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"It takes a special sort of self-righteousness to steal a cross froreed "Also, usually some alcohol"

"Check that off your list I saw the bottles in their hands"

"Recognize anyone?"

"Ski masks," I said

"License plate?"

"Did you miss the part where I said ere in bed?"

"Then why ae, and I realized he thought I was just taking advantage of the fact that orked together a couple of times before I missed Detective Prieto He’d been surly and difficult, but I’d always knohere he stood

A lot of people thought it wasabout that His murder had stirred up all kinds of trouble in Austin, and now, sixpopular to hate our witches Churches were more vocal None of us ht be used to track us down; the digital threatsthat Austin had always been a model of tolerance and support, it felt like a last-stand situation to me

"Come look at this," I said to Rosen, and walked him over to the picture He examined it as closely as I had, shook his head, and took some photos of his own "The woman in the photo is named Portia I don’t know her last na business"

"Here in Austin?"

"I think so," I said "I’ve never been to her place I aze lingered He had a long, rectangular face and a fringe of thick silver hair, with thick eyebrows to match Kind of a silver fox, actually "Witches have conferences? What do you do, exchange spells? Sell each other cauldrons?"

"So like that," I said I wasn’t in the mood for mockery "A wo and investigate?"

"We fully investigate everything that’s reported," Rosen said "Even when it’s a waste of time"

"You think a dead witch is a waste of time?" That calm, quiet voice came from behind me Andy had walked over to join us, probably drawn by the dark energy of our face-off He did love a good fight "Where I come from, the law had to pretend to do a little ave up, at least"

"Where you’re froun said it was At least, that’s what the stories say" Rosen studied Andy for a hter bullshit"

Thank God Andy wasn’t wearing a holster and a six-gun I still saw the iers on his right hand And I saw the dark, uneven slice of the sreed "I’d stick with that, Detective But, hand to God, you’d best get to digging on Portia’s death, or I will"

Rosen kept eyeballing him "Is that a threat, Mr Toland?"

"Not toward you, sir"

So very polite, all thiselse?" I asked Rosen I was regretting that I’d asked for hile detective at APD ould have been any ht so far"

"I’d expect it’s been worse for the woman in that picture," he said "I know my job, and I’ll do it You two stay the hell out of everybody’s way We don’t need aation"

"Youto do one?"

"If she’s really dead," Rosen said "Right now, I see a picture that et to work Other than that,dog, unless you enjoy this kind of thing"

"So you’re just going to file it and forget it," I said "Right?"

"Miss Caldwell, every hate cri it that way So just quit punching ht"

He sounded tired, and in that ht wrinkles around his eyes He’d probably been up for hours, and otten the call to come to us Made sense he wasn’t thrilled to be here