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said, breezing past. “Can’t stay for refreshments.”
    The butler didn’t say anything. He just grabbed my hand as I went by, and with some twist of physics, mechanics, or magic, I was suddenly pinned to the wall, my arm twisted up behind me, utterly unable to move.
    Jeeves hadn’t even spilled the coffee. “I apologize, Miss Goodnight,” he said with unflappable courtesy. “Hell out of Dodge isn’t on the self-service menu, either.”
    Reinforcements arrived, cutting off all exits. They were the expected gorilla types, rather than the dapper man who had me tasting wallpaper.
    “Thanks, Bertram.” It was the intern. I recognized his wheeze. He’d hauled himself up from the floor and limped over to join us. “I’ll take it from here.”
    “Are you quite sure, Mr. Carson?” I could almost hear the butler raise an eyebrow.
    I could
totally
hear the grinding of Mr. Carson’s teeth. “Yes. You can let her go.”
    Bertram did, and I turned around, flexing my arm andviewing the butler with new respect. Poker-faced, he held out the tray to me. “Your coffee, Miss Goodnight.”
    I took it. Frankly, I was afraid to piss him off.
    “Mr. Maguire wants to see you,” said Mr. Carson a little impatiently, probably because I made him wait while I added cream from the tiny pitcher and stirred with the tiny spoon.
    And then the name made it to my brain, and I dropped the spoon onto the tray with a clatter. “Hold on a sec. You mean Alexis Maguire’s father? That Mr. Maguire?”
    “Yes,” said the intern. “That one.”
    After the initial surprise, the new information sank in. It was almost a relief, because I could imagine what
he
wanted, just not why he’d gone through this much trouble to talk to me. All he had to do was ask, and I’d tell him Alexis was alive. Somewhere.
    I turned to Mr. Carson, planning to say just that, but paused when I got my first good look at him.
    My first impression didn’t lie. Young. Twenty-one-ish. Younger than Agent Taylor, and almost as tasty. And
tall
. I’m five foot ten, and I had to tilt my head to look at him. His hair was brown, still wet, and standing up all over. His eyes were a dusky green—no, hazel—and I’d last seen them in the Minnesota cold, just before everything went dark.
    “You!”
I exclaimed, with all the melodrama his offense deserved. “You’re the one who
whammied
me behind the police station.”
    He didn’t look chagrined or apologetic. He looked annoyed. “I did not whammy you anywhere. You passed out without mydoing anything to you. Which is more than I can say for what you did to me.”
    “You
kidnapped
me! I’d say
that’s
something.”
    Bertram gave a wordless warning and held the tray under my wildly gesturing cup. Carson—I refused to give him a “Mr.”—just stared me down, unfazed. Then he turned, signaling the goon squad to make sure I followed along.
    “Come on. You don’t want to keep the big man waiting.”

6
    M AGUIRE ’ S INNER SANCTUM loomed ahead like the gates of Mordor, except with fewer orcs. Just one man sitting guard outside the double doors. He’d stood when we came into the office foyer, and he and Carson exchanged nods.
    “The boss is expecting us,” said Carson, and the guard straightened his jacket before tapping on the door. I knew from my FBI associates that jackets never fell quite right over a shoulder holster.
    I reached automatically for the psychic lay of the land. Some people do a tactical assessment, counting exits and potentialthreats. I read the room for remnants, telling me who to watch out for, which way lay danger.
    So far there hadn’t been any spirit resonance worth mentioning, but that wasn’t weird for a semipublic part of a house. I got a bit of a buzz off the door guardian, like maybe a loved one lost, and the goons behind me carried the whiff of violence and threat, but not
actual
death. That was good, I guess.
    But these rooms where Maguire did business? Unnervingly blank. It was as if