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arched a brow. “Ever?”

    “That is right.”
    I glanced to Dallas. “Now correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it Lilla en Arr who beat the shit out of William Steele six weeks ago?”
    “That’d be correct,” he answered.
    Lilla’s already pale skin grew more pallid. “I do not have to respond to that. Nor do I have to answer any more of your questions.” She held out the remote, intending to open the door. I grabbed it and slammed it onto the desk.
    “Let me break it down for you,” I said. “Other-worlders are allowed to live and work among humans as long as all of our laws are obeyed. The moment a law is broken, aliens lose all rights. My job is to enforce and punish. The fact that I even suspect your involvement in a human murder grants me the authority to kill you. You’re alive now only because I allow you to live.”
    Silence.
    Silence so thick it cast an oppressive fog throughout the room.
    “I didn’t hurt him,” Lilla finally whispered, each syllable ragged and broken, giving her tone an underlying pain, a deep hurt that was totally at odds with everything I’d concluded about her. She gazed down at her hands, and locks of white hair fell forward, shielding her face. “I loved him.”
    Yeah, she’d loved him so much she hadn’t looked for him or helped the police find him before he died. But I had to give two thumbs up for her performance. She deserved an Academy Award for best actress during a hunter interrogation.
    “I still need that list,” I said.
    “I did not murder him.”
    “Where were you this afternoon?” I insisted.
    “At the club.” She sighed. “I was here at the club.”
    “You were here all evening? You never left? Always had someone around you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll need names of the people you were with and the times that you were with them. And Lilla?” I added, blinking over at her. “I will verify this.”
    “Then you will find I have spoken the truth.” Without glancing my way, she clicked off the names and times I wanted.
    “I did love him,” she said, almost absently. “He simply would not listen to my warnings. I tried to force him to my will that night, but he refused to heed me. I used physical force, yes, but I did not mean to hurt him.”
    “What were you trying to force him to do?” Give people enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.
    She eased up, her hands wringing together. “I tried to make him leave. He thought he could handle them. He thought, as all humans do,” she added bitterly, “that nothing bad could happen to him.”
    “Them?” I demanded. “Who is them?”
    Her mouth fell open, as if she couldn’t believe she’d given so much away. She didn’t answer.
    “Who is them?” I insisted.
    “That is none of your concern.” She arched her brows. “And you, I think, will not ask me such a question again. I won’t hurt you; that would anger my brother. But there are other things I can do—”
    “Your brother? Why would he care?”

    “No more questions.”
    Phantom hands shoved their way into my mind, grasping, reaching. I went on instant alert, using all of my strength to erect a mental block. “Mind control is a crime,” I ground out. A sharp ache pounded in my temples, growing deeper and more intense with every second that passed, and I wasn’t sure if the pain stemmed from her attempt at mind control or my attempt to block her powers.
    When I thought I might cry out from the strain, she whipped around, and the dynamism of her gaze was broken. All of a sudden my pain ceased, and dizziness overtook me. Unable to focus, I dropped my head into my waiting hands.
    The air began to spark with electricity, and the intensity only increased.
    “Dallas,” I said, forcing myself to glance at him.
    He ignored me. He was focused completely on Lilla…and he was opening the goddamn door for her.
    “Dallas!”
    Still no response.
    I had the sense of mind to grab my voice recorder before lunging to my feet. My knees