Page 52 of Sweetwater and the Witch

She had no idea how to take that. Was he flirting with her ever so slightly?

“Would you want to find me?” she asked.

Ethan smiled a slow, wicked smile. “Oh, yeah.”

The crystalline tension was shattered when Harriet bounced a little and scurried toward the door. Ravenna did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed by the distraction.

“She wants to go outside,” Ravenna said. “She probably detected some friends in the vicinity.”

She opened the door and checked the walkway that ran in front of the second-floor room.

“All clear,” she said.

Harriet chortled a cheerful goodbye and fluttered outside. She scuttled down the stairs and disappeared into the fog.

“I’m going to make one more call,” Ethan said. He was already reaching for his phone.

If there had been a moment, Ravenna thought, it had passed.

She closed the door. “Who is it this time?”

“Gabriel Jones. By now he will have had a chance to chat with that pair we left for him to pick up in the tunnels.”

“Right. Things seem to be moving very quickly. Did you mean it when you told your grandfather that decoding the dead man’s tattoos is time sensitive?”

“That’s what my gut is telling me. If Spooner did meet that man inthe alley and got the location of a major discovery out of him, he’ll want to file the claim as quickly as possible. Until the legal side of things is taken care of, it’s open season on whatever the prospector found.”

“Whoever claims it first will own it.”

“Right.”

Ethan made the call. Gabriel Jones answered midway through the first ring. Ethan put the phone on speaker again.

“I haven’t got much for you,” Gabriel said. “The two you left for us are awake and talking but they’re not saying anything we need to know. They maintain they work for a private security firm, and they’ve got the ID to prove it. In this town that covers a lot of territory. They claim the situation at Ms.Chastain’s home was a case of mistaken identity. They were given the wrong address. Their story is they were hired to collect a gambling debt for one of the small operators in the Amber Zone but they can’t give us a name because their jobs always come through an anonymous broker.”

“Pure ghost shit,” Ethan said. “Except for the anonymous broker bit. That is probably true.”

“Agreed. We’re working that angle, but brokers who survive in that business are very, very good when it comes to staying out of sight on the dark rez-net.”

“How long can you keep the pair you picked up under wraps?”

“As long as you want,” Gabriel said. “The Illusion Town Guild is dedicated to serving the fine, upstanding citizens of this community.”

“Who told you to say that?”

“My administrative assistant. I believe I mentioned that Aiden is quite keen on rebranding the Guild. Apparently the organization’s image has suffered somewhat in recent years.”

“Try recent decades. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him. But thanks for hanging on to those two. In exchange, I’ve got an update. I’ll give you the details later, but the bottom line is I’m certain Spooner killed a man in the Shadow Zone tonight. It went down in an alley. Looks like naturalcauses but it was murder. The body was stripped of ID. If Spooner got the coordinates of a major discovery, he’ll want to verify it and file a claim.”

“Any way to connect Spooner to the murder?”

“Not yet.”

“Then there are no grounds for an arrest. Spooner is a high-profile CEO. The Guild can’t haul him in on a murder charge without some evidence.”

“I know.”

“Where are you now?”

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