’s okay when the good guys do it. Together, we search online for police facilities that lie in the direction their vehicles went. Most are small district stations, but there are a couple of detention facilities or halfway houses. Places to hold those refused bail. A centre for psychiatric evaluation. In the frustrating weeks of our Bittershore investigation, Chester got good at the fine grain of CCTV from public highways. He calculates time stamps of their likely passing, working from the time and locations I lost them and their speed of travel. But he’s turned up blank when Sarah Fenn pulls in beside me. It’s at least an hour and a half since Luka and Harper were taken. The witch looks distraught.
‘I went via New Haven to try and get something of Michael Whitman’s,’ she tells me. ‘But he’s not at his place and his office is locked up. Someone in the department building told me he’s not been seen for a while. Must be spending all his time with Ortiz.’
I’ve got Chester on speakerphone in the background, so I can hear my boy talking to himself as he works. Respond toany of his questions or throw in one of my own. Now there’s a yawp of excitement.
‘Think I’ve got Theodorou’s car!’
It’s at the psych unit.
We’re really missing a trick not allowing magicals to work law enforcement, because Sarah makes gaining entry to a secure facility look almosteasy. All her reservations and inhibitions about using magic appropriately have fallen away, leaving only a mother’s urge to do anything to protect her child. If she’d known what would happen, there’s no way she wouldn’t have immobilised the agent who came to get her and Harper for registration that first day. Blown up their car. Whatever it took for Harper to get away.
And yet it would have looped back to this point anyway. Harper would have met with Luka Ortiz and then been caught in the recovery of him, in which – if Michael Whitman’s presence is anything to go by – his mom plainly has a part.
‘Theo will be watching out for her,’ I tell Fenn, as we hurry through corridors to which she has charmed and confused guards into giving us access. ‘He’s a follower, but a decent man. And if Sandra Ortiz is part of this, well, no mom would let another’s kid get hurt.’
Sarah shoots me a look. ‘How quickly you’ve forgotten Abigail Whitman,’ she says. ‘And history tells us plenty ofdecent menhave followed others to bad places.’
That shuts me up. I’ve no breath for talk anyway, as we’ve got to bequick. Sarah’s magic can confuse the people we meet, but anyone monitoring CCTV might notice something odd about our progress through these corridors. I’m playing the part of authoritative cop, walking confidently through this building. Anytime I need to ask questions, or we’rechallenged, Fenn works her magic: murmured words, twisting fingers, a slight lifting of the hairs at the back of my neck, and we’re smoothly through. I’ve been using instinct born of long familiarity with the look and layout of law-enforcement facilities, but at some point Fenn’s magic will have to do more heavy lifting than a simple smoothing away of suspicion.
That moment feels like now.
‘Harper Fenn,’ I say. ‘Brought in earlier with Luka Ortiz. We’re here to transfer her for evaluation.’
‘Is that so?’
This guard has a weary demeanour and a scar down his cheek as plain as if his granddaughter drew it with face paint. I have so much respect for folk who work in places like this. People say it must suck the humanity out of you, but I reckon it strips out everything else and leaves you with an empathy that’s dense and concentrated and nigh-on indestructible.
At my back, Fenn swiftly does her thing and I see the moment his gaze softens and defocusses.
‘We’re authorised,’ I say. ‘Please take us to her.’
Still there’s something stubborn in his movements. A reluctance. Why is he holding out on us? Are some people more able to resist magic than others?
But he takes us to a metal-grille door secured the old-fashioned way, with lock and key. The door swings, complaining loudly with its hinges, and at my back I hear Fenn’s intake of breath. Is she remembering how Tad Bolt took her and Harper? Is she wondering whether she and her daughter will ever be free of the threat of places like these?
There’s little concession to medical needs on this wing. These aren’t hospital rooms for ‘patients’. They’re cells for criminals, or those accused of heinous crimes. Security is paramount. At my back, I hear Sarah’s indrawn breath at thebleakness of this place, its metallic inhumanity.
