Page 25 of Dragon’s Rogue

But Ms. Sarcastic Bitch was good—too good to give anything up. She just took the sketch, her expression unchanging, and studied it for a minute or two.

Blaze dropped her left hand to her side and let the pendulum dangle again. Damn. It was still pulling hard, right at this woman. But Blaze could see there was no way she could have the idol on her. There was nowhere in her clothing to hide it.

Was it somewhere else in the room? Behind her, maybe?

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know him.”

“Never seen him around? Coffee shop, maybe? Café? Grocery store?”

“Remind me to start taking pictures of everyone I see in the grocery store.”

Blaze’s ‘friendly’ smile thinned. Fucking attitude. Talk about people who normally wouldn’t hang around in a store selling unicorns and fairies.

“Can I see it, Rebel?” said a soft voice behind them. It was the woman who ran the shop. Blaze barely suppressed a snort. Rebel? If anyone’s name fit her, this one’s did. Tempest came into the back room and Rebel handed the sketch over.

The smaller woman looked over the sketch, gnawing at her upper lip as she concentrated. Rebel moved back toward the door to the shop.

The pendulum followed her. What the hell?

Tempest shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in person,” she said. Then she turned those strange, beautiful eyes on Blaze again. “But I can see you two are connected.”

Blaze didn’t know what to say to that. Was she a fake psychic, giving fake readings in her tchotchke store?

Or did she really know something? A dart of unease stabbed her, thinking of the fragments of ‘memories’ the man had planted in her mind. Wild sex by candlelight could definitely be termed a ‘connection’—if it had ever happened.

Rebel took the sketch back from Tempest, a faint frown between her eyebrows. “I’ll make a copy of it.” She didn’t wait for permission, just took it over to the tiny copy machine in a corner and ran it through. “Is there a way we can get in touch with you, if we see him?”

Hmm. That was interesting. Now she supposedly thought they might see him. Like, in her living room on Maple Street? Her bedroom?

Blaze fished a business card out of her purse. It had a fake name on it, and the number to a burner phone. Rebel took it. “Thanks. I’ll see you out.”

Her tone was firm, and Blaze had the feeling that she was leaving whether she wanted to or not.

Within moments she was out on the street. The shop door shut behind her with a jingling of bells. The ‘Open’ sign turned to ‘Closed.’

Blaze walked to her car, trying to figure out what had just happened. Her tracking dust had led her to Rebel, and to the house on Maple.

But Rebel didn’t have the idol.

And Blaze hadn’t found the man who’d kissed her and jumped out her window.

Was it possible this woman had also been in her vault last night? Were she and the sorcerer working as a team? If they’d both been hit by Blaze’s trap, it would explain why the tracking dust had led Blaze to her.

But not why it wasn’t leading to the sorcerer or the idol. None of this made sense. Because if the sorcerer had blocked or removed her tracking spell, why wouldn’t he have done it on the woman as well? Unless he was planning on her taking the fall.

Blaze had spells she could use to capture and question the woman, though she’d never used them. Even though she’d imagined stringing up the thief and making him talk, she’d at least known he was guilty. She’d seen him herself.

This woman might be innocent. She didn’t have the idol, and the fact that the tracking residue was on her and not on the male thief was suspicious.

Blaze’s teachers would have said she should go back in the shop and do whatever it took to get the information she needed.

She knew she might have to go dark side before all this was over, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it now—at least, not yet. It was the idol that was important. She had to find it. There was no way she could leave it out in the world, especially without knowing who had it or what they were going to do with it.

And this woman didn’t have it.

It was the man she had to find.

Blaze gazed at the closed door of the shop, then turned and walked back to her car. She’d keep an eye on the Maple Street house tonight—see if the man showed up there. If not, she had other resources—some of them highly placed in the black market magical antiquities business.