Page 91 of Sweetwater and the Witch

“Nobody uses mirror amber,” Taggert rasped. “It’s just for decoration.”

“It’s true that most people can’t resonate with it, but it works for me. I can tune it and I can use it to reflect the wavelengths of most forms of paranormal energy, including those of the human paranormal spectrum. It works even more efficiently if the wavelengths are already unstable. Wavelengths like yours, for example. Instability creates weakness in the aura, but I’m sure you know that.”

Understanding crept into Taggert’s cloudy brain. “No. Impossible.”

“As a tech guy yourself, you’ll be interested to know that right now everything you are throwing at me is being reflected. The currents are rebounding straight back at the source—your aura. I suggest you cut that icer shit before it kills you.”

Taggert struggled one last time to generate more talent but he got no response. All of his senses, normal and paranormal, were fading. His heart was pounding erratically.

He fumbled to open a desk drawer, desperate to grab the mag-rez he kept there, but he could not muster even that much effort. He was dying.

He abandoned the effort to focus his talent. The waves of hellish darkness retreated immediately. He was no longer on the point of complete collapse, but he was exhausted. He stumbled back behind the desk and fell into his chair. He knew he had very nearly died.

Numbed by what had happened, he watched Ethan take out his phone.

“I got what we needed,” Ethan said to whoever was on the other end of the connection. “It’s recorded. He’s all yours now.”

The door slammed open. A team of grim-faced people carrying guns swept into the office. They wore FBPI vests. The one in charge stepped forward.

“Taggert Spooner, you are under arrest for the murder of Travers Bowen and the attempted murder of Ethan Sweetwater and Ravenna Chastain. You are also charged with engaging in a murder-for-hire plot.”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Taggert snarled.

“I think I forgot to mention that Gabriel Jones and I found the paper files the Concierge kept in the Underworld,” Ethan said. “The details of the contracts you took out on me are all there. You yourself just confessed to Bowen’s murder. Plenty of evidence.”

Taggert shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

“You’re wrong,” Ethan said, his voice lethally soft. “When you put Ravenna Chastain in danger, you sealed the deal. This is the only way it could end.”

Taggert stared at him in disbelief. “She’s just a matchmaker.”

“She’smymatchmaker,” Ethan said.

Two agents put Taggert in handcuffs and steered him out the door and into the hall. He saw Melody Palantine in the doorway of her office. She stared at him, open-mouthed with shock.

“Mr.Spooner,” she said, “what should I do?”

“Call my lawyer,” Taggert said.

“Yes, sir,” Melody said.

She fled back into her office and grabbed the phone.

Chapter Forty-Six

“What I keep coming back to is the fact that your profiles of Garrett Willis and Clark Hatch completely missed their stalker sides,” Ravenna said.

“I’ve been losing sleep over that, too,” Sybil said. “There are several different kinds of stalkers, though, and some evade detection more easily than others. I had my IT consultant install trip wires in the program that are designed to ping when certain personality disorders are detected, but no system is perfect. All I can tell you is that neither Willis nor Hatch triggered any red flags. I just don’t understand how I could have been so wrong, not just once, buttwice.”

“You and me both,” Ravenna said.

“You get a pass because you’re the client.”

“Willis and Hatch were the last two dates you arranged.”

“So?”

Ravenna thought about that while she listened to the steadydrumbeat of the rain. It was eight o’clock in the evening. The thunderstorm had moved in on Illusion Town late that afternoon and showed no signs of letting up. It was the kind of wild weather only the desert could conjure, the kind that sent sudden flash floods roaring down normally dry creek beds and lit up the sky with lightning.

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